From boasting of a lone International Master (IM) in Manuel Aaron in 1962, India has come a long way in the world of chess, particularly in the last two-and-half decades of the new Millennium. Today, India has 85 Grandmasters, including three women, 23 Woman Grand Masters, 140 International Masters and 42 Woman International Masters while the list of FIDE masters is growing by the day.

In the top 10 of any category or age group, Indians figure so prominently that they are second only to the US and China in the men's and women's section respectively. The double-gold at the 2024 Olympiad and India's superb performance in the Candidates added to its growing reputation as a superpower.

But if you look from an historic perspective, our champions of today are merely continuing the legacy of a 5,000-year-old tradition which can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization when chess (called Chaturanga then) was, among other things, used for war stimulation.

According to legend, Ravan's wife Mandodari taught him Chaturanga so that he could plan battle strategies. Later, Chaturanga became Chatrang in Persian and Shatranj in Arabic before travelling to Spain and the rest of the western world. In the modern era, chess is looked at in different ways. A gymnasium of the mind. A cerebral tug-of-war.

For India, Anand can be the best reference point to start any debate involving chess. In fact, Indian chess can be neatly divided into Pre-Anand and Post-Anand eras. The Pre-Anand period was nascent with not many players around, no infrastructure to talk about or any support from the government or the private sector. Indian chess style was one of the many variants of the official chess as recognized by the ruling body FIDE. By the time Anand became India's first Grandmaster in 1987 and triggered the post-Anand era, chess was a rapidly growing sport. Let's look at some figures. Till the start of the new Millennium, India had just three GMs with Dibyendu Barua (1991) and Pravin Thipsay (1997) following in the footsteps of Anand. The first decade of the new century produced 20 GMs and the next 10 a staggering 44. The present decade has already witnessed 16 GMs to take the tally to 85.

In this episode of BIC Talks, MS Thej Kumar, Aravind Shastry, Manisha Mohite and Saritha M Reddy will be in conversation with Vijay Mruthyunjaya. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in May 2025.

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