Hina Bano, who was once beaten up for playing hockey, makes India’s senior team

BENGALURU: When Hina Bano received the news of her first call-up to the Indian senior women’s hockey team on Monday, emotions ran high.Hina’s first instinct was to call her mother. She broke down despondently—not just from joy, but from the memories of everything her daughter had endured before she got here. For the 22-year-old midfielder from Lucknow, the Indian senior team jersey is proof that perseverance can survive fear, opposition and even violence. A recent BBC and Collective Newsroom study on women’s participation and viewership in sport showed that women’s participation in UP has risen from 1% to 10% over the past five years. Behind this increase are the stories of women who fought societal and personal battles just to continue in the sport.Hina’s story is one of them. She lost her father when she was two years old and was brought up by her maternal grandfather Ujagar Ali, a barber for army personnel, along with her uncles. Sports were never considered a viable path for girls. “My grandfather and uncles were against me playing hockey because they were afraid of what society would say if I went to the hostel,” said Hina.Hina started playing hockey in 2014 after her coach Abhishek encouraged her to switch from athletics to the sport. “Once I started playing hockey, I couldn’t stay away from it,” she said.Resistance at home intensified. “When I refused to stop playing, they beat me. I cried many times, not because of the pain, but because I was scared of not playing hockey anymore.”The pressure forced her to quit for almost three years. Still, the game kept pulling her back. In 2017, she secretly attended the exams at the SAI center in Lucknow. The school principal and coaches visited her to convince her family to let her play the sport. “It took a lot of convincing,” she said.