Gender equality is a global mission. In the world of sports, it is a key objective enshrined in the Olympic charter. Gender equality in sports means breaking down the harmful stereotypes that continue to make women less likely to take up sporting activities, says the European Institute of Gender Equality, adding, it also promotes women’s advancement as professional athletes, and leaders in the sports sector.
Achieving gender equality is, therefore, a process, and cannot be attained by making populist announcements. Exactly, 16 years after taking women’s cricket under its wings, the Board of Control Cricket in India (BCCI), on October 27, decided that men and women, who represent India, should be paid equal match fees. While ‘equality’ is a subjective word, the better-late-than-never approach has been a small step in the right direction.
These are good times for women’s cricket in India. The first-ever women’s IPL has been planned in March 2023, and there are murmurs that after the announcement of the match fees pay equity policy, the annual retainer fees paid to contracted women cricketers will also undergo a healthy revision. An indication of the disparity in annual fees is that the lowest grade male cricketers earn twice as much as top-tier women cricketers, and India’s top men get paid 14 times over!
BCCI secretary Jay Shah knows when to pitch it right. After the Supreme Court amended the BCCI constitution to give Shah a second three-year term on the trot for the sake of continuity, the secretary celebrated it in the board’s very first apex council meeting by giving women cricketers a Diwali gift. Interestingly, Shah admitted in his official statement that the BCCI was keen to tackle the wrong of constantly ‘discriminating’ women cricketers. Ironically, his first three years as BCCI secretary with Sourav Ganguly as president saw zero improvement for women’s cricket.
The ’discrimination’ has been blatant, and will continue to be so until the Indian women’s cricket ecosystem undergoes a massive overhaul so that it impacts every aspiring woman cricketer, socio-economically. For that, the BCCI has to address the massive domestic network, review match day fees (senior women get up to Rs 20,000 per day as against Rs 60,000 for senior men), and give talented players and their guardians the faith and confidence to choose cricket as a sustainable career option.
The BCCI has to drive the state units, and make them accountable for a holistic development of women’s cricket.
The BCCI’s equal pay policy will benefit only a handful of contracted players who mainly play white-ball cricket, and are mostly employed by public institutions such as the Indian Railways. Quite a few players like Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur, who have lucrative endorsement deals and criss-cross the world to play franchise cricket, are not dependent on the BCCI payments.
Here, the women’s IPL could be a game-changer, as five franchises are likely to pick at least 10 domestic players each, and groom them over a period of time so that they not only strengthen their state teams, but also earn enough for a sustainable living. Gender equality will only be felt when the level of competition improves, and domination is not a one-way traffic.
When the men’s IPL was born in 2008, it was supposed to be a feeder channel to mainstream cricket. The IPL made the middle-class cricketer dream big. The many rags-to-riches stories reflect the aspiration of the gully tennis-ball cricketer who dreamt of sharing the dressing room with a Sachin Tendulkar or an MS Dhoni. The IPL lived up to its promise by not only making the BCCI one of the richest sports bodies on Earth, but also providing a stream of talent who can be the envy of the world.
Having said that, the women’s IPL will take time to roost, and since any sport involving the distaff side faces numerous social challenges and health taboos, basic things like gender sensitisation and security at every level of the game will then inspire young girls to love and embrace cricket.
One of the fundamentals of gender equality is to create opportunities. When the International Olympic Committee embarked on its gender equality programme, it set into motion certain policies that asked the world sporting federations and the National Olympic Committees to give equal weightage to men’s and women’s participation.
The Tokyo Olympics 2020 was to be the first gender-equal Olympic Games, with at least 49 percent female athlete participation. The IOC added 18 new events, and established equal numbers of spots for men and women, except baseball and softball. Even after all this, the IOC failed to establish its gender-equal policy in Tokyo largely due to several ‘women only’ regulations, and copious sexist media coverage.
Gender equality in sport is not only about numbers or paychecks. It’s about developing infrastructure, and an environment that is safe, welcoming, and respectful for all. If one needs to eradicate ‘discrimination’ in Indian cricket, the BCCI will have to be on a path that will require fundamental change in mindset and culture, together with design, planning, investment, and gender sensitive communication.
Soumitra Bose is a senior sports journalist, and a research scholar. Twitter: @Soumitra65. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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