top of page

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.

Fires of Superstition

Bihar’s crumbling state governance is ensuring that witch-hunts remain a grim reality in India’s heartland.

Bihar
Bihar

When a mob in rural Bihar set five members of a family on fire for alleged witchcraft, it was reminiscent of the bad old days for an often-disparaged state. It reflects poorly that India, a nuclear power with ambitions of becoming a global leader, continues to permit medieval violence to fester unchecked in its hinterland. In Purnia district, a woman named Sita Devi was blamed for the illness and death of a neighbour’s child. What followed later in the backwater Tetgama village was governance failure in its rawest form.


Fifty people barged into the family’s home, beat them with bamboo poles, doused them with inflammables, and set them alight. Five corpses were later found dumped under water hyacinth. A 16-year-old boy, Sonu Kumar, barely escaped.


In most countries, such a gruesome act would provoke national outrage, emergency interventions and even high-level resignations. But in India’s tribal and rural interiors, witch-hunting remains both a social practice and a symptom of broken policing, caste tensions, entrenched patriarchy and a political class that would rather look away.


The Purnia massacre is far from isolated. In 2021, five women were dragged out of their homes in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district and bludgeoned to death for allegedly casting evil spells. In 2022, in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj, an entire family was lynched on suspicion of practising black magic. In Khunti, Jharkhand, in 2015, women were stripped, paraded naked, and beaten for supposedly causing illness in the village. In Dumka, Bihar, in 2020, an elderly woman was tied to a tree and killed after a child died mysteriously.


Women, particularly those who are elderly. The charge of ‘witchcraft’ becomes a social weapon to settle scores, grab property, or reinforce caste and gender hierarchies. The official justification is always illness, death or misfortune. But beneath lies a more calculated cruelty that the state has done little to deter.


It is not that laws are absent. Jharkhand passed an anti-witchcraft act in 2001. Bihar and Odisha followed with their own legislation criminalising witch-hunting and penalising those who instigate or participate in such acts. But enforcement is sporadic at best. Police are either absent, under-staffed or under pressure to maintain the fiction of rural harmony. Arrests, when made, are symbolic. Villagers admit to witnessing the violence but did not intervene.


This erosion of justice is a structural malaise. Rural India, particularly tribal belts in eastern states, suffers from a yawning governance deficit. Health systems are fragile, schools ineffective and state institutions distant. In such a vacuum, centuries-old beliefs fester. Disease and death, instead of being understood through medicine, are interpreted as curses. The local ‘ojha’ or witch-doctor gains more authority than the district magistrate.


The state’s response is unforgivably weak. Awareness campaigns are patchy and underfunded. Witness protection is non-existent. Political leaders avoid confronting the issue for fear of offending dominant local sentiments. The result is an informal apartheid of reason.


The human cost is severe. According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, over 2,500 women were murdered between 2000 and 2020 after being branded witches. Jharkhand alone has accounted for over 500 such killings. The actual number is likely higher, given widespread under-reporting and the quiet collusion of local elites in suppressing such cases. And behind each statistic is a story like that of Sita Devi - of someone beaten not just by neighbours, but by an indifferent republic.


India cannot hope to ascend on the global stage while tolerating medieval violence in its villages. The fight against witch-hunting is not just about superstition but restoring the primacy of law, reason and basic human dignity. That requires political courage, sustained education and institutional reform.


Tetgama, the village where five people were burned to death this month, is not cursed. But it is condemned by neglect, by silence and by a state that shows up after the fires have cooled.

Comments

bottom of page