Back home at Manipur too, the report of positive dope result and the timing of declaration of result, didn’t go down well with the sportsperson and the people; with MOA (Manipur Olympic Association) deciding not to send participants to any National Championship and forthcoming National Games if Monica Devi is not sent to Beijing and citizens calling general strike on 8th August to protest dropping of Monica Devi at the eleventh hour.
Substantiating the general speculation that there may be something fishy about the dope test result, Monica Devi was cleared of all the charges. But alas, it came all too late for her to join the contingent to Beijing Olympics. India’s Olympic contingent Head Baljit Singh Sethi has said that there is no way Devi can compete. The entries closed on Aug. 7 for her event.
All this drama of doping charge at the eleventh hour and clearing of charges later, denying chance to sportsperson of this region to represent the country has put a big ‘Question Mark’ to the future of aspiring sportsperson of the region and the sports in India. Why this 'politics' to sabotage a sportsperson career and a chance to Olympics? Was it the case of preference over performance? Or as a colleague of mine suggested, it was a familiar case of intolerance of so-called mainstream Indian to the North-Easterner, which on any other time I would have differed but for the circumstances and timing of clearing the charges, which was in his favor.
Now, it would be interesting to see what action would be initiated against those responsible authorities. Or would there be any action at all?
-G. Tallo with inputs from AG
This's the procedure of INDIAN administration in selecting sportspersons for national, international sports event. ShiT !
All NE states olympic association should join hand with manipur's protest. Such double standarded act of country's olympic chief need condemn from all corner of country.
I think we need to condemn this lackadaisical and callous style of functioning by SAI.She should be compensated, and SAI must apologise too.
But, unless there is direct proof, we must not bring in the bogey of ' discrimination of NE' everytime. For, it dilutes the issue of actual discrimination if we use this label flippantly.
This murky affair looks more like internal politics of SAI. Or perhaps she did test positive, but since the proper WADA procedure was not followed in the whole affair SAI had no option but to give her a ' clean' chit? Weightlifters, esp those with Russian coaches( eg Indian WF) have this well-deserved infamy of being chronic dopers.
Its tip ice-berg, the dope test might have been right or wrong but when we speak of discriminations to NEastern Indians by mainlanders is a fact.We may be truely more patriotic than most of mainlanders but are treated like second class citizens in every sphere.Something has gone seriously wrong with the centre's approach towards NE people from very beginning.May be political alienation, Indian Education policies,media presentations,cultural divides (which did not go well with most mainlanders) and other neglects , which failed to put NE people in right perspective as equal citizens.