Kolkata: Come 25 July and Minara Begum, arguably the country’s sole Muslim woman coach for gymnastics, would be experiencing mixed emotions of pride and agony. That’s because India’s only representative in gymnastics at the Tokyo Olympics, Pranati Nayak, would be hitting the competition floor on that day and Minara would have little choice but to watch her perform on TV from the confines of her home in Kolkata.
That, despite the fact that Minara has coached Pranati for nearly two decades… from the time the athlete was all of eight years old.
Minara was left out of the squad of officials accompanying Indian athletes to Tokyo on grounds that she has retired as the chief coach of Sports Authority of India or SAI. But Minara claims it is usual practice for senior coaches to travel with their students in major competitions and that she has been discriminated against because of her gender.
“I am a female coach and my gender is always a challenge in sports. People want to throw out women coaches. That could be one of the reasons. I was the one who groomed Pranati from her childhood and now I am cast away and someone else is travelling with her. I feel I had to see this day because I am a woman,” Minara told News18.com.
An exasperated Minara has now written to both the Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to address her agony.
“Today, finally when that day has arrived when my trainee was (sic) going to represent India and Bengal at the highest level of sport, I have been deprived of the opportunity to travel with her and prepare her during her competition in Tokyo Olympics. Instead, a 27-year old young coach is being sent with her. I have nothing against that coach. However, I feel that the Sports Authority of India and the Gymnastics Federation of India have discriminated against me,” Minara’s letter to CM Banerjee read.
“We have a very active chief minister who is also a woman. I hope that she would be able to understand my problem as a woman and would do what is necessary to address my pain,” she told News18 during an exclusive chat.
Discrimination on gender grounds in Indian sports seems to have remained a long-standing malaise. Or so, feels Laila Das, one of country’s top sports medicine physicians and a former regional director of SAI. Das alleges she was herself at the receiving end of such discrimination on multiple occasions similar to that of Minara despite having remained as an indispensible support to athletes during her tenure.
“I remember in the late ‘90s when I was asked to handle fitness issues of footballers of the men’s national squad. The boys were completely exhausted from the punishing schedule of club football and the team’s Technical Director PK Banerjee asked me to turn them around in just two weeks for the Asian Championship to be played in Malaysia. I met that nearly impossible challenge and got them back on their feet. However, when the squad selection took place by Federation bosses in Delhi, I was left out because I was a woman. Much to PK’s chagrin, who had to bite the bullet,” Dr Das recounted.
“It is not only gender discrimination, there are other discriminations also. If you are away from the limelight for long, if you are away from administrative headquarters like Delhi, then you are forgotten quite easily,” Dr Das maintained. “Such discriminations have been there even before my time and they are going to stay long after me,” she added.
Sports Authority of India officials refused to comment on the subject on grounds that it could spoil the mood of the Indian contingent leaving for Tokyo.
The question that remains unanswered, however, is whether sports bodies are at all serious about addressing allegations of gender discrimination which keeps popping up even in this day and age and which certainly undermines medal prospects of our athletes in big platforms like the Olympics.
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