How hockey is a ticket out of poverty for Simdega’s youngsters

When Sangita Kumari scored a hat-trick against Thailand at the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy in Ranchi on October 27, nobody felt more proud than her father Ranjit Manjhi. India’s star forward had once again vindicated his decision to back her in the face of dire poverty.“We have a small patch of land on which we grow vegetables, but it wasn’t enough to feed a family of eight. We ate once and rubbed the thought of food from our minds for the rest of the day,” Manjhi told TOI sitting in his thatched house with his wife Lakhmani Devi and one of their five daughters, Sarwati.Sangita’s successful hockey career has brought them better days. She’s not only part of the senior national hockey team but has also had a railways job since 2021. Her life is the dream Jharkhand’s Simdega district wakes up to every morning. 105848540‘Hockey Is Religion’Simdega is a poor district. Just like Sangita’s Karangaguri Nawatoli village, other villages and hamlets here are ‘multidimensionally’ poor, which means the people lack not just money but also basics like food, healthcare and education. India’s National Multidimensional Poverty Index shows almost a third (31.4%) of Simdega’s population was multidimensionally poor during 2019-2021, compared with 15% of India. Things were worse in 2015-16 when half of the population was multidimensionally poor. It’s not surprising that Naxals were active here and the last fatal encounter occurred just four years ago. With good education a distant dream, parents see hockey as a breakout opportunity for their children. “Hockey is like a religion here, it’s their obsession. But more importantly, it is the biggest source of income for the people in the area,” says Hockey Simdega president Manoj Konbegi. Even the local politicians realise this and they hold ‘Khasi tournaments’ every time an election comes up. These tournaments, where the winning team is rewarded with goats, are extremely popular.Simdega’s hockey obsession shows in the senior national team where, besides Sangita, Beauty Dungdung and Olympian Salima Tete are from the district. And now the U-21 team also has three players from Simdega – Salima’s younger sister Mahima, Ropni Kumari and Deepika Soreng. Catching Them YoungWith thousands of children aiming to join the national side, competition is fierce and it shows every time the government-run hockey academies hold trials. The district has two residential hockey academies and eight day-boarding centres for girls, with 25 students placed in each. The selected players get meals and a monthly stipend of Rs 500, besides coaching.Former player Pratima Barwa coaches at the SS Girls’ High School residential campus. Her own hockey journey was cut short by a knee injury in 1995, but she has been helping others, including Sangita, Beauty and Salima, shine since 2008. And she’s had to fight for facilities on the way.“We didn’t have an AstroTurf, but after we lost the Nehru Girls Hockey Tournament (U-17) final in 2010 by nine goals to Govt Girls Sr Sec School Shahabad where (former India captain) Rani Rampal was playing, we demanded an AstroTurf ground,” she says. They got it in 2015.To School With SticksFather Benedict Kujur also helped Simdega’s children raise their game. While teaching at RC Upgraded Middle School, Karangaguri, in 2003, he made it mandatory for every child to bring a hockey stick to school.“In the beginning, I faced a lot of obstacles, but with time people accepted my decision. The kids used to bring bamboo sticks and even tree branches shaped like hockey sticks,” says Father Benedict, who was Sangita’s first coach. “I made them train early morning on the riverbank, before school began, and again in the afternoon.” He moved to RC Primary School in Kochedega last year and hockey sticks are part of the students’ kit there now.A blow to traffickers?If hockey is a carrot for Simdega’s kids, it seems to be a stick for human traffickers. Although causation is hard to prove, the rising popularity of hockey has been accompanied by a fall in trafficking cases. In 2017, Simdega recorded 27 cases of human trafficking and 31 traffickers were arrested. Last year, when only five cases were recorded, eight traffickers were caught. This year, only two cases of trafficking have been recorded. IAS Ranendra Kumar, who decided to set up day-boarding schools in the various districts of Jharkhand when he was the state’s director of Art, Culture, Sports & Youth Affairs from 2015 to 2018, says, “I wanted to use hockey to empower the girls. Here, the kids start playing hockey from the time they can walk. The game is in their DNA. So, I wanted to tap into this.”Simdega SP Sourabh Kumar also believes in empowering children through the game. “Besides local tournaments, we have, in association with the NGO Shakti Vahini, held a hockey trial and selected 40 kids who will be trained in Ranchi. Five of them will be selected to travel to the US,” he told TOI.