top of page

By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Unsung Champions

The Commonwealth Games have once again reminded India of a sporting truth that is too often forgotten amid the deafening roar of cricket stadiums, billion-dollar leagues and celebrity endorsements. The greatest sporting stories of at the CWG have emerged from dusty fields, improvised training grounds and lives shaped by extraordinary adversity. India’s athletes in Glasgow have rewritten the meaning of sporting triumph. The story of Sharmila Dhankar is nothing short of extraordinary. Struck by...

Unsung Champions

The Commonwealth Games have once again reminded India of a sporting truth that is too often forgotten amid the deafening roar of cricket stadiums, billion-dollar leagues and celebrity endorsements. The greatest sporting stories of at the CWG have emerged from dusty fields, improvised training grounds and lives shaped by extraordinary adversity. India’s athletes in Glasgow have rewritten the meaning of sporting triumph. The story of Sharmila Dhankar is nothing short of extraordinary. Struck by polio at the age of two, having endured the trauma of an abusive marriage, she could have been reduced to a statistic in a country where disability and social barriers often combine to crush ambition. Instead, the 40-year-old from Haryana transformed pain into power, producing a season’s best throw of 9.81 metres to become India’s first para-athlete to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal. Her victory in the women’s shot put F57 event was a declaration of human resilience. Sharmila’s journey, from physical disability and personal hardship to the top step of a global podium, captures the very essence of sport. Her compatriot Shilpa Shyla’s bronze medal in the same event added another chapter to this inspiring tale. Together, the two Indian women demonstrated that determination can overcome disadvantages that would have stopped many others. Sarvesh Kushare, who won a historic silver in the men’s high jump, comes from a farming family in Maharashtra’s Nashik district. His early training ground was not a sophisticated sports facility but makeshift pits created from agricultural waste by his father. Gulveer Singh’s magnificent silver in the men’s 10,000 metres - India’s first-ever medal in the event at the Commonwealth Games - was another reminder that Indian endurance athletes, often overlooked in a cricket-obsessed sporting ecosystem, possess the talent and tenacity to compete with the best in the world. These athletes represent a different India that battles scarcity, limited facilities and social constraints before it battles opponents on the track or field. Their medals are not products of privilege but triumphs of persistence. For decades, cricket has deservedly enjoyed its place as India’s most popular sport. But the imbalance in attention, resources and public imagination cannot continue indefinitely. A nation of 1.4 billion people cannot measure its sporting identity through one game alone. The Commonwealth Games have shown India a mirror that reflects not just medals, but the immense human potential waiting beyond the spotlight. The achievements in Glasgow should become a turning point. India must invest more deeply in athletics, para-sports and Olympic disciplines, not merely when medals arrive but when dreams begin. Because every Sharmila Dhankar, Sarvesh Kushare and Gulveer Singh represents the extraordinary sporting potential of India waiting to be unleashed.

Family Feint

In Maharashtra’s endlessly theatrical politics, the prospect of a Thackeray reunion makes for irresistible drama. Uddhav Thackeray, the beleaguered chief of the Shiv Sena (UBT), and his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray, the equally beleaguered head of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), have signalled a willingness to mend fences. Each said he was prepared to put aside ‘minor differences’ for the greater good of Maharashtra. It sounded magnanimous. It also sounded suspiciously convenient.


Raj Thackeray, speaking on a podcast, made the first overture, declaring that for him Maharashtra’s interests trumped personal disputes. He offered to work with Uddhav, with the thinly veiled challenge whether the latter was ready to work with him. Uddhav responded in kind - but with conditions. Raj, he warned, must shun forces that were ‘anti-Maharashtra,’ a euphemism for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Sena (UBT)’s chief adversary.


The cousins’ feud dates back nearly two decades to 2005, when Raj quit the Shiv Sena after Uddhav, with their uncle Bal Thackeray’s blessing, was elevated over him. Raj’s formation of the MNS in 2006 was a public declaration that he would not serve under Uddhav’s shadow. That rift, personal and political, has shaped the trajectory of Maharashtra’s regional politics ever since.


Today, both cousins are diminished figures with their political fortunes at an all-time low. Uddhav, forced out of office by a BJP-backed coup, has lost both the chief ministership and the official Sena party symbol. Raj’s MNS, after early bursts of populist success, has shrivelled into an afterthought after having tried every coalition. The BJP’s dominance has left the once-powerful Thackeray name battered. Against this backdrop, talk of unity is less a stirring call to Marathi pride than a grim calculation for survival.


The real obstacle to a reunion is not ideology but ego. The fundamental question that drove them apart remains unresolved: who will lead? Raj, still bristling with a charisma Uddhav never quite matched, appears unwilling to subordinate himself. On Uddhav’s side, the emergence of his wife Rashmi Thackeray as a political strategist and son Aaditya Thackeray as heir apparent complicates any equation that might allow Raj a prominent role.


In short, both men want a reunion, but on their own terms. Sanjay Raut, Uddhav’s lieutenant, put a brave face by calling the Thackeray bond ‘permanent’ and hinting that Maharashtra would welcome a united front against the BJP’s encroachments. A joint Thackeray force could re-energize the Marathi vote and disrupt the BJP’s plans to further hollow out Maharashtra’s regional parties. But such a union would require rare self-effacement from two leaders whose careers have been defined by wounded pride.


Past experience suggests caution. The Thackerays are experts at creating public spectacles of rapprochement without following through. Temporary truces have often collapsed under the weight of old grievances and competing ambitions. If Uddhav and Raj truly wish to salvage their relevance, they must not only reconcile but reinvent themselves for a new political era.

Comments

bottom of page