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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 Great Hoax

A sensational tale of ‘mass graves’ in a temple town in Karnataka has collapsed. What remains is proof of how foreign-funded portals and YouTube provocateurs thrive on vilifying Hinduism.


Karnataka
Karnataka

 

In July this year, Dharmasthala, a temple town in Karnataka revered for its shrine to Lord Manjunatha Swamy, was flung into national headlines for all the wrong reasons. A former sanitation worker claimed that between 1995 and 2014 he had buried “hundreds of bodies,” victims of rape and murder covered up by the temple authorities. His lurid testimony, devoid of evidence, was enough to trigger a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which spent weeks scouring forests and ghats in search of mass graves.

 

As with so many scandals tailor-made for the outrage economy, the narrative collapsed almost as soon as it was built. The SIT found nothing - no mass graves, no victims, no cover-up. The worker confessed he had lied, that he was recruited, trained, and promised protection by shadowy ‘masterminds.’ He even presented a skull as evidence, which turned out to belong to a man who had died decades ago. The whistleblower was unmasked as a pawn. The conspiracy, however, was larger.

 

Behind the theatrics lay a deliberate attempt to malign Dharmasthala, its centuries-old temple trust, and its dharmadhikari, Veerendra Heggade. And here the fingerprints of India’s outrage industry became visible. As per reports, the sanitation worker admitted to being trained in Bengaluru and coached on what to say. His handlers banked on a simple truth of India’s media ecosystem that once an allegation is made, however outlandish, it will be given oxygen by activist-journalists, portals, and YouTubers who present themselves as watchdogs of democracy but function as hitmen for hire.

 

So-called ‘progressive’ portals kept the story alive with relentless amplification of every allegation under the veneer of ‘balanced coverage.’ Thus Dharmasthala, a centre of pilgrimage and charity, was thrust into the dock of public opinion.

 

Digital mercenaries like YouTubers Sameer M.D. churned out AI-generated videos and incendiary clips filled with unverified claims. In this case, the misinformation was so blatant that even the SIT had to charge him under provisions against provocation and false evidence.

 

The question is why the hoax gained traction at all. The answer is depressingly clear: there exists a ready market, both domestic and foreign, for any story that depicts Hinduism as brutal, oppressive or criminal. A conspiracy about mass graves in a Hindu temple is not treated with the incredulity it deserves but treated as plausible, even respectable, because it fits an entrenched narrative.

 

This is where foreign funding enters the picture. Professional grievance-mongers like Mohammed Zubair present themselves as defenders of free expression. In practice, their value proposition to Western donors is that they police Hindu nationalism and expose its ‘crimes.’

 

The more outrageous the story, the better the pitch. From the BBC to Washington think-tanks, there is always an eager audience for tales of Hindu barbarism.


The hypocrisy is galling. Allegations of ritualised rape and mass murder in a Hindu temple are splashed across pages without corroboration, yet similar slanders against other communities would be condemned as hate speech. The SIT’s clean chit is buried on inside pages, while the reputational injury to Dharmasthala lingers. What was passed off as journalism was in fact trial by innuendo.

 

For Hindus, this episode should serve as a warning. Every festival, every temple trust, every ritual is fair game for the vilification machine. India is a democracy; dissent is its lifeblood. But dissent is not licence for disinformation, and journalism is not a front for defamation. The Dharmasthala hoax should spark serious scrutiny of the media ecosystem that kept the lie alive. For they are not guardians of accountability but merchants of vilification, profiteers in the business of smearing Hinduism.


The SIT has exposed the hoax. The harder task is to expose the industry that thrives on such hoaxes. Until India does so, Dharmasthala will not be the last Hindu temple to be dragged through the mud for clicks, grants, and foreign applause.

 

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