India is winning medals at Commonwealth Games. Don't let Salman Khan news drown that out
Chanu, the 23-year-old from Manipur, broke six world records on Thursday.
April 5 began on a good note for India, bringing us two medals at the Commonwealth Games 2018 – Mirabai Chanu’s gold in the 48kg weightlifting category, and P Gururaja’s silver in the men’s 56kg.
However, just as the country was waking up to the news, came the verdict in the Salman Khan blackbuck poaching case. Khan has been sentenced to five years in jail, and suddenly, all the focus shifted to the Big Bhai of Bollywood. Within minutes of the verdict, social media was inundated with posts that can be roughly divided into “Bhai ka fan club zinda hai” and the “justice league” categories.
Khan is a huge star, has a cult following, and has millions riding on him in forms of movies, advertisement deals etc. This is not his first legal trouble, and it has been shown in the past that the arm of the law is not long enough to catch up with him. Jail to him is undoubtedly big news.
But it is sad that on the day that the country should have been celebrating new stars, our attention is taken up by the flawed one.
Meet the medal winners
Both Gururaja and Chanu are tales of inspiration, of guts and grit triumphing over enormous odds. They are young people who have achieved their dreams and made the nation proud, despite setbacks and failures, in a nation that is yet to learn how to celebrate sports other than cricket.
Chanu, the 23-year-old from Manipur, broke six world records on Thursday. Her feats include lifting, 103kg – double her body weight – with ease, and then going on to lift 110kg, her personal best, and setting a Commonwealth record as well as a Commonwealth games record.
Chanu first medal too came at a Commonwealth Games, in 2014 in Glasgow.
Last year, she became the first Indian in 20 years (after Karnam Malleswari) to clinch a gold at the World Weightlifting Championship, in Anaheim last year.
However, this win came after the 2016 Olympic heartbreak, where she performed poorly. She later told PTI: “I was really low after the Olympics. It took me a lot of time to get over the disappointment. I even thought of giving up the sport and stop training. The comments on social media, the criticism against my coach really hurt me… I used to go to my psychologist twice in a month, but after the Olympics I started taking sessions every week and it really helped me."
Gururaja, India’s other medal winner, hails from Karnataka and is the son of a truck driver. He wanted to become a wrestler, but his coach recognised his potential and pushed him to weightlifting. The same coach also helped crowdfund money for Gururaja’s training and food supplements, after he decided to give up the sport because of his family’s financial hardships.
Before the CWG Games, he had told The Indian Express: “I’m not putting any pressure on myself, but I’m desperate to win a medal for my family. They’ve sacrificed and endured so much of hardship for me that I want to give something back to them. I want to make them proud.”
These are young India’s heroes, who battled adverse circumstances but managed to emerge victorious, not just for themselves but for the nation at large. In a country like India, every visible success matters, to inspire the many others fighting similar battles.
The successes of Sania Mirza woke many up to women’s tennis, Dipa Karmakar made sure a nation fell in love with gymnastics.
With an underdeveloped sports culture, a lot of talent is lost in India because it is never recognised or nurtured. Greater public interest brings hope of better funding, which can improve the lot of sportspersons, and provide a livelihood to lakhs of Indians.
Also, in the season of board exams, Chanu and Gururaja send out two important messages for India’s youngsters – there can be dreams outside of academics, and failure does not mean the need of the world.
Their stories, their message needs to be celebrated, retold, amplified, not only for sports to get its due in India, but also because they stand for the triumph of human efforts over circumstances.
It will be very tragic if these inspirational tales are lost in the din over the bad-boy-with-a-good-heart stories of a privileged person with a massive sense of entitlement.
Whether people are defending Salman – “but look at his charity work!” - or celebrating his conviction – “this shows everyone is equal before the law” – it should not take focus and attention away from Chanu and Gururaja, who have worked for their place on the podium, and in the nation’s mind space.