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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.

From Outcry to Evasion

A government that claimed to champion survivors has instead perfected the art of institutional gaslighting.

KERALA
KERALA

In 2017, amid national outrage over the abduction and sexual assault of a young female actor in a moving car, the Kerala government formed the Hema Committee and promised a reckoning with the rot inside the Malayalam film industry. The panel, led by retired Justice K. Hema, held the trust of survivors who spoke in chilling detail about a culture of predation and complicity. What followed was hailed as a watershed in India’s regional cinema landscape. That moment has now been callously buried under bureaucratic apathy, political cowardice, and a staggering betrayal of trust.


The government-formed SIT’s recent admission in the High Court that all 35 cases based on the Hema Committee report had been closed ostensibly because survivors did not step forward to record statements is a masterclass in abdication of responsibility. Over 120 First Information Reports (FIRs) were filed, of which only 26 have led to charge sheets. Of the original 35 rooted in the Committee’s painstaking work, just one has resulted in a formal chargesheet against a makeup artist. The rest have evaporated in a cloud of official excuses and survivor silence. That silence, however, is not evidence of falsehood or exaggeration; it is the byproduct of fear, fatigue and a system that never wanted to protect women in the first place.


The collapse of the investigation is a study in the failure of the state to build a credible, compassionate and confidential mechanism for justice. Survivors were dragged into a process they did not sign up for. Some, like actor Maala Parvathi, assert they gave statements to the Hema Committee under assurances of confidentiality only to see those statements used to trigger police action. Others who did want legal recourse were met with delays, institutional apathy and the lurking threat of retaliation from powerful men in the industry.


The Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), whose sustained advocacy forced the government’s hand in 2017, has been left stranded. What makes this betrayal particularly galling is the performative progressivism Kerala’s government routinely peddles.


It claims to champion women’s rights in press releases and public panels while failing to protect the very women it lauds. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who initially projected himself as a crusader for justice in the film industry, has maintained a conspicuous silence. Questions from prominent actors like Parvathy Thiruvoth have been met with the dead air of indifference.


The hypocrisy is staggering. In a state that celebrates high female literacy, the government has presided over a campaign of slow, deliberate erosion of a process that once offered hope. Its silence has empowered the powerful. The allegations against industry stalwarts, including actors like Mukesh and Siddique, and director Ranjith, were never seriously pursued. Instead, many women found themselves unemployable, shunned by the very ecosystem they had tried to reform. In the Malayalam film industry today, it is safer to be an accused than to be a whistleblower.


What began as a truth commission of sorts has morphed into a cautionary tale. Survivors who dared to speak up have lost livelihoods, reputations and the fragile trust they once placed in the state. And now, the government claims that it cannot proceed because these same women are no longer coming forward. That is institutional gaslighting.


What was once branded a revolution is now a retreat. And what of the Hema Committee’s 300-page report, which was a damning indictment of gendered abuse, exploitation and silence in Malayalam cinema? Its redacted release came only after High Court intervention and RTI pressure. Even then, the promised reforms have been stuck in cold storage.


Kerala has long prided itself on being different from the rest of India: more literate, more progressive, more egalitarian. But when it comes to protecting women in the workplace, particularly one as powerful and patriarchal as the film industry, it has shown itself to be depressingly familiar.


Unless the government restores the faith, it has so thoroughly squandered, it will have succeeded in scripting its most cynical cover-up yet.

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