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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.

One Island, One Message

Beijing’s aggression is paradoxically uniting Taiwan around the defence of its democratic identity.

For years, China has tried to prise Taiwan from the inside. It has offered economic incentives to Taiwanese businesses, funnelled disinformation through social media and quietly courted politicians on the island through patronage and pressure. More recently, it has escalated its coercive campaign with sabre-rattling military drills and ‘grey-zone’ incursions that stop short of open war. But now, Beijing’s meddling is producing a reaction it did not intend: unity.


Last month, a remarkable demonstration unfolded on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei as thousands of protesters gathered under the slogan ‘Reject United Front Tactics, Safeguard Taiwan.’ But what made headlines was not the crowd size, nor the slogans, but the symbols. For the first time in memory, the red-and-blue flag of the Republic of China (ROC) flew alongside the green-and-white standard of Taiwan’s independence movement. These banners, long seen as emblems of opposing visions for Taiwan’s future, were raised together in defiance of a common adversary: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).


This convergence signals a tectonic shift in Taiwan’s political landscape. The island’s deep-rooted divide between those who favour preserving the ROC and those who demand a Republic of Taiwan is being supplanted by a new consensus: that Taiwan, under any name, must remain free, democratic and self-governed.


That consensus is being tested almost daily. On April 30, Somalia announced that it would bar Taiwanese passport holders from entering or even transiting through its territory. The move, based on China’s interpretation of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, was an unlikely yet telling episode in Beijing’s global pressure campaign.


Resolution 2758, passed in 1971, recognised the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate holder of China’s seat at the United Nations. Yet it did not specify Taiwan’s status, let alone affirm China’s sweeping claim over it. Nevertheless, Beijing has wielded the resolution like a cudgel to bludgeon Taiwan’s international space. Today, only 12 nations formally recognise Taiwan. China’s campaign to force governments, airlines, and multilateral bodies to treat Taiwan as part of the PRC has become so pervasive that even a government in Mogadishu, which barely governs its own capital, feels compelled to fall in line.


The timing is no coincidence. Somalia’s ban comes as Taiwan deepens ties with Somaliland, the breakaway republic in the north that declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but remains diplomatically isolated. In 2020, Somaliland and Taiwan opened representative offices in each other’s capitals, forming a small but defiant axis of unrecognised states.


Beijing’s furious response has been predictable. But its cumulative aggression is proving counterproductive. While China hoped to isolate Taiwan, it is instead catalysing a new form of national unity rooted in territory and democracy.


Historically, Taiwan’s internal political divide was sharp. Those loyal to the ROC saw the island as a bastion of Chinese republicanism, a legitimate government in exile with claims over all of China. Independence activists, by contrast, rejected the ROC’s legacy, viewing it as a colonial import imposed by Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Nationalists in 1949. They demanded a clean break and a new ‘Republic of Taiwan.’ For decades, these groups competed bitterly in elections and public discourse.


Yet today, as the Chinese military sends jets across the Taiwan Strait’s median line, and balloons and drones into its airspace, the salience of this historical divide is fading. China’s strategy is to make Taiwan’s air and sea space feel like Chinese territory by normalizing its military presence.


But that effort has backfired. As threats mount, Taiwan’s national consciousness is becoming more territorialised in return. A sense of shared peril is mobilising the public. When the public perceives that domestic actors such as pro-China legislators are undermining democratic governance from within, outrage is spilling onto the streets.


By targeting all Taiwanese, regardless of political stripe, Beijing has forged unlikely alliances between former adversaries. The ROC loyalists and the independence activists may not agree on what to call their country, but certainly they know it is not the People’s Republic of China.

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