What’s with Controversies and Sania Mirza?

Controversies and Sania Mirza do not make a good doubles pair but still the two of them get to partner a lot. Sport is typically not a career where one benefits from being in the eye of a storm, unlike the showbiz industry. Controversies take an emotional toll on the sportsmen and women which often affect their on field performance. Sania Mirza has so far built a successful career in tennis by her own right but hasn’t been very successful in staying away from controversies. The latest squabble created around her is purely a political issue which like most other political issues in the country got blown out of proportion.

What actually happened?

India’s newly created state Telangana is slowly finding its feet. To showcase itself to the rest of the world and the country, the Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao began scouting for a brand ambassador for the state. Sania Mirza who has a huge fan following and a global name in tennis was chosen as the brand ambassador. She is a perfect fit for the role and is seen as a true Hyderabadi. Her forefathers have served the Nizam’s government and she is a role model for many youth from the region and the country as a whole.  But K. Laxman, the floor leader of Bharatiya Janata Party in the Telangana Assembly did not think so. He questioned her place of birth, which is Mumbai and her marriage to Shoaib Malik, a Pakistani cricketer and hence reasoned that she is not Indian enough be the brand ambassador of the state. Normally these stray statements made by lesser known politicians get ignored or are downplayed. Given that the BJP is perceived as a Hindu nationalist party and the many goof ups by its politicians of late, this statement got caught in the storm and was blown out of proportion.

What should have happened?

There isn’t any dearth for the prospects of possibilities in our country. The simplest thing that as a nation we could have done was to not play up the imbecile statement of the politician. Such elements do exist in our society and it’s hard to admit that there is nothing one could do about it in the short term. The feminists would want to treat this as a gender issue but this controversy of Sania was to gain political mileage and was essentially a political issue like any other. There are precedents when Amitabhh Bachchan endorsed U.P and Gujarat at different times, it snowballed into controversies. They were seen to be as political issues and were buried promptly. But Sania this time went to town first making it loud and clear on twitter that she has always been an Indian.

But the people who admired her believed that, didn’t they?

Ultimately like every other controversy this will also die down but not before the world has had a hearty laugh at us. Especially not until our neighbours from Pakistan are done laughing.