There has been a rain of wishes and an influx of statements on whatever the Indian women had achieved in Rio-Olympics. These girls are our Indian pride, our national pride, our regional pride, some even engaged in saying our caste pride, so on and so forth. Prima-facie,  can the whole nation take pride for these achievements? Almost two centuries back, the fate of women in a land which had one of the greatest ancient civilizations (not explicitly the only greatest) was devastating, brutal and even bestial. Scriptures and the recordings show us that the ancient and the early civilizations of our land were egalitarian but in the later periods of degradation women were deprived of all their rights. Many men and women laid out the two century long transformation path with their fascinating, obstinate and sublime efforts and attempts, of whom social reformers Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Easwarachandra Vidyasagar (in the north), Kandukuri Veeresalingam (in the south), and the social reformer, the religious thinker, the political actor, the prophet of non-violence and civil disobedience Mahatma Gandhi, and the remarkable Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay are the signal posts. The change is colossal as compared to the many parts of the world though the situation there is far better but the struggle there had taken place for several centuries.

But certain parts of the country still hold the deprived medieval ideas and acts. In the context of sports itself, though there has been a sudden appreciation now from all corners of the country, the situation in the native town of Sakshi Malik before her medal winning act was quite contrary to today. Haryana, the state where female to male ratio is so doomed and shameful, the state which encourages khap panchayats, the state whose legislative members and even the chief ministers irrespective of whichever the party they are from speak so loathly on discriminative acts against women is suddenly calling ‘Sakshi Malik is our pride and we encourage our children to follow the footsteps of Sakshi’. These are the people who pulled her legs before her participation. Apart from her parents no one did embrace her. The story of other girl is quite different to Sakshi as like their regions. Dipa Karmakar besides the parental support, the sports culture of the Tripura and also the people of the region stood in supportive to her but the north-eastern part of the country is always alienated by both central government and majority citizens of the country, and now everyone engaged in chants and praises. The fate of games and sports in our country except few is neither considerate nor instigative and it is an undeniable fact. All the governments shower money, gifts, praises to the medalists to grab the attention rather considering the achievements seriously and initiate efforts to multiplicate them. The prime minister’s announcement  of setting up of a task force to plan for the effective participation  of Indian sportspersons in the future Olympics is a much awaited step (better late than never) provided it is continually monitored and evaluated but he has a record of giving statements, launching schemes by schemes, coining new acronyms rather critically evaluate what has happened to the ones launched so far. As a whole, if this change in attitude of the people and in the democratic government is rational and evolutionary rather faddist, this is indeed a good sign.

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