And Now They Go After Sportspersons
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-08-06 07:48:22
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
After the regretful incident outside her house after the Indian women's hockey team lost in the semi-final, Vandana Katariya, India's star player who became the first Indian woman to score a hat-trick in the Olympics, Vandana asked on Twitter - "Kya Dalit hona gunah hai (is it a crime to be a Dalit)?" Society must hang its head in shame for rearing people who differentiate between people on caste, colour, creed or religion, among other things. That it happened to the family of a player who was representing India at an international event is all the more shocking.
Several people, allegedly including a Uttarakhand hockey player, gathered outside Vandana's home in Roshanabad village in Haridwar district in UP and celebrated India's loss by bursting crackers, dancing and mocking Vandana's family. They said that the team lost because it had too many Dalit players. Where were these people when defying all odds, the same team "with too many Dalit players" made it to the semi-final? Where were they when the supposedly incompetent Dalit player Vandana scored a hat-trick?
Who are these people who identify others based on their caste and then attribute characteristics to them which come to their mind? To them, Dalits are incapable of excelling in anything that is the preserve of the upper castes, including sports. Their false notion of caste superiority makes them think that they are more capable than the Dalits and hence they take perverse pleasure in putting them down. They cannot digest the fact that Dalits can be as good as or even better than them if provided equal opportunity.
Are these people not anti-nationals? If, God forbid, Muslims had burst crackers on India's loss there would have been riots and they would have been branded anti-nationals. Then why should these men, all upper caste Hindus, not be branded anti-nationals for celebrating India's loss, whatever the reason? It is good that the administration has moved swiftly to identify and arrest the culprits. The answer to Vandana's question is obviously that it is not a crime to be a Dalit but it definitely is a serious crime to mock, harass or otherwise inconvenience Dalits and the administration must prove that by trying and punishing the culprits fast.
