As Konganapalle Narayana lay on a creaky bed at Udhampur hospital in 2014, he feared for his future. During a military operation in Jammu and Kashmir, the army man was caught in a landmine blast that led to severe injuries on his left leg, which was eventually amputated.
“At that time, it felt like my life was over. I thought I would have to take up some daily wage job and make ends meet,” says Narayana, 34. “It took me six months to tell my family about what had happened. I didn’t know how they would react to seeing me like this.”
Growing up in the Nandyal district in Andhra Pradesh, Narayana had once harboured hopes of becoming a sportsperson. He was partial to football and kabaddi. As his parents worked on farms, money was scarce and he had to shelve his sporting ambitions to join the army and supplement the family income. Two years after the explosion, when Narayana travelled to the army facility in Pune for the fitting of an artificial limb, a window of opportunity opened again.
“The doctors there told me I could walk again,” he says. “They showed me videos of some blade runners.” That was Narayana’s introduction to para sport. After a helpful nudge from Col. Gaurav Datta, who told him he had the physical attributes to pursue sport, Narayana started down that road.
At the Paris Paralympics, which will be held from 28 August to 8 September, Narayana and his partner Anita, who is an accident amputee, will be the first Indians to participate in para rowing at the quadrennial event. Having teamed up only in December 2022, Narayana and Anita will compete in the Mix Double Sculls (PR3 Mix2x) event.
Such stories of courage and resolve are powering India’s Paralympics movement. When the country made its Games debut in 1968 in Tel Aviv, Indian participation was limited to 10 athletes. That number has grown to 84, as India sends its biggest contingent to the Paris Paralympics. The number of sports in which India is participating has grown from nine, in the previous edition in Tokyo, to 12. Javelin star Sumit Antil and shot putter Bhagyashree Jadhav will be the flagbearers at the opening ceremony.
“When I went to Athens (2004 Paralympics) for my first Games, I had spikes worth only ₹ 400. I had to go there at my own expense,” recalls Devendra Jhajharia, the current president of Paralympic Committee of India.
Jhajharia has been one of the pioneers of the sport in India. He not only won a gold on his Paralympics debut in 2004, despite the acute lack of support, but the javelin star returned to the field 12 years later at Rio 2016 (since his category was slashed from the Paralympics at 2008 Beijing and 2012 London) and reclaimed the title with a then world record (63.97 meters). His against-the-odds story has travelled far and wide and Jhajharia became the first Paralympian to be awarded the Padma Bhushan (India’s third-highest civilian award) in 2022. “What struck me then was that an athlete should never have to beg or pay to go to games of this stature. I never thought at that time that we would develop so much in 20 years. Only 15 of us had gone to Athens, and won two medals. Now we are sending our largest contingent.”
Indian para sport turned a corner in 2016, when athletes at the Rio Paralympics brought home four medals, two of them gold. While this in itself was a huge step forward for the country, the para athletes’ achievement came into sharper focus since India had won two medals at the Rio Summer Olympics, a silver and a bronze. Para sport, once relegated to the sidelines, entered the mainstream.
Much like their able-bodied counterparts, athletes received support from the government and corporate sector. A special facility for para sport was established at the Sports Authority of India campus in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
The tangible result of that concerted effort was seen at the deferred 2020 Tokyo Paralympics when India returned with a haul of 19 medals, including five gold. In all of the Paralympic Games before that, India had a combined total of 12 medals. That momentum has continued as India crossed the 100-mark for the first time and bagged 111 medals at the 2022 Para Asian Games, which were held in Hangzhou.
“It’s great when your country wins a medal. It’s a sum total of how developed your nation is,” says former para badminton world champion Manasi Joshi. “Even if you see the medal tally at Olympics, only the superpowers are always at the top. We are not there yet, but it doesn’t mean we are not on our way.”
“In the last three years, I have seen a lot of normalisation happening around disability,” adds Joshi, who is currently ranked No.4 in the world. “I think this is more of an urban thing, I hope it translates across India. I see more recruitment drives happening in corporate sector for people with disabilities. More hiring, more reservation, more communication, more narratives being changed.”
