Do women in India face barriers in sports?
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Hello and welcome back to What's in the World from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Gelbart. Today we're talking about Indian sportswomen. They are breaking down barriers and trying to prove that the playing field belongs to everyone. But it's not a smooth run. It's more of an obstacle course. From dodging gender bias to tackling the lack of funding, they have had to fight hard just to stay in the game.

And to recognise some of their achievements, the BBC has just had its Indian Sportswoman of the Year Awards. So today you're going to hear about some of the challenges that female athletes in India face and how they're striving for recognition in the male-dominated sporting world.

The BBC's Divya Arya was at the ceremony in Delhi and joins me now. Hi. Hi. Good to be back on the programme. Great to have you back. To start off with, what were the sports that they were celebrating at the ceremony and what were some of the highlights of it for you? It was a pretty grand event. We had people from the media, social work, politicians, sports industry to honour.

various sportswomen. We had four main sports awards to hand out, which was celebrating different kinds of achievements that women had across different sports. So the main award is called the Indian Sportswoman of the Year Award, and it is chosen from five nominees. And the five nominees included for

And for this year, Smriti Mandana, who is a cricketer. How can you not have a nominee who is a cricketer from India? Though, again, it's a completely male-dominated media landscape when it comes to coverage of cricket. So it was really good to have Smriti Mandana right up there in the nominees. We also had shooter Manu Barker, who was the first Indian to win two Olympic medals in

won Olympic Games, which was in the Paris Olympics in 2024. But also shows how few women have won medals for the country with the first medal in an Olympic coming only in the year 2000. We also had another shooter, but a parachuter, Avni Lekhra, who had won a gold and a bronze in Tokyo and followed it up with a gold

in Paris. So the only Indian woman to win three Paralympic medals, she was up there in that list. And we had Aditi Ashok, a golfer who has been on the LPGA tour, the Ladies European tour and been to the Olympics as well. And finally, we had wrestler Vinesh Fogart. She has been in the news and I have come on this program to talk about how she helmed protests against alleged sexual harassment of wrestlers.

by the chief of the Indian Wrestling Federation. And that case is in court right now. Of course, he denies all allegations, but that's how she came into spotlight. But this year, she was also in the spotlight in the Olympics, where she made it to the finals, but unfortunately failed the way in. And out of these five,

The winner was Manu Bhakar. Why was Manu Bhakar chosen? Well, one was that she created history by becoming the first Indian woman to win two medals in one Olympic, which was in the Paris Olympic. And the other was her amazing comeback, which she alluded to when she spoke to the audience. In Tokyo, she went there on a big high, winning Asian Games and Commonwealth Games medals, but performed really poorly. And then her pistol malfunctioned. And she spoke about how she had thought of almost quitting the sport.

But her resilience, she says, took her through, brought her back. Let's actually hear from Manu Bakker. Here she is accepting her award. So it has been, you know, a journey of full ups and downs and whatnot, everything. I lost so many matches. I won so many matches. But most importantly, I'm so thankful to be standing here with all of you. And I hope that this experience

inspire not just so many women in our country but also all the athletes and all the people who have big dreams who want to do something big with their lives. The journey doesn't end where you are struggling or where you're not winning medals or winning laurels but it continues. So Divya, why is it so important to have this award ceremony that honours sportswomen in India?

So women in sports is a very recent phenomena in India. Of course, socially, the whole South Asian subcontinent is not top of the list in terms of encouraging women out of their households into lives that can be in any field, in any industry, but least of all sports, which has been seen as a very masculine form of an activity. It's outdoor, you know, women are

We've been obsessed with the white skin color or the fairer skin color. So the fact that women will go out, they'll play, their skin will turn darker or that they'll be seen more manly, their hands will not be soft. So this whole idea of what an ideal woman is and her primary identity as somebody who gets married

bears children, takes care of the family has been an impediment. So all the sporting achievement we are now actually seeing is where individuals have had huge support from their families. So when we started this award, we realized that there was a focus on sport. India does very well, especially in cricket around the world. But all of that focus is on the men.

And when we see individual families putting their energy behind sportswomen, we needed to focus especially on them and be more diverse and inclusive in our own coverage. So this award is not just about one Indian sportswoman, but it's also in commitment that in our editorial coverage, we cover stories of sportswomen, the challenges they face, and

and what is helping them forward. What are some of the biggest challenges that female athletes in India face today? So apart from their family or the society pulling them back, the biggest challenge has been money in the sport. So for example, even women's cricket was not, so we know men's cricket in India is governed by the richest cricket board called the BCCI. But the women's

cricket was governed by a very poorly funded cricket board. So a lot of women paid their own money to support their travel and training. So given all of that, now they've moved under the BCCI, but

essentially the money in the sport has been abysmal. They haven't got support, especially when they're really starting. What they need is support at that time, which can then make them elite players, which can take them to elite competitions and give them the support they need to develop their potential to stand or stand out in international competition.

