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By:

Bhalchandra Chorghade

11 August 2025 at 1:54:18 pm

Applause for Cricket, Silence for Badminton

Mumbai: When Lakshya Sen walked off the court after the final of the All England Badminton Championships, he carried with him the disappointment of another near miss. The Indian shuttler went down in straight games to Lin Chun-Yi, who created history by becoming the first player from Chinese Taipei to lift the prestigious title. But the story of Lakshya Sen’s defeat is not merely about badminton final. It is also about the contrasting way India celebrates its sporting heroes. Had the same...

Applause for Cricket, Silence for Badminton

Mumbai: When Lakshya Sen walked off the court after the final of the All England Badminton Championships, he carried with him the disappointment of another near miss. The Indian shuttler went down in straight games to Lin Chun-Yi, who created history by becoming the first player from Chinese Taipei to lift the prestigious title. But the story of Lakshya Sen’s defeat is not merely about badminton final. It is also about the contrasting way India celebrates its sporting heroes. Had the same narrative unfolded on a cricket field, the reaction would have been dramatically different. In cricket, even defeat often becomes a story of heroism. A hard-fought loss by the Indian team can dominate television debates, fill newspaper columns and trend across social media for days. A player who narrowly misses a milestone is still hailed for his fighting spirit. The nation rallies around its cricketers not only in victory but also in defeat. The narrative quickly shifts from the result to the effort -- the resilience shown, the fight put up, the promise of future triumph. This emotional investment is one of the reasons cricket enjoys unparalleled popularity in India. It has built a culture where players become household names and their performances, good or bad, become part of the national conversation. Badminton Fights Contrast that with what happens in sports like badminton. Reaching the final of the All England Championships is a monumental achievement. The tournament is widely considered badminton’s equivalent of Wimbledon in prestige and tradition. Only the very best players manage to reach its final stages, and doing it twice speaks volumes about Lakshya Sen’s ability and consistency. Yet the reaction in India remained largely subdued. There were congratulatory posts, some headlines acknowledging the effort and brief discussions among badminton enthusiasts. But the level of national engagement never quite matched the magnitude of the achievement. In a cricketing context, reaching such a stage would have triggered days of celebration and analysis. In badminton, it often becomes just another sports update. Long Wait India’s wait for an All England champion continues. The last Indian to win the title was Pullela Gopichand in 2001. Before him, Prakash Padukone had scripted history in 1980. These victories remain among the most significant milestones in Indian badminton. And yet, unlike cricketing triumphs that are frequently revisited and celebrated, such achievements rarely stay in the mainstream sporting conversation for long. Lakshya Sen’s journey to the final should ideally have been viewed as a continuation of that legacy, a reminder that India still possesses the talent to challenge the world’s best in badminton. Instead, it risks fading quickly from public memory. Visibility Gap The difference ultimately comes down to visibility and cultural investment. Cricket in India is not merely a sport; it is an ecosystem built over decades through media attention, sponsorship, and mass emotional attachment. Individual sports, on the other hand, often rely on momentary bursts of recognition, usually during Olympic years or when a medal is won. But consistent performers like Lakshya Sen rarely receive the sustained spotlight that their achievements deserve. This disparity can also influence the next generation. Young athletes are naturally drawn to sports where success brings recognition, financial stability and national fame. When one sport monopolises the spotlight, others struggle to build similar appeal. Beyond Result Lakshya Sen may have finished runner-up again, but his performance at the All England Championship is a reminder that India continues to produce world-class athletes in disciplines beyond cricket. The real issue is not that cricket receives immense attention -- it deserves the admiration it gets. The concern is that athletes from other sports often do not receive comparable appreciation for achievements that are equally significant in their own arenas. If India aspires to become a truly global sporting nation, its applause must grow broader. Sporting pride cannot remain confined to one field. Because somewhere on a badminton court, an athlete like Lakshya Sen is fighting just as hard for the country’s colours as any cricketer on a packed stadium pitch. The only difference is how loudly the nation chooses to cheer.

Back in Uniform

Indonesia’s new military law revives the spectre of Suharto-era authoritarianism.

Indonesia’s newly passed military law, expanding the armed forces’ reach into civilian institutions, signals a worrying regression. Less than six months into his presidency, Prabowo Subianto, a former general, son-in-law to a dictator and alleged human rights violator, is already steering the world’s third-largest democracy back toward a deeply illiberal past.


On March 20, Indonesia’s Parliament passed sweeping amendments to the 2004 Armed Forces Law. These permit active-duty military officers to take on a wider array of civilian roles, including positions within the attorney general’s office, the counterterrorism agency, the narcotics agency, and the state secretariat.


The law also extends the retirement age of military officers, further entrenching their long-term influence. The legislation was rushed through Parliament, with limited debate and scant public consultation. Unsurprisingly, it passed unanimously, thanks to Prabowo’s ruling coalition which dominates the legislature.


Defenders of the law argue it is a necessary adaptation to a shifting geopolitical and technological landscape. But activists and academics see the changes as a blatant rollback of reforms painstakingly achieved after 1998, when the 32-year New Order regime of Suharto - a military-backed dictatorship that ended in bloodshed and economic collapse - was finally dismantled.


To understand the magnitude of this reversal, one must recall the central role Indonesia’s military, or Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), played under Suharto. The New Order regime was built on the corpses of Suharto’s opponents: from 1965 to 1966, more than a million alleged communists and leftists were slaughtered by the military and its proxies. This terror served as the foundational myth of the regime, positioning the TNI as the guardian of national unity and stability.


From there emerged dwifungsi - the “dual function” doctrine that institutionalised the military’s control over not just defence, but also political, economic, and administrative affairs. Soldiers sat in Parliament, ran state-owned enterprises, and governed provinces. Civil society was neutered. Dissent was met with prison, exile, or worse. East Timor, which Indonesia brutally occupied until 1999, became a killing field. So too did Aceh and Papua. Throughout, military officers acted with near-total impunity.


It took the trauma of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and an explosion of popular anger to unseat Suharto.


In the democratic euphoria that followed, Indonesia’s reformists moved swiftly to end dwifungsi. The military was stripped of its parliamentary quota, its role in civilian administration was curtailed, and laws were passed to assert civilian supremacy over the armed forces. Yet Prabowo’s rise marks the culmination of a slow, creeping re-militarisation.


A former commander of the notorious special forces unit Kopassus, Prabowo was discharged in 1998 after being implicated in the abduction and torture of student activists. He was banned from entering the United States for two decades. That he is now president speaks both to the erosion of political memory and the resilience of military prestige.


Still, nostalgia for authoritarian order is not unique to Indonesia. Around the world, strongmen are on the march, promising security and efficiency in exchange for civil liberties and democratic accountability. What makes Indonesia’s case distinctive is that its democratic rollback is occurring not through tanks in the streets, but through laws in Parliament. The veneer of legitimacy obscures the corrosion of reform.


Protests against the amendments have erupted across the country following the passage of the law. In the short term, this law may embolden a military culture long prone to abuse.


It threatens to marginalise civilian bureaucrats and politicians and undermine institutions tasked with ensuring accountability. Over time, the normalisation of military involvement in civilian life erodes the foundations of democracy.


Indonesia has often been held up as a model of post-authoritarian success: a Muslim-majority nation that transitioned to democracy, tamed its military and grew economically. That reputation is now in jeopardy. Prabowo, whose political resurrection once seemed improbable, may yet be remembered as the president who led Indonesia back into uniform.

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