Find out how rural sportsmanship can support social development and how Isha Gramotsavam is making sport a way of life in villages. Sports may begin as a personal interest, influenced by the games people enjoy watching or playing in their leisure time. But it can also become part of a community's cultural rhythm, transcending differences of social identities, strengthening collective identity and gradually evolving into a way of life.ALSO READ: A spiritual perspective: Sadhguru explains how emotions can influence every part of your lifeFinal volleyball match in front of Adiyogi, Coimbatore. (Picture credit: Isha Outreach)This cultural role of sports is reflected in Isha Gramotsavam, which intends to make sports part of everyday village life, which helps in reviving the collective spirit of rural India.Organised by Isha Outreach, the social development wing of Sadhguru's Isha Foundation, Isha Gramotsavam is referred to as ‘the country’s largest annual rural sports festival.' Its 18th edition, this year, in particular, marks a significant expansion, as the tournament moves beyond the rural regions of southern India to include Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra for the first time.Isha Gramotsavam is the largest annual rural sports festival. (Picture credit: Isha Outreach)The scale of this event is grand, as it is expected to bring together more than 80,000 players from over 40,000 villages through nearly 7,000 teams, including 15,000 women. Men will compete in volleyball, while women participate in throwball.Let's take a closer look at how sport is changing village culture and emerging as a catalyst for rural development.What happens when sport enters village culture?The transformative power of sports can be strongly felt in the villages, where it acts as an effective tool for social empowerment and development. When people practise, train, compete, watch and celebrate together, rigid social and gender barriers that impede social cohesion and community development begin to soften. By cutting across differences of caste, gender, and age, the unwavering spirit of sportsmanship is woven into the fabric of community life, and sports becomes a lasting cultural habit, paving the way towards social development in rural regions.Speaking to HT Lifestyle in an interview, Swami Pulaka, national coordinator of Isha Gramotsavam, explained how the sporting culture continues even after the tournament ends, highlighting the lasting impact of the initiative.“Over a period of time, sport has now become part of their (rural) culture. During important village festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi and Makar Sankranti, the villagers themselves organise volleyball and throwball tournaments,” he said.Villagers gather to cheer for the teams. (Picture credit: Isha Outreach)Sport has now become a natural part of life in the villages where Isha Gramotsavam has been conducted, and residents have participated. Most importantly, the initiative is also designed to sustain this involvement over the long term. Pulaka emphasised that Isha Gramotsavam is not a one-time engagement: “We have been conducting it (Isha Gramotsavam) continuously since 2004. Our volunteers remain in regular touch with the players and organise periodic coaching camps to ensure that they continue playing.”This again brings us back to the larger idea of sports acting as a catalyst for development. Substance abuse can become a serious hurdle to rural progress by affecting wellbeing, livelihoods and human potential. Sport, however, constructively addresses this. As villagers become more invested in sportsmanship through active participation in annual events, Pulaka revealed that they often begin to embrace healthier lifestyles on their own to become better players.“Once people begin playing sport, its competitive nature pushes them to improve. If they want to perform better, they start looking at what can help them become stronger players. Adopting a healthy lifestyle and abstaining from drinking and smoking naturally improve their game,” Pulaka said.Another positive side of this initiative is that it encourages participation across age groups, with even women above 65 stepping onto the playing field and challenging ageist stereotypes. Pulaka acknowledged that women initially faced questions about why they were not sticking to traditional gender roles, such as staying at home and cooking for family.Women break sexist and ageist sterotypes to participate in the events. (Picture credit: Isha Outreach)Older women, in particular, had to deal with both sexist and ageist attitudes. To make them feel comfortable, Pulaka shared that volunteers first began playing with them inside their homes and living rooms. Once they gained confidence, slowly, they were encouraged to step outside and join others. Today, commendably, there are teams in Isha Gramotsavam where older women play alongside their children and grandchildren, showing how sport can create an inclusive space for intergenerational camaraderie.How do rural sportspersons keep sporting culture alive in villages?Nandhini and Manikandan are role models. (Picture credit: Isha Outreach)We have already seen how sports can become a driving force for active community transformation. Swami Pulaka shared the journeys of two participants who emerged as role models through Isha Gramotsavam.Nandhini, a 36-year old mother and captain of the PG Pudur throwball team, has led her team to become one of the most successful in the tournament. They won the championship in 2023, finished runners-up in 2024 and secured third place in 2025. She is also a physical education teacher in Devarayapuram village, Tamil Nadu, where she helps nurture young talent. Her journey tells us how access to sporting opportunities can build leaders and encourage young children to see a future in the field. The right mentorship is essential to keep sporting culture alive in the village.Similarly, Manikandan, a 33-year-old fisherman from Uthamasolapuram village, led his team to victory at Isha Gramotsavam 2025 and was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player (MVP)His performance also gave him a lot of exposure, earning him a place at the Chennai Blitz training camp, where he trained alongside professional volleyball players. This recognition is impactful and is helpful back home as well. With his prize money, Manikandan helped upgrade sporting facilities in his village.His journey shows how grassroots tournaments can give rural talent a platform and greater visibility, which helps to bring vital resources back to the community, necessary for its development. With adequate resources, sporting infrastructure can improve, allowing sport to remain actively in practice and continue to be a sustained part of village life.This is why grassroots sporting events are so important: they can uplift entire communities, support social development and help reduce caste and gender-based barriers. Rural sport has the potential to be a development tool, and when it becomes a part of the local culture, the impact goes beyond the playing field.Adrija Dey’s proclivity for observation fuels her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she crafts compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bones, carried by human vessels and shaped through everyday endeavours. It is the small stories we live and share that make us human. After all, humans and their lores are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and uncovering them, for her, is akin to peeling an orange under a winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered yapping, where "too much information" is kind of the point. A graduate of Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her idle hours cocooned with herbal tea and a gripping thriller, scribbling inner monologues she loosely calls poetic pieces, often with her succulents in attendance. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one from her comfort-show holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. Dancing by herself to her peppy playlists, however, is an everyday ritual she swears by religiously.Read More