Not just one of the most consistent performers in her sport, Joshi has also been championing para sport in the country for over a decade. She missed a Paralympics appearance since the category she plays in wasn’t included when para badminton debuted in Tokyo. But with the SL3 class on the roster for Paris, Joshi is set for her Paralympics debut in Paris at 35.
“When I started playing, it was just something that I was pursuing for my personal journey, personal passion,” says Joshi. A motorbike accident in 2011 had led to the loss of her left leg, and Joshi restarted badminton in rehab and regained her fitness. Since then, she has excelled on the world stage, and won seven world championships medals, including a gold in women’s singles in 2019. “Now I’m hungry for a medal. This is one thing that I want to do. I am happy that sport gave me an opportunity, but now it’s my duty to make the most of it.”
Also making his Paralympics debut in Paris will be Sukant Kadam, who missed a berth narrowly in the previous edition. Inspired to take up badminton after watching Saina Nehwal win a bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, Kadam, the World No.5, will compete in the men’s singles SL4 category. “There was a lot of uncertainty after I failed to qualify for Tokyo,” says Kadam. A mechanical engineer, Kadam had chosen badminton over a corporate job.
“There were a lot of doubts. It felt like the dream was collapsing. I was thinking, am I choosing the wrong side? Am I on the right track? For 10-15 days I wasn’t able to speak to anyone,” says the 31-year-old based in Pune. As time healed the heartbreak, Kadam started working on his mental conditioning. Focusing on controlling the controllables. He picked up bronze medals in men’s singles at the World Championship in 2022 and then in 2024 and one at the 2022 Para Asian Games in Hangzhou to qualify for the Paris Games.
Badminton was one of the most successful disciplines for India in Tokyo, as the contingent won two gold and a total of four medals. The sport has also increased its scope, including 16 events and 120 competitors, as opposed to 14 events and 90 competitors in Tokyo, giving India more chances at winning a medal.
As India fields its largest Paralympic squad in Paris, there will be a lot of familiar faces too. Fourteen of India’s medallists from Tokyo have made the cut for Paris. Among them are Mariyappan Thangavelu who is bidding for a hat-trick of medals, to follow up his gold in Rio and silver in Tokyo. Table tennis player Bhavina Patel, who opened India’s medal account in Tokyo, and India’s first gold medallist in Tokyo, star shooter Avani Lekhara, will also feature in Paris.
Antil, who competes in the men’s F64 javelin event, has won almost every trophy on offer. Apart from winning the Paralympic gold in Tokyo, he is a two-time world champion and won the Asian Games gold in Hangzhou with a world record effort of 73.29m. With the spear in hand, he will hunt for gold once again in Paris.
One of the most anticipated debuts at the 2024 Paralympics will be that of Sheetal Devi. The Indian armless archer has made waves in the sporting world over the last year or so. Devi, who hails from Loidhar village in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir, was born with a rare congenital disorder, phocomelia, that leads to underdeveloped limbs. In a sport that covets core and upper body strength, Devi holds the bow with her feet and uses her mouth and shoulder to release the arrow.
The unique technique has taken her places. Only 17 still, Devi is already a world championship medallist and a Para Asian Games champion. The first female armless archer to win a world championship medal, she currently is ranked No.1 in the world in compound women’s archery.
Apart from growing participation in terms of numbers, India is making a foray into three new sports this time. The country will be competing in para rowing, para cycling and blind judo for the first time.
Kokila Kaushiklate, a visually impaired athlete from Haryana, will represent the country in women’s 48kg J2 judo. She earned a Paralympics berth by winning a bronze medal at the 2022 Para Asian Games. Arshad Shaikh, who secured his Paralympic quota by winning a silver medal in the Men’s Elite Individual Time Trial C2 category at the Asian Road Para Cycling Championships, will compete in para cycling.
In para rowing, rookie Anita (who goes by just her first name) will partner Narayana in the PR3 Mix2x event. Anