FIFA World Cup 2022: How football helps Indian girls recast sports skills and social structures

Two teams of young Indian women footballers line up for a match in Thane, Maharashtra (Photo courtesy: Teresarian Football Academy, Palghar, Maharashtra)

Early October, construction workers in Jharkhand's Gumla district were busy laying a road that will connect one of its remote villages with the rest of the world. Named after Astam Oraon — India's U-17 women's football team captain and a famous resident of Gumla's Banari Goratoli village — the new road symbolises the roller-coaster journey of women's football in the country.

Young women like the 17-year-old Oraon, whose daily-wager parents encouraged her to take to football, are reshaping sporting talent and social structures by stepping on to the playing ground. In remote villages across the country, the love for football — the most popular and affordable sport in the world — is changing lives for the better through opportunities and new possibilities.

The early exit of the national team from the U-17 FIFA Women's World Cup in India which concludes on Sunday doesn't tell the whole story. The Oraon-led side is the first Indian women's team to play in the World Cup, lapping up an unfamiliar competitive experience. Behind the defeat is a tale of more knotty challenges in overcoming economic and social injustices and inequalities suffered for generations.

Former Indian striker Thongam Tababi Devi defied her parents to start playing football in Manipur. (Photo courtesy Thongam Tababi Devi)

"When I was a young girl, there were no opportunities for a woman footballer," says Thongam Tababi Devi, 46, a former Indian player from Manipur. "My parents would say, you are a girl, what will you get from playing football. I had to steal time from household chores to play," recalls Thongam, who played for India between 1995 and 2011. She was the captain when India won the first South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Women's Championship held in Bangladesh in 2010.

Sports for social impact

Young girls like Thongam, then and now, must confront the same question her parents had asked her, before they start kicking the first ball — what will you get from playing football? But the circumstances are slowly changing. Many football academies and training programmes for girls have sprung up across the country over the past one decade, and have been discovering talent and empowering individuals.

"The level of empowerment a player gets from a sports team is very powerful," says Franz Gastler, co-founder of Yuwa-India, an NGO which is bringing social and economic change through football and education for girls in Jharkhand in collaboration with BookMyShow's philanthropic arm, BookASmile. Based in Hutup village on the outskirts of Ranchi, Yuwa has a player-coach pool of 600 girls, 100 of them students of its academic school (Classes IV to XII) in the same village.

"Football brings a kind of confidence, camaraderie and team spirt that you get from a team sport. It only does that if the coaching is good and the quality of environment very high. It is not magic that football changes everything. It has to be done well everyday," adds Gastler, an American who first came to Jharkhand 13 years ago to work in a social-impact programme.

Football is helping young women fight social and economic injustices and inequalities in the country (Photo courtesy: Yuwa-India)

Aimed at girls from socially and economically disadvantaged families in rural India, football and education programmes like Yuwa's are helping young women steer clear of debilitating abuses such as child marriage, domestic violence and child labour. Being part of football teams and donning jerseys help the young women build confidence and leadership qualities even when they are not winning trophies. They also earn respect in the society.

"Football provided a new turn in my life," says Chanda Kumari, a Yuwa alumnus who is in her sophomore year at the Ashoka University in Sonipat, Haryana. Earlier this month, the Ashoka University's women football team became winners of an intercollegiate football tournament held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, its first such sporting honour. Kumari, 19, born in Barwe Basati village near Ranchi and started playing football at 10 years, was the team's striker.

In Maharashtra's Thane district, a whopping 22 teams of school girls compete against each other every season, reflecting the huge impact the sport has on the society. A large number of the young Thane women players comes from poor families living in the slums of Titwala, a pilgrimage town, and nearby Ulhasnagar. "Most of these girls live in poverty. Now football and education is giving them an opportunity for a better life," says Thobias John Thomas, a former Mahindra player who works as a coach and administrator with the Teresarian Sports Academy, based in nearby Palghar district, which provides training, equipment and educational scholarships to women football players.

New path for football

The changes happening on the ground in women's football are also influencing national policy for the game skewed towards men. For the first time, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) — the apex body of football in the country — has co-opted two former national women players, Thongam Tababi Devi and Odisha's Pinky Bompal Magar (twice-winner of SAFF Championship), in its decision-making executive committee.

Though Goan club Churchill Brothers' CEO Valanka Alemao, Thongam and Magar are the only women representatives of the new 23-member AIFF executive committee, many big policy decisions are expected on the future of women's football in India in the coming months. Among them will be a decision on increasing the duration of the two-month Indian Women's League. The two men's leagues last for five to six months.

Policy changes and more football programmes at the grassroots-level (like Teresarian's in Thane, Yuwa in Jharkhand, She Kicks Football Academy in Delhi founded by India's goalkeeper Aditi Chauhan and RFC Football Academy in Bengaluru) are certain to help Indian women's football in the future. India currently sit at 61 in FIFA Women's World Rankings of 187 member-countries. More Indian women footballers today play in foreign leagues compared to their male counterparts.

"I will fight for the girls," beams Thongam, who in her playing days was known as a "strong spirited fighter", about standing up for women players in AIFF meetings. "Indian women players must get more international competition fixtures and domestic tournaments. We have energy and strength, but not enough endurance. We run a lot and do a lot of hard work, but we don't fight. I want our players to be mad about football and stop worrying about problems," she adds.

Thongam's support for women players in the AIFF will matter a lot for the future of women's football in the country. It is also certain to give the much-needed confidence for young girls seeking a future in football. Says Ashoka University's Kumari, who is looking forward to continue playing football: "Football is the fuel to start the ride of my life. Football helps to empower young Indian women like me by giving us confidence to fight for our rights."