Lovlina Borgohain And The Game Of Political Showmanship

As Lovlina Borgohain brought the bronze home winning it in the women’s welterweight category at the ongoing Tokyo Games, she became only the third Indian boxer to win an Olympic medal. Even as the Assam boxer fell short of the elusive gold medal, she scripted history by joining a dream club of Indian athletes. A dream for millions, Borgohain made it her own by beating hardships along her way to register an unmatched milestone in the combat sport.

Borgohain joins the ranks of weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, women athletes from the Northeast who have displayed their top game at Tokyo 2020. However, the display of such sporting strength has been belittled by the poor display of political pomp and show in her home state. The festering optics of billboards in Assam reportedly took to wishing Borgohain when she qualified for the Tokyo Games, only featuring images of Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Chief Minister of Assam, and the state Sports Minister Bimal Bora in place of Borgohain. As bizarre as it can get, not only does such political poster-mongering throw logic to the wind but comes across as undisguised acts of political appropriation.

Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shaw took to Twitter to share an image of how Assam wished Borgohain when she qualified: "Indian Boxer *Lovlina Borgohain* has entered the Semi Finals ensuring an Olympic medal for India, the only question now is the color of the medal. For those who want to know *how she looks like*, here are some of the *billboards on display in Guwahati*!..” Shaw’s tweet that she posted along with a photograph of two such posters soon gained traction. In fact, the posters in question had appeared a week ago, leaving one to question the impulse behind the acts of Assam’s leaders in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state. Notably, the posters were taken down by the state authorities after the social media uproar.

Also watch: Meet Lovlina Borgohain: Assam's First Woman Boxer To Qualify For The Tokyo Olympics

A culture of political appropriation

Assam is not a standalone case. Doing the rounds are several posters, news media program creatives and the likes featuring leaders of the State stamping their authoritative presence overshadowing athletes, making the conspicuous absence of athletes even more evident. In fact, no single party or era can be singled out. Looking back, the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games had evoked similar campaigning. Agreed that athletes winning medals at the Olympics is an occasion to display patriotism. Cheering the Indian contingent in its resounding victory is hard-earned glory that no national leader wants to let go off. Only an image speaks a thousand words.

The sore point here is the optics of omission. It is akin to hijacking narratives — narratives of history makers and individuals who rise above their circumstances. It is akin to reducing the integrity of Borgohain’s image to a space of being unacknowledged and disrespected. Posters that should enable and amplify the visibility of an athlete like Borgohain who to begin with had to battle barriers of gender, class and access, the latter owing to the ‘remote’ treatment meted out to the frontier states of the Northeast is further invisibilized through such political show and tell. It’s not unless a player treads her way through tough terrain and finds singular fame that the Northeast occupies the national imagination. And even within that spectrum to be treated like an invisible cheerleader of the state’s list of achievements is a disservice to Borgohain and her ilk. The Assam state machinery co-opting Borgohain’s achievements in a brazen act of political showmanship indicates the existing apathy towards India’s athletes; how they exist at the mercy of political patronage. In India where women in sports or women's sports suffer from underrepresentation, this brings the accountability of stakeholders into question.

Also watch: Lovlina Borgohain: A Debut, An Unfinished Business And An Assured Medal At The Tokyo Games

Athletes have time and again foregrounded how accelerated sponsorships, quality infrastructure and an equitable access to opportunities are the need of the hour to create a more robust legacy in sports. Rather than political one-upmanship, perhaps this is the time to lead the change, popularize sports among young girls and their families and to let the likes of Borgohain, Chanu and MC Mary Kom own the mic and the optics.

(Edited by Amrita Ghosh)

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