-Ramphal Kataria
Why Sporting Excellence in India Remains Accidental: Lessons from Haryana’s Women Athletes
Abstract
The recent selection of seven young women footballers from Alakhpura village in Haryana’s Bhiwani district for Indian national camps offers an important empirical window into the structural realities of sports administration in India. This article situates the Alakhpura case within the longer history of women’s sports in Haryana and India, arguing that athletic excellence has consistently emerged from social resilience, family support and local mentorship rather than from a coherent state-led sports policy. Drawing on examples from football, wrestling, boxing, shooting and hockey, the article critically examines institutional neglect, politicisation of sports bodies, gendered vulnerabilities, and the absence of sustainable athlete-support systems. It argues that unless the state shifts from post-facto reward mechanisms to early-stage public investment and athlete-centred governance, India’s sporting success will remain accidental rather than systemic.
Introduction
In January 2026, India will participate in the Asian Women’s Football Championship in Saudi Arabia. As preparations began, a remarkable fact drew national attention: seven girls from Alakhpura, a small agrarian village in Bhiwani district of Haryana, were selected for national training camps across senior, Under-20 and Under-17 categories. In a country of over 1.4 billion people, such a concentration of national-level footballers from a single rural settlement is statistically rare and sociologically significant.
This article argues that the Alakhpura story is not merely inspirational; it is diagnostic. It reveals both the extraordinary depth of sporting talent in Haryana’s hinterland and the enduring failure of Indian sports administration to nurture that talent through systematic, equitable and gender-sensitive institutional support.
Alakhpura: Social History and Sporting Emergence
Alakhpura has historically occupied a modest but notable place in Haryana’s social imagination. It is the birthplace of Seth Chhaju Ram (1861–1943), a pre-Independence philanthropist known for his contributions to education and social reform, and is linked genealogically to Bollywood actor Mallika Sherawat. Yet, its contemporary prominence arises not from inherited social capital but from women’s football.
The seven footballers selected by the All India Football Federation include Sanju Yadav (senior national team), five Under-20 players currently training in Bengaluru, and one Under-17 player attending a national camp in Andhra Pradesh. Their emergence is the result of over a decade of sustained grassroots effort led by local coaches, parents and the wider village community.
Community, Gender and the Making of Athletes
The Alakhpura case underscores the centrality of non-state actors in the production of sporting excellence in India. Under the guidance of coach Sonika Bijarania and her assistant, football has become an everyday practice for nearly 150–200 girls aged between six and twenty years. Most players belong to families of marginal farmers or landless agricultural workers.
Significantly, the village has undergone a profound gendered transformation. Participation of girls in football—once socially frowned upon—has gained legitimacy through collective success. Sporting attire and public visibility, often sites of moral anxiety in rural north India, have ceased to be contentious. This cultural shift, however, has not been accompanied by commensurate material support from the state.
Haryana’s Sporting Pattern: Excellence from Below
Alakhpura fits a broader pattern in Haryana, where women athletes have consistently emerged from rural and semi-rural backgrounds with minimal institutional backing. The Phogat sisters from Balali, Sakshi Malik from Rohtak, Manu Bhaker from Jhajjar, and generations of women hockey players from Shahabad illustrate this trajectory. In each case, families and private mentors absorbed financial and emotional risks during the formative years, while state recognition followed only after international success.
This inverted support structure—reward after achievement rather than investment before—defines much of India’s sports governance model.
Women Athletes from Haryana: A Brief Overview
Haryana has produced an exceptional cohort of international women athletes across disciplines:
Wrestling: Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, Geeta Phogat, Babita Phogat
Boxing: Jaismine Lamboria, Nupur Sheoran, Minakshi Hooda, Sakshi Dhanda, Kavita Chahal, Nitu Ghanghas
Hockey: Rani Rampal, Savita Punia, Mamta Kharab
Shooting: Manu Bhaker, Gauri Sheoran
Badminton and Athletics: Saina Nehwal, Neha Snehwal
Cricket:Shafali Verma
These achievements coexist with persistent precarity, reflecting the absence of long-term athlete welfare mechanisms.
Structural Failures in Sports Administration
Despite repeated international successes, sports administration in India remains marked by four systemic deficiencies.
First, early-stage talent identification and training infrastructure is grossly inadequate. Unlike countries with strong sporting outcomes, India lacks a nationwide network of publicly funded sports nurseries.
Second, sports federations are heavily politicised. Leadership positions are often occupied by politicians and senior bureaucrats with limited sporting expertise, enabling nepotism and weakening athlete representation.
Third, women athletes face heightened vulnerability to exploitation. The allegations against former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and the prolonged protests by elite wrestlers in 2023, exposed deep institutional failures.
Fourth, financial insecurity remains endemic. In Alakhpura, while the state-supported football nursery provides approximately ₹2,000 per month, actual monthly requirements per player range between ₹25,000 and ₹30,000, covering nutrition, education, medical care and family support.
Why Girls Exit Sport Early
The attrition of women athletes is shaped by intersecting constraints: economic pressures on households, early marriage expectations, absence of injury insurance, lack of educational flexibility, and uncertainty about post-sport livelihoods. Without integrated scholarship, health and career-transition frameworks, sporting participation remains fragile.
State Intervention: Symbolic Recognition versus Substantive Support
The establishment of a women’s football nursery in Alakhpura represents a positive but limited intervention. Facilities without sustained athlete-centred funding risk becoming symbolic gestures rather than transformative institutions. Comparable structural support is urgently required across boxing, wrestling, shooting, hockey and cricket, particularly for women athletes from economically vulnerable backgrounds.
Conclusion: From Exceptional Stories to Institutional Change
The success of Alakhpura’s footballers challenges the dominant narrative that India lacks sporting talent. Instead, it reveals a governance deficit. Haryana’s hinterland continues to generate world-class women athletes despite systemic neglect.
For India to move beyond episodic sporting triumphs, the state must shift from celebratory reward frameworks to early, sustained and gender-sensitive public investment. The Alakhpura experience is not an anomaly; it is a policy lesson. Whether it is treated as such will determine whether future generations of women athletes emerge as exceptions—or as the norm.
References
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