How unique are these challenges to India? See, India is a developing country. And while we have a government who wants to project the various good parts that the country is seeing, for example, a growing economy, while many countries are seeing a slowdown.

It is a reality that for us, the priorities would be health, education, some very basic amenities that the billion plus population in the country needs. Now, sports doesn't come as high a priority as it might come for, say, a developed country like

the US or a bigger economy like China. So we're not able to invest in sports in the same way like these big performers on the international stage. So within that, we did a study of how much money the government has been putting into sport in the last 20 years. And as a percentage of its total money spent on various things, the good thing is it hasn't fallen. It hasn't increased, but it hasn't fallen.

From the female athletes that you have spoken to, that you've interviewed, what do you think

What are some of their personal experiences? Like, do they have concerns about things like safety, well-being? Is there a lot of sexism in the industry? There is definitely concern around safety, threats of harassment. We have a huge paucity of female coaches across all sporting disciplines. The Wrestling Federation of India has been under a huge cloud. Sexual harassment allegations have surfaced, but that's not the

only sport. We've seen that happen in hockey. And we have to keep in mind that it's very hard to speak up because of the control coaches, federations, the sport federations have on the growth of a career, on granting opportunities to the athlete or the player to move forward. I've spoken to players who've said that they also don't want to speak up because they don't want their family to

pull them back saying, oh, it's not safe for you. We cannot guarantee your safety. You cannot speak up. So let's just, you know, change tack, leave the sport, do something else. And that is tied up with the lack of infrastructure in terms of female coaches, even like women's

dressing rooms to change simple things like that, which haven't really been put in place. And it's only changing slowly, but it is surely changing because individual effort has thrown up medals at the Olympic, Paralympic level, at the Asian Games level. And as that performance improves, it's kind of hard to ignore the potential.

women are displaying and therefore their demands for infrastructure and support that they need to move forward. What about their fans? Do women's sports get enough support from fans? We have a big celebrity culture in India. So for example, Sachin Tendulkar is considered the god of cricket and would have

massive, massive following. But when I speak to players now, women players, they also tell me about media management, about having social media profiles that are active. They know they have to put themselves out there. As their achievements have grown, sports sponsorship firms have sought them out. Advertising firms have sought them out. And the more visibility they have got, that has helped them build a fan following. It is small.

but it is growing. Divya, you've talked a bit about the cultural and societal challenges, the funding and the lack of equal opportunities regarding money. What is being done to address this inequality in sports?

I think what rides above all of these things is the individual spirit to excel. And for example, one of the women that we honored in our award ceremony was the emerging player of the year. Her name is Sheetal Devi. She is the Indian archer without arms who shot and won a Paralympic medal in the 2024 Paralympics.

She's born with a rare congenital disorder and is one of the few female archers in the world to compete without arms. But if you look at Sheetal's own journey, for her to actually make it to that top level, for her story to come out, it's completely her personal perseverance. Because she comes from a small village on the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. She battled a lot of ridicule and body shaming.

And only when she and her family tried to get her better medical resources, tried to find out more about her condition and other people with that condition, did they chart their own path to get her to where she is right now. And that's something that I've heard repeatedly. So while there is

slow and incremental change in the increase of sponsorship, in more government schemes that are trying to help athletes at a very young age, at a very formative age, while they're still just starting up, not only supporting them when they have already gotten to an international level on the basis of their own resources, for example. While those things are happening, a lot of it

tends to happen when they've already reached a certain level. And this picture is, again, has to be seen along with this challenge of still not being able to report on harassment, not being able to have safe spaces to practice or people you can trust. So it's a mixed picture.

Things are changing very slowly. But I think what's really taking these female athletes to the next level is their own perseverance, the support of their families and the somewhat external support that's coming their way. But it's not easy by any mile. Divya, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Now Divya mentioned another episode of the podcast that I spoke to her about Indian sports. It's called Why Did India's Top Female Wrestler Quit Before the Olympics? And you can find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. I'm Hannah Gelbart and you have been listening to What In The World from the BBC World Service. If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And we are also on YouTube. You can find us on the BBC World Service YouTube channel. Subscribe to the channel, save our playlist. It's called What In The World In The Studio. And I can't wait to see you there. Bye.