At another football final 3,000 km away, a fight against social ills

His team won 3-0. Its members: his wife, Sunita Munda, and mothers from Chattasudag village of Khunti district.
The Matra Shakti Football Tournament in Jharkhand was contested by 32 all-women teams from 23 villages in Ranchi and Khunti districts. Central to every team, comprising married women and mothers, was a social issue — child marriage, sexual harrassment, domestic violence, and witchhunts, to name a few.

Sunita’s team was playing against a village in Namkum’s area of Ranchi district. And though it won the final, all the participants, in a sense, were the winners.

“They formed teams and included one social evil which afflicted the society and fought their way to the field,” said Chandan Singh, co-founder of a Jharkhand-based social enterprise ‘Pratigya’. Singh said he had observed that there was a sharp decline in adolescent girls in the playground and the reasons were many. “We came up with a sports development model in 2017 where we are reaching out to mothers to come out and play. Mothers participating in the tournament will encourage their children (especially girls) to engage into sports activities. The idea is to bring a wholesome change in a children’s education where sports play an important role.” This was the fourth edition of the same tournament.

Organising it was a challenge. The organisers had to deal with women ranging from 21 to 57.

Coordinator Laxmi Kujur said that they had conducted at least five meetings each in the 23 villages to convince the mothers and their husbands, along with the village community, to let them play. “How can we play? We are so old? What will men think of us when we play in saris and jerseys?” said Kujur, recalling the early resistance from the women. The husbands too were not keen.

Three teams were formed from Kudlong village of Ranchi district. Maini Kacchap, 42, played for the first time and was in Stadium on Sunday to watch the finalists play. Her husband is a driver by profession and she convinced her family to play, but one of her team mates Manju Devi was troubled by her husband. “She was beaten, her stove made of mud was broken by her husband. We had to call her husband and then convince him…We kept domestic violence as our theme against social evil,” she said.

“Not only this, after we won the match we asked the husband to come to the field to hand over the trophy to his wife,” chuckled Kacchap who thinks it is too early to quantify the change from the issues they break.

None of the Kudlong team could reach the finals, but the team members said that they learnt a lot and ‘eagerly waiting for the next year’. Another mother and player Usha Oraon said: “One of our teammates had to harvest her paddy and six of us did the work for her so that she can play with us. It was a great team building exercise.”
Dipika Kerketta, 35, says that her legs are still ‘hurting’.

Coordinator Kujur said that in one of the villages, a mother and her daughter played their first game together. “But the problem was that the entire village was averse to them playing, and therefore her husband or anyone was not ready to help them commute to the venue–six kilometres away. They walked together and played.”

The players said often they had many levels of discussions with the neighbours and male members of the village and sometimes brought them till the playground to see for themselves. For some, it also improved their relationships.

With a theme of ‘Nasha Mukti’, Sushila Kumari, who is in her late 20s, played from a village in Kanke block of Jharkhand along with her mother-in-law. “My father-in laws used to say to go for running practice along with my mother-in-law Bito Devi. Earlier there were problems in speaking my mind, now we have a bonding and we played four matches till the semi final–all without any shoes.”

At the ground in Ranchi, none of the players seem aware of the FIFa World Cup Final. Sukku Munda’s wife Sunita said she is elated that her team won the match. “This trophy is a big prize for us. Maybe the World Cup of our village.”