Potential Mary Kom earns less than minimum wage

Banno can scarcely hold back tears about her predicament (Source: Muslimissues)

If Indian sports (other than a couple) were Greek tragedies, they would probably make Euripides jealous. Details about endorsements with more digits than you know how to count and articles about the number of wheels sportspersons own make not infrequent appearances in media. In heartrending contrast comes the story of Ruksar Banno, an erstwhile women’s national level boxing champion from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

Banno has participated in more than 12 state championships and has an impressive collection of medals as credentials. Banno’s father states that his daughter’s ambition is to become like Mary Kom. But desperate, earnest appeals to senior sports officials, the sports minister, the chief minister and even the prime minister have apparently fallen on deaf ears as Banno continues to barely eak out a living making kites. The arduous work of making 1000 kites a day yields a daily wage of just Rs. 80, which she does, regardless, in the hopes of financing her boxing dreams.

This comes close on the heels of another former boxing champion from the state, Kamal Kumar Valmiki. The 3-time district level gold medallist who also won a bronze medal at the Uttar Pradesh State Boxing Championships is forced to work as a garbage collector and a part-time rickshaw puller to sustain himself and his family. He aspired to become a coach at a state level academy but couldn’t due to financial constraints.

While some of her peers celebrate medal wins at the recently concluded Asian Boxing Championships and others are busy training for the upcoming India level Camp Boxing Championship in Vishakhapatnam, the facilities available to Banno are not even rudimentary. She cannot afford shoes and tracksuits to train, which might seem a luxury to the sole breadwinner of her family.

There seems to be a general sentiment of upswing in the newly robust economy, but amidst all the brouhaha, the voices of a few deserving toilers have evidently been smothered. The government continues to rely on euphoria to fuel its attempts to turn around the economy. But it needs to realise that those nations at the top of the economic food chain do not endeavour to advance economic growth, which is purely monetary, but economic development, which is encompassing of all the aspects of a nation.