Policy Update
Arohi Sanyal
Background
In India sports hasn’t been given the due it deserves – it is, at best, considered as an extracurricular activity while in most other nations sports is considered equivalent to studies and kids who show potential are taken under professional training. Due to the patriarchal mindset the situation is worse for women specially from socio economic backward sections of society as they are denied any opportunity especially after a certain age as it is felt that they should be engaged only in housework.
Moreover sports are gender specific – women wishing to pursue aggressive sports like boxing are discouraged as it is considered as a masculine activity. A combination of these factors ensure that very few in India take up sports, out of them the tally of women is still lesser and the number is miniscule when it comes to female professional sportspeople.
Recently in the Paris Olympics when Manu Bhaker won bronze medal in shooting Sports Minister Shri Mandviya said that the government had spent Rs 2 crore on her training under the Khelo India scheme (Sports Minister Reveals Amount Spent on Olympic Bronze Medalist Manu Bhaker’s Training, 2024). While the achievement is highly commendable and the governmental support contributed to it, it would be interesting to introspect the way the government has boasted about it and analyze the ground realities for women sportsperson.
Khelo India Scheme
The scheme was launched in the year 2017-18 by the then Sports Minister Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in Delhi to revive sports culture in India and build a strong framework for all sports played in our country and establish India as a great sporting nation (Khelo India, n.d.). Under this scheme there are 12 verticals and one is sports for women with the goal to encourage women to participate in sports especially those games where participation of women is low. (Operational Guidelines For Sports For Women, 2018)
Barriers Faced By Women Athletes
The hurdles for women in sports begin even before they step into the athletic arena, as a woman is expected to be a good wife and mother, the idea of a girl becoming a professional sportsperson is discouraged for reasons ranging from fear that she will become dark, too masculine, be disfigured while playing or need to go out to participate in tournaments- all situations which would mar her chance of getting a good husband. Parents feel that women will not be permitted to play after marriage or motherhood and encourage them to take up more conventional career options.
Women who do take up professional sports face multiple issues like sexual harassment like the recent Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) case where Vinesh Phogat, two times world championship medalist, alleged least 10 women wrestlers had told her that they had been sexually exploited by WFI president Brij Bhushan Singh (Wrestling Federation of India: Is Indian Sport Seeing Its #MeToo Moment?, 2023).
Another issue is unequal pay- according to the BCCI pay structure, the highest-grade male cricketers receive Rs. 7 crore annual salary whereas a women cricketer receives only Rs 50 lakhs (Mukherjee, 2023). Further, the games played by women athletes are not given the same importance as men, for example cricket, the most popular game in India, has a women’s team too but it is unfortunate that 90% of the country is not aware of it and neither knows the captain of the team who has performed in almost 180 one day internationals for India (Rehani, 2018, ) .
Impact of Discrimination
As per a report of UNESCO 49% of adolescent girls drop out of sports participation and 21% of women athletes have faced sexual harassment(UNESCO Study Reveals Huge Sports Drop-Out Rate Among Girls, 2024). The country cannot expect medals in any game when 48.5% (Women and Men in India 2022, n.d.) of the population of women is not allowed to participate in sports.
U.S.A versus India
In the 2024 Olympics U.S.A women won the highest number of medals as women are encouraged to participate in sports. As per an online article women said that she never felt that she is incapable of doing any kind of sports (Plaschke, 2016). A poll was conducted by Seton Hall Sports Poll where they found out that 50% of the general population agreed that representation of women athletes should be more in the media as they have developed interest towards it (Ricciardelli, 2023).
44% of the population felt that men and women should compete together in sports (Ricciardelli, 2023) . In the U.S.A women’s sports gets 15% (Sim, 2023) of media coverage compared to India where women athletes receive only 4% (Sijapati, 2019) of media coverage .
Way Forward
India has a long way to go and sports need a lot of reforms like formation of a complaints committee for dealing with cases of sexual harassment, the government can provide incentives to women and more media coverage which will enable the nation to score big in international competitions.
References
- Khelo india. (n.d.). Khelo India. https://kheloindia.gov.in/
- Mukherjee, R. (2023, Sepember 4th). Will the gender pay gap in Indian sports ever be bridged? The ESTD. https://www.theestablished.com/culture/living/will-the-gender-pay-gap-in-indian-sports-ever-be bridged#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20BCCI%20pay,widens%20further%20in%20lower%20grades.
- Operational Guidelines For Sports For Woman. (2018, September 26th). Khelo India-Sports For Women. https://www.yas.nic.in/sites/default/files/Khelo%20India%20-%20Sports%20For%20Women.pdf
- Plaschke, B. (2016, August 16th). American women are dominating the Games, and it didn’t happen by accident. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/
- Rehani, A. (2018). Women Sports in India: Constraints and Challenges A Case Study Based on Indian Women’s Cricket Team. https://events.rdias.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Women-Sports-in-India-Constraints-and-Challenges-paper-and-certificate.pdf
- Ricciardelli, M. (2023, February 17th). Poll on Women’s Sports in America: ‘Show Us More and We’ll Watch More’. Seton Hall University. https://www.shu.edu/index.html
- Sijapati, A. (2019, October 26th). That’s What She Said: Media Representation of Women in Sports. The Gazelle. https://www.thegazelle.org/
- Sim, J. (2023, October 25th). Study: Women’s sports now getting 15% of US sports media coverage. Sport’s Pro. https://www.sportspromedia.com/
- Sports Authority Of India. (n.d.). genda Items for the 44 th Departmental Project Approval Committee (DPAC) [Report by Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports]. Sports Authority Of India. https://sportsauthorityofindia.gov.in/sai/public/assets/pdfs/DPAC/44th%20DPAC/44th%20DPAC%20Agenda.pdf
- Sports minister reveals amount spent on Olympic bronze medalist Manu Bhaker’s training. (2024, July 29th). Mint. https://www.livemint.com/
- UNESCO study reveals huge sports drop-out rate among girls. (2024, July 25th). Global Sustainable Sport. https://www.globalsustainablesport.com/
- Women and Men in India 2022. (n.d.). Dristhi IAS. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/women-and-men-in-india-2022#:~:text=In%20absolute%20figures%2C%20this%20translates,female%20population%20share%20(48.8%25).
- Wrestling Federation of India: Is Indian sport seeing its #MeToo moment? (2023, February 1st). BBC. https://www.bbc.com/
About The Contributor: Arohi Sanyal is a research intern at IMPRI .She has obtained a Master in Gender Studies from Dr. B.R Ambedkar University,Delhi. Her interest lies in gender related issues
Acknowledgment: The author would like to express sincere gratitude to her mother, Dr Arjun Kumar, Ms Aasthaba Jadeja, Ms Deepa Baghel , and Mr. Dhruv for their invaluable contribution to this article.
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