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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.

Faith and Fog

A scuffle at the Sangam reveals how Uttar Pradesh’s politics struggles to manage mass devotion without turning it into a contest of power.

Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh

The Magh Mela, a part rival to the Kumbh, once again tested Uttar Pradesh’s ability to choreograph belief on a civilisational scale. As more than 4.5 crore devotees recently converged on the Sangam for Mauni Amavasya, an exercise in logistical endurance turned into a political flashpoint after a prominent seer was stopped by the police.


Opposition leaders, otherwise infamous for their disdain of Hinduism, meanwhile rushed in to scent sacrilege.


The seer in question, Jyotirpeeth Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, arrived with a large entourage seeking to proceed to the Sangam for the ritual bath. Police officials say he attempted to breach a barricade near Bridge Number 2 without prior permission, accompanied by 200–250 followers, at a time when the ghats were already under crushing pressure. He was stopped. He returned without taking the dip. A few minutes of disruption were enough to ignite a day-long political storm.


Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party, not otherwise known for championing Hindu practices, circulated videos of the episode and demanded a probe, declaring the ‘mistreatment’ of saints unpardonable. Draping himself in the language of continuity and custom, he lamented the disruption of the centuries-old tradition of the Shahi Snan - an inheritance he rarely invokes except in this case when it serves to embarrass the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government.


The police, meanwhile, insisted that safety, not status, was the governing principle. With tens of millions funnelled through a limited stretch of riverbank, even symbolic breaches can trigger physical danger. Officials pointed to the scale of preparations: 800 hectares divided into seven sectors; more than 25,000 toilets; 3,500 sanitation workers; 10,000 police personnel; civil defence volunteers; reflective tapes on poles; bike-taxis and golf carts; flower petals showered from helicopters on the Chief Minister’s instructions.


Managing a religious congregation of this magnitude is an administrative feat bordering on the impossible. The Uttar Pradesh government has, largely, prevented major disasters so far except for the stampeded at the Maha Kumbh. But Hindu religious authority is not merely another stakeholder to be processed through barricades and permits. In a polity where religion is central to political legitimacy, the optics of a Shankaracharya being halted by uniformed police are bound to resonate far beyond the bridge where it occurred.


India’s modern state has long oscillated between reverence and regulation when it comes to mass faith. Colonial administrators fretted over pilgrim taxes and crowd control; post-Independence governments inherited both the crowds and the anxiety. What has changed under the BJP is the explicit fusion of religious symbolism with political authority. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is himself a saffron-robed monk. The government’s claim to cultural stewardship therefore raises expectations of seamless deference to religious figures that sometimes collide with the realities of crowd science and risk management.


Akhilesh Yadav’s intervention, meanwhile, is less about the sanctity of saints than the sanctity of political opportunity. The Samajwadi Party has long accused the BJP of hollowing out Hindu tradition in favour of spectacle and control. By casting the incident as an insult to Sanatani custom, he seeks to prise open a space in what is otherwise the BJP’s most secure ideological territory.


The deeper problem lies in the blurred hierarchy at events like the Magh Mela. Who, precisely, has the right of way: the anonymous devotee who has walked for days, or the seer whose authority is symbolic but whose following magnifies risk?


Uttar Pradesh’s government would do well to recognise that order alone is not legitimacy. Clear protocols, transparently communicated to religious leaders well in advance, would reduce the scope for confrontation. Equally, seers who command large followings must acknowledge that devotion without discipline can turn lethal. The Sangam is not just a site of salvation but a potentially lethal bottleneck.


In the end, Mauni Amavasya passed without tragedy, which is no small achievement. But the episode exposed a familiar paradox that a state government strong enough to marshal millions remains curiously fragile in the face of symbolism. 


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