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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.

The Conversion Kingpin

The rise and fall of ‘Changur Baba’ reveals a sinister nexus of religious coercion, caste-targeted manipulation and unchecked foreign funding undermining Indian law and social cohesion.

Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh

In a country where faith is constitutionally free but often socially fraught, the tale of Jalaluddin Shah, better known by his alias ‘Changur Baba,’ is both cautionary and chilling. Born Karimulla Shah, a gemstone seller pedalling from village to village, he would eventually ascend to the position of a self-styled Sufi mystic wielding immense power over the vulnerable. From a modest dargah in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, he ran what investigators are now calling a “conversion factory”—a sprawling network accused of coercing, luring, and manipulating economically disadvantaged citizens into adopting Islam by using a dangerous cocktail of money, mysticism, and Middle Eastern funds.


The facts emerging from investigations by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are damning. Nearly Rs. 106 crore in foreign funding, allegedly routed through hawala channels from Gulf nations, washed through 40 bank accounts controlled by Baba and his coterie. The ED’s decision to register a money laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is only the first step in unravelling what appears to be a well-oiled machine masquerading as religious philanthropy.


What is deeply corrosive here is the subversion of free will. The Indian Constitution guarantees the right to profess, practice, and propagate religion. But Changur Baba, investigators allege, went far beyond propagation. He targeted widowed women, low-income labourers, Scheduled Castes and backward communities. His methods were a mixture of psychological manipulation, monetary incentives, romantic deceit, and, in some cases, brute intimidation. In one particularly grotesque revelation, a caste-based ‘rate card’ was maintained for converting women: up to Rs.16 lakh for Brahmin, Sardar, or Kshatriya girls with lower rates for OBCs and Dalits.


This kind of caste-calibrated trafficking in belief is incendiary. It weaponizes India's most volatile social fault lines and monetises communal divisions. The Indian state cannot afford to treat such operations as isolated scams.


Then there is the foreign angle. More than 50 visits by Changur Baba and his close associates to Islamic countries raise disturbing questions. What was the nature of these trips? Who were the funders? Why was there no early detection of his meteoric financial rise and expanding landholdings in Balrampur, Pune and beyond? Even one of his illegally acquired properties in Madhpur village, worth Rs. 3 crore, had to be bulldozed to reclaim public land.


His network extended beyond conversions. A young woman from Ghaziabad reportedly went missing in 2019 after being entangled in the group’s web. Her sister alleges that the associate who lured her also subjected her to torture, including stubbing cigarettes on her body. If true, these are not just violations of law, but of the very moral contract on which a society functions.


What makes this saga even more dangerous is its mimicry of sanctity. Religious gatherings at his dargah routinely hosted both Indian and foreign nationals. Through pamphlets, sermons, and a book titled Shijra-e-Tayyaba, Baba projected himself as a spiritual guide while quietly operating as a conversion merchant with a chillingly corporate structure. This is a serious threat to India’s internal security and its social fabric.


For too long, authorities across states have ignored or underplayed the potential misuse of religious platforms for geopolitical and communal disruption. Foreign-funded religious conversions, whether motivated by ideology or profit, need far tighter regulatory oversight. Existing laws must be enforced with surgical precision. The ED, the ATS and intelligence services must not just arrest individuals like Changur Baba but dismantle the entire pipeline—from hawala operatives to foreign benefactors to local enablers.


This is not a call to monitor faith but to protect freedom of belief from becoming hostage to coercion and cash. India’s pluralism depends on preserving the sanctity of choice. When faith becomes commerce, and belief a bargaining chip in caste-based markets, it is not just the law that is violated but the very soul of the republic. 


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