The dismal performance of the Indian Women’s Hockey Team at the Olympic qualifiers this year emphasises the need to popularise the game. Apart from being financially deprived, the achievements of the women’s team are never highlighted by the media..
CJ: Aditi

THE NEWSPAPER rarely mentions it. The magazine pities it. And the news channels don’t care about it. Search about it on the Internet and you’ll find more articles on Chak De India rather than the sport. I’m talking about Indian Women’s Hockey.

At the start of 2008, the national team players returning from a training-cum-competition camp in Australia, were dumped into a shabby dormitory, 14 to a room, at the Karnail Singh Stadium in New Delhi. The situation is no better at the ongoing camp in Bangalore. The number of players per room has come down but the treatment is just as bad. They are now stacked nine to a room with conditions so bad that some players have fallen ill. A team, which has won gold medals for three consecutive years (2002 Commonwealth Games, the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, and the 2004 Hockey Asia Cup) is provided with dirty blankets, filthy toilets and, to top it all, ignorance from the media, public and the government.

The Indian Women’s Hockey team failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics this year. A week later, it was revealed that a majority of the women participating at the Olympic qualifiers were both injured and unfit, and did not have the desired standard for international competition. Whose fault is it? The players, the coach, the federation or the media? Well, I’d say it’s a collective mistake. Women hockey players do not even get half of the amount of money men hockey players get. After winning the 2004 Asia Cup, reportedly, the women’s team got Rs 25,000 each, whereas the men’s hockey team was given Rs 1.5 lakh by Sahara India Parivar for the same achievement. In fact, the stipend given to the players and other support staff is performance-based. So if the performance of an individual dips down, she has to bear the consequences mentally as well as financially. Both in hockey and cricket, women players face difficulties in finding a job unlike their counterparts who hold lucrative jobs in big companies.

In January 2008, members of the women’s hockey team were forced to buy equipment out of their own money even as the rupees five lakh fund, which the sports ministry had granted for the purpose lay unused, and the team members had no idea that such a fund existed. Evidently, the team members couldn’t buy the kind of equipment they should have been using at the international level because they didn’t have enough money.

The interest in women’s cricket and hockey is low and hence, the sponsors are not coming. On the other hand, there is a need for some kind of corporate support to popularise the game.
Apart from being financially deprived, the achievements and victories of the women’s team are never highlighted by the media, be it the cricket team or the hockey team. Nonetheless, Sania Mirza’s skirt length and nose ring are definitely of prime importance to the nation.

Till today, Indian women sports persons have remained in oblivion. People have stereotypes in their minds.

As Indian women’s cricket team’s most successful captain Mithali Raj puts it, “In a domestic tourney in Mysore last year, the local media covered only the first two matches and left the rest. Either they should cover all the matches or shouldn’t at all. This logic misses me.” This logic misses me too.