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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.

Festival Fiasco

Sheer neglect of procedure and muddled leadership have done more harm to IFFK than any act of censorship.

Kerala
Kerala

The International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) has long prided itself on being India’s most politically alert cinephile gathering and a place where serious cinema, global causes and robust debate intersect. This year, however, the 30th edition of the IFFK turned into a cautionary tale about how administrative laxity, dressed up as ideological resistance, can corrode credibility faster than any act of censorship.


At the heart of the controversy is the Union government’s initial denial of censorship exemption to 19 films slated for screening at the festival, including a clutch of Palestinian titles and even Sergei Eisenstein’s centenarian classic Battleship Potemkin. Four films were later cleared. However, protests followed and political denunciations came thick and fast. Kerala’s Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, stepped in with a directive that all scheduled films be screened. To many in the festival’s faithful audience, it looked like a familiar morality play - an overbearing Centre throttling artistic freedom, resisted heroically by a defiant state. But that tidy narrative is now fraying.


Deepika Suseelan, artistic director of IFFK as recently as 2022, has punctured the balloon with an inconvenient reminder: censorship exemptions are governed less by ideology than by paperwork. And paperwork, she suggests, was precisely where the organisers failed. Exemption, she notes, is not granted on the fly. It requires applications to be submitted at least a month in advance. For a December festival, that means early November. The exemption order itself is typically expected a fortnight before the festival opens.


This year, according to her, the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy (KSCA), which runs IFFK, submitted its application perilously late, only this month. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, she says, cited this delay as the sole reason for denial. If so, outrage directed at Delhi may be theatrics misdirected. Public grandstanding after administrative negligence as Suseelan tartly put it, is not a substitute for institutional discipline.


Others from within Kerala’s film fraternity echo that assessment. Filmmaker Dr Biju, a frequent IFFK participant and former jury member, has asked the most basic question: why were films scheduled at all without securing mandatory permissions? No serious international festival does that. To do so is to gamble the festival’s integrity on hope and to invite precisely the sort of last-minute chaos now unfolding.


Compounding the problem is a leadership vacuum. For the first time in its three-decade history, IFFK is being held without either an artistic director or the visible presence of its chairman. Resul Pookutty, the Oscar-winning sound designer who currently heads the KSCA, is abroad on prior commitments. Former chairman Kamal and others have noted that such an absence is institutionally indefensible.


The result is a credibility crisis that extends beyond this year’s screenings. Suseelan warns that mishandling the exemption process now could invite tighter scrutiny and stricter controls in future editions, complicating submissions, discouraging international participation and narrowing curatorial freedom. The damage, she suggests, will not be easy to undo.


There is also the question of intent. Choosing ‘Palestine 36’ as the opening film, which has been criticised by some as overtly one-sided political messaging, has fuelled perceptions that confrontation was not merely accidental.


The Modi government has adopted a calibrated West Asia policy, maintaining historic support for Palestinian welfare while deepening strategic ties with Israel. That balance has served India’s diplomatic and security interests well. Against this backdrop, it is neither unreasonable nor sinister for the Centre to expect strict procedural compliance before granting exemptions, especially when films are framed not merely as art but as political statements.


Kerala’s Chief Minister eventually directed that all films be screened, effectively converting a procedural lapse into a political showdown.


This may have played well to the gallery, but it sets a reckless precedent. If IFFK wishes to remain a serious festival rather than a performative one, it must relearn a basic truth: institutional credibility is built on process. When that collapses, no amount of righteous anger can fill the void.

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