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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 Mignonette’s Dark Legacy: Murder, Survival and the Shaping of Legal Doctrine

A case of life and death in the South Atlantic redefined the boundaries of necessity and continues to intrigue lawyers and writers alike.

The Mignonette’s Dark Legacy

On May 19, 1884, a nineteen-ton private yacht Mignonette set sail from Southampton, England, bound for Sydney, Australia. Aboard were four men: Captain Thomas Dudley, mate Edward Stephens, seaman Edmond Brooks, and cabin-boy Richard Parker. Some 1,600 miles off the coast of Africa in the South Atlantic, the yacht was overwhelmed by violent seas and sank within minutes. The crew managed to escape to a small, thirteen-foot lifeboat, armed only with two one-pound cans of turnips to sustain them. What unfolded subsequently became then a cause célèbre, and a defining legal case still taught to students of the English Common Law to this very day.


The four men in the lifeboat rigged a makeshift sail and set off in the direction of Rio de Janeiro. On the third day they opened the cans of turnips. On the fourth day they caught a small turtle. On the sixteenth day, the cabin boy Richard Parker, only seventeen years of age, became very ill from drinking seawater. The idea was then broached that the life of one of the four should be sacrificed to save the lives of the others. Brooks dissented, not wanting to kill anyone. On the nineteenth day Dudley and Stephens agreed to kill Parker if there was no rescue by morning. And so, early the next day, Dudley cut Parker’s throat with a penknife. The three remaining men fed upon his body for four days, when they were rescued by the German barque Montezuma on July 29.


Dudley, Stephens, and Brooks were not shy about saying what had happened. When the Montezuma returned them to Falmouth, England, on September 6, 1884, they repeated their story to customs officials, only to find themselves charged with murder.


However, public opinion was with the three men, including the brother of Richard Parker, also a sailor, who knew as well as any that the sea was a very harsh mistress. There were also legal issues to consider, notably that then under the common law the ‘privilege against self-incrimination’ was absolute. Moreover, some legal commentators considered homicide to be always justifiable if necessary to preserve oneself.


The authorities felt they had no option but to prosecute, not least to set a precedent that limited the defence of necessity, committing both Dudley and Stephens to trial, and dropping the charges against Brooks so his account of what happened in the lifeboat could be used against the others. And yet it was always understood by both the judiciary and the public that any precedent set would not be used against Dudley and Stephens, that they would be treated leniently.


The trial began on November 3, 1884 before judge Baron Huddleston, who was already intent on reaching a guilty verdict, and who more than any saw the need for a precedent to be set on the law of necessity once and for all. The jury was made to understand that they had a choice: find Dudley and Stephens guilty, or opt for a special verdict (as Baron Huddleston wished) where a panel of judges would then decide on the facts of the case and the guilt or innocence of Dudley and Stephens, and, most importantly, set the legal precedent. It should be noted that Baron Huddleston deliberately referred during the trial to the ‘clemency of the Crown’, thereby assuring Dudley and Stephens that they would be reprieved. The jury opted for the special verdict.


In December 1884, the Queen’s Bench Division, under Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, ruled that the defence of necessity could not justify murder, a decision that has endured in legal history. Dudley and Stephens were sentenced to death, but with a recommendation for mercy. While Queen Victoria was expected to pardon them, Home Secretary William Harcourt opted for a six-month prison sentence instead. The men were released on May 20, 1885.


Beyond the legal textbooks, Regina v Dudley and Stephens continues to echo in literary circles. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, though primarily inspired by the real-life ‘non-sinking’ of the pilgrim ship Jeddah, drew heavily on the case’s themes of necessity and survival. Yann Martel, in his 2001 novel Life of Pi, wove in a literary nod by naming the potentially man-eating tiger Richard Parker—an unmistakable allusion to the ill-fated cabin boy. More recently, mystery novelist Elizabeth C. Bunce drew on the Mignonette tragedy in her 2022 children’s book In Myrtle Peril. Edgar Allan Poe, too, had explored the grim dynamics of sacrifice and survival in his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, where a sailor named Richard Parker offers himself up to be consumed by his fellow crew members. Interestingly, Poe’s tale, published in 1838, predates the real Richard Parker’s tragic fate by nearly half a century.

(The author is a novelist, retired investigator with an abiding passion for Chinese history)

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