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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.

Gospel of Deceit

A troubling web of blackmail, digital indoctrination and religious coercion is pushing Uttar Pradesh into uncharted territory.

Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh

If the spate of recent events is anything to go by, Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is showing troubling signs of becoming a hub for coerced religious conversions. This hub is worryingly driven by radicalism and fuelled by transnational networks.


Recent revelations from Kushinagar and Agra lay bare a disturbing nexus that is both insidious and increasingly brazen. In Kushinagar, police arrested eight individuals, including two women, accused of orchestrating the forced conversion of a 19-year-old Hindu girl. The case, which involved identity manipulation, blackmail, and physical concealment, is not an isolated episode. Rather, it appears to be the handiwork of a well-oiled network that entraps vulnerable women and young girls in the guise of love, only to subject them to psychological coercion, religious indoctrination and eventual abandonment.


Police recovered multiple Aadhaar cards, a bouquet of SIM cards, burner phones and disturbing digital evidence. The arrested reportedly confessed to running an organised syndicate whose primary goal was to convert Hindu women under false pretences.


But the rot runs deeper. In Agra, a separate racket has exposed even more alarming contours. Fourteen arrests so far. Victims across multiple states. Pakistani handlers. Online games like Ludo as bait. The image of one of the girls posing with an AK-47 ought to be a siren wailing at full volume for India’s security apparatus. The brains behind the operation were reportedly Abdul Rehman, a convert-turned-evangelist from Delhi, and Ayesha, a woman from Goa. The strategy was to seduce the mind before seizing the soul.


First, poison impressionable girls against their families. Then, indoctrinate through WhatsApp groups. Encrypt communication via Signal and the dark web.


The Uttar Pradesh Police’s ‘Mission Asmita’ has rightly mobilised its Special Task Force and Anti-Terror Squad. But the mere existence of such a mission is an indictment in itself. When the state apparatus must deploy counter-terror resources to neutralise domestic conversion rackets, one must ask what deeper failure, whether of community vigilance, of digital regulation, of moral consensus has led us here.


India’s constitutional democracy rests on the right to profess, practise and propagate any religion. Interfaith love is not a crime and conversion by consent is a protected liberty. But what we are witnessing is psychological subjugation aided by manipulation, surveillance evasion, and foreign indoctrination. It is a desecration of the very ideals of personal freedom and religious autonomy that India’s pluralistic fabric is meant to uphold.


There is also the sheer asymmetry of outrage. When accusations of coercive ‘ghar wapsi’ emerge, drawing rooms fill with righteous fury. But when Pakistani influencers like Tanveer Ahmed and Sahil Adeem allegedly help manipulate Indian girls into rejecting their faith, the guardians of secularism mumble or look the other way. Moral relativism, when applied selectively, becomes complicity.


Of course, there is the risk that stories like these will be exploited by bigots, turning genuine security concerns into a rallying cry for majoritarian dominance. That is a political problem. But a bigger threat is the creeping normalisation of religious coercion itself, camouflaged in digital games, social media echo chambers and the faux-liberal alibi of “personal choice.”


Uttar Pradesh teeters on the brink of becoming a conversion factory. If that perception deepens, the fallout will not be local. It will be national.


It is time for governments - both state and central - to treat this not merely as a law-and-order issue, but as a national security and civilisational crisis. What makes Uttar Pradesh’s challenge particularly acute is its symbolic weight. As India’s most populous state, and one that often sets the tone for the political and cultural mainstream, the developments here have implications beyond its borders. If UP becomes known as a hub for conversion syndicates. it will fracture social trust in dangerous ways.


India must draw a clear line between faith and fanaticism, between love and exploitation, between spiritual choice and psychological warfare. In this battle, the state must act with intelligence and with precision, not panic.

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