VOICES from the world of sports rarely travel beyond the game. But then there are those who believe that speaking can make a difference in the world beyond the court.
“I am more likely to say something,” says India’s former No. 1 tennis player, Somdev Devvarman. Especially, he says, when the problems confronting him demand it: police brutality and racism.
Speaking to The Indian Express on Thursday, the 35-year-old man referred to recent cases of violence and alleged police brutality in the country, which he described as “shocking.” He also recalled cases of racism he had faced as a northeast player.
“Police brutality in India is off the charts. It is awful. It is simply a misuse of power. We read how they went out and burned villages, beat people, detained people, and how some died at the stations. Right now, a case is occurring in Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) in Tamil Nadu. There was the Delhi case that I also tweeted about. And the worst thing is that none of this is shocking to us. Why is it okay? he said.
The tweet he was referring to was part of at least four from May 30 to June 28, when he pointed to protests in the United States against the murder of George Floyd and said it made him “wonder how we feel about police brutality in India”.
On June 24, he tweeted: “The police in Delhi were then filmed beating people and forcing them to sing the national anthem. People die and are seriously injured due to this brutality. And nobody is responsible? No one. How is it okay
The reference was to an incident during the February communal riots in Delhi. One of the four men who were beaten, Faizan, 24, later died in hospital. Delhi Police had filed an FIR in the case against unknown persons.
The next two tweets, on June 26 and 28, concerned the deaths, allegedly in police custody, of a father and son in Thoothukudi, and the alleged torture of a young man in Tenkasi, both in Tamil Nadu. “How many deaths will they take until they know too many people have died? The authority misuses power and is not responsible, “he wrote.
Devvarman, who retired from the game in 2017, said he was “grateful” that the police in India generally “have no weapons.” “They have sticks. They come and hit you. It happened to a friend of mine and me at a concert. We were walking and it turned out that there was a crowd and the police weren’t sure what was going on, and they were going out and hitting people … I don’t think it’s okay, “she said.
Highlighting the issue of racism, Devvarman, a native of Tripura and who developed his career in Tamil Nadu, recalled a personal experience. “At first they called me a vigilante. My nickname was Bahadur, people said that all my life, “he said.
“Last December, I was in Kolkata and after an exhibition match, I was just running around the field getting cold. About five or six children came up to me and said “Chinese.” I don’t think they were racist. My wife was with me, she was furious. Not in the sense that he wanted to beat these children, but he wanted to teach and educate them. I started throwing balls with the kids. They were not discriminatory towards me. They thought it was a joke and laughed a little. But the truth is that they were like “Hey, you are different from us”. That is why I believe that we should all be educated and sensitive to these issues, “Devvarman said.
Now, he says, the time has come for the Indians to introspect and change. “I had friends I grew up with, who didn’t eat at the same table as me because they were Brahmins. People would not eat at the same table because someone was a Muslim, “he said.
She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.