A Hockey Coach Shows Us The Mirror — Again

“Didn’t feel like I was valued or respected.”

“This country is extremely difficult for a woman.”

“I come from a culture where women are respected and valued. I don’t feel that here.”

“I look at the difference at how men’s coaches are treated… between me and the men’s coach, or the girls and the men’s team, just in general.”

“The fact that I feel—I don’t even know if it’s true–that I am not taken seriously.” 

As questions hover about her future, the Indian women’s hockey coach Janneke Schopman, who was on the winning Dutch team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, said all this and more recently. Schopman’s own record hasn’t exactly been stellar—the women’s team didn’t qualify for the forthcoming Paris Olympics and her recent history is littered with questionable choices such as dropping star player Rani Rampal from the 33-member core hockey team last year.

“Whatever happened with me wasn’t right in the last two years,” Rampal said. “I came back from an injury, was the top scorer at the National Games but wasn't picked.” Rampal added that she didn’t know why she had been left out. Schopman picked younger players over penalty corner veterans Gurjit Kaur and Deep Grace Ekka, leaving them out of the Olympic qualifiers team. 

Schopman's tone is very different from the high note her predecessor struck when he left shortly after the Indian women’s team, led by Rampal, came fourth in the Tokyo Olympics, its best performance. “We did not win a medal, but I think we have won something bigger,” Sjoerd Marijne tweeted. “We have made Indians proud again and we inspired millions of girls that dreams CAN come true as long as you work hard for it and believe it!” 

Yet Schopman’s thoughts about gender discrimination in Indian sport, coming as they do in the midst of repeated humiliation for India’s top wrestlers, ring truer than Marijne’s platitudes about hard work and inspiration for girls. 

It’s already more than a year since our leading wrestlers—once feted as international champions by the establishment—came out on Delhi’s streets to protest their sexual harassment and exploitation by a top ranking official and Member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party. It was the first time Olympic medal winners had spoken up against harassment by officials. 

Yet despite their multiple international medals and their unified stand, Brij Bhushan Singh Sharan, the man who they raised their voice against, continues to assert his political clout. “Dabdaba tha, dabdaba rahega (We dominated and our dominance will continue),” he declared after his close aide Sanjay Singh, was elected the new chief of the Wrestling Federation of India in December. A reporter who was travelling outside Lucknow around this time spotted large posters of Singh splashed everywhere with that dialogue and images of his supporters. 

The government promised the protesting wrestlers that Singh’s family and friends wouldn’t be allowed to run wrestling, but never stood by this promise. Singh’s son Karan Bhushan was just appointed president of the Uttar Pradesh Wrestling Association. If India’s strongest women can’t get justice, what hope is there for the others? 

Singh’s case is the most high profile, but there are many other horror stories in Indian sport.

In 2020, The Indian Express used RTIs and reports to ascertain that in the decade from 2010, at least 45 complaints of sexual harassment were reported at 24 different government-run sports institutes. 

In 2022, cyclist Deborah Herold, a story of legendary grit from the Andamans (she crowdfunded the purchase of a custom-made cycle for an international meet), complained that national cycling coach RK Sharma had offered her a “post-training massage” and asked her to “sleep with him” during a camp abroad. She said that she was “slapped”, “ridiculed” and “harassed” for years by Sharma and his assistant. That same year Alex Ambrose, assistant coach of the Under-17 women's football team, was sacked for sexual misconduct. There are many more such recent examples across sports. 

Apart from sexual harassment, women athletes must face body and skin colour shaming and resistance from their families. They have no access to good equipment, sports clubs or regular tournaments and most of them certainly don’t receive equal pay. In 2021, one hurdle was overcome when the Board of Control for Cricket in India said it would offer equal pay to all contracted men and women Team India cricketers. It didn’t really herald any “era of gender equality” as BCCI secretary Jay Shah predicted it would. We are all still waiting for that promised level-playing field. 

Apart from Indian sports' well-known record of gender discrimination, it’s also true that we feel enraged when anyone holds up a mirror that clearly reflects our divisive soul. 

French journalist Vanessa Dougnac, who reported for four French publications, was recently forced to leave India after she was served a notice by the Ministry of Home Affairs that said her “malicious” reporting created a “negative perception” of India and could “provoke disorder and disturb peace in certain sections of society”. Dougnac, who has been covering India for two decades, refuted these charges. 

We feel upset when our dark side is uncovered, not because we are contrite about the nature of the crimes we commit against the most vulnerable but because the wider world now knows we are committing them. Why just Dougnac or Schopman? If it were upto us, we would banish anyone who holds up a mirror that forces us to face ourselves.

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.