Manama, Bahrain, October 30, 2022: Former Indian female tennis player Manisha Malhotra sounded a clarion call at the inaugural OCA Gender Equity Seminar, telling delegates that “there is no stopping us in sport.”
Malhotra, JSW Sports (India) Head of Sports Excellence and Scouting, who spoke on Women Participation & Representation - one of three main topics during the two-day seminar – reminded the mostly female participants gathered at The Art Hotel ballroom in Manama that the future was bright for women in sport.
“This is the decade of the women. We now believe and the choice is ours. There is no stopping us,” she urged the representatives from the 42 Asian National Olympic Committees who are participating in the trailblazing gender equity seminar organised by the Olympic Council of Asia.
Malhotra used her own experience growing up as a tennis player in India to lay the backdrop for a compelling presentation. The 2002 Busan Asian Games silver medallist in mixed doubles said she was lucky “growing up in a household that was sport-obsessed. It was probably the greatest blessing in my life.”
Unfortunately, she continued, this was not the norm for girls in India where the common perspective was that women shouldn’t play sport. “This societal pressure was widespread, and even after I finished my career as a tennis player and got into sports administration, I found it was still the case.
“One day a journalist told me that as a tennis player, I had lived a privileged background and didn’t understand the true ground realities for women in sport. He was right, for as a tennis player, we lived an insular life. So I decided to travel around India to find out for myself.
“At an archery tournament in Nagaland in the East of India, I came across an archery tournament. I asked the organisers where the women archers were and he said there were none. The next day, I saw girls next to the venue shooting wooden arrows with bows made from sticks. I told them to come and join the tournament but they all refused as they said they would be scolded by their parents as they had to gather firewood and herd goats.
“It was then I got my epiphany that I wanted to help women.”
Malhotra went on to become the legal guardian of a couple of those young girls she met in Nagaland, and they went on to become Olympians. Her work continues.
