Meet the 75 Grandmasters of Indian chess on our 75th Independence Day

Celebrating India's 75th Independence Day with 75 GMs

15th August 2022 is the 75th year of Independence of India. 75 years ago in 1947, India got Independence from the British Empire. It's quite a co-incidence, that on this 75th Independence day India has 75 GMs. Check out the photo below to see all the grandmasters of Indian chess:

Chess in India is booming thanks to many factors. The main one being the presence of Vishy Anand, who is still actively playing chess and has motivated the entire nation by becoming the World Champion for a record five times. At the same time we have a strong national federation, work that is being done at the grassroot level. The Olympiad that has recently happened is sure to boost the sport in the country in the coming days. The streaming boom that happened in the pandemic thanks to Samay Raina and other stand-up comedians has increased the number of casual viewers of the game. This is bound to make chess a more spectator friendly sport and will bring in more finances into the game. The Government and Public sector companies support, the slowly growing chess in schools program and the overall growth in the number of tournaments have all contributed to Indian chess going from one GM in 1987 (Vishy Anand) to 75 GMs as on 15th of August 2022. Let's have a look at some of the statistics.:

States like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and others which are some of the biggest states in our country are finding it hard to get their first GMs. What might be the reason for that? The main reason is surely the lack of chess culture in these places. Very few tournaments are held and players don't get enough exposure to play and improve. The other reason could also be because of the language. Hindi is the main spoken language in these states and most of the chess literature exists in English. With ChessBase India Hindi we have tried in our own way to bridge this gap, but of course, this issue needs to be tackled in a more intensive manner. It must be said that thanks to the internet, there are talents sprouting up from all parts of the country and we are sure that when India reaches 100 GMs in the next couple of years, we will have GMs from more than 13 states of India.

It is this graph that lets us believe that Indian chess is truly on the right track. Vishy Anand became a GM in 1987. It took four more years for Barua to become one in 1991. In 1997, Pravin Thipsay became India's third GM. India had created three GMs in ten years! From 2000 onwards, chess in India was growing steadily and we have one or two GMs every year except for 2005 when we had none. But that was compensated by India getting four GMs in the next year in 2006. The year 2014 was also very special because it was for the first time that India got six new GMs in a calendar year. However, you could see that this was not a sustainable growth as in the year 2015, the number went down to just one GM. In 2017 India once again got six new GMs, but this was followed not by a slump, but by a rise. In 2018 we had eight GMs and in 2019 there were seven. And then the pandemic struck and chess tournaments all across the world came to a halt. Even in such a precarious situation, India has managed to create 10 GMs! This speaks volumes of the dedication towards chess of not just these youngsters but also their parents. ChessBase India began in January 2016 and since then India has been able to create 34 new GMs. We are glad to be right in the center of this chess revolution.

Meet the 75 G(e)Ms of Indian chess!

The future?

Who are the next players of Indian chess who are close to the GM title? The list is pretty long. We will try and name a few!

All Indian GMs with their names, state and year of becoming a GM

State-wise distribution of GMs

Year and No. of GMs

We hope that you enjoyed this compilation related to grandmasters of Indian chess. If you have any feedback, let us know in the comments section below.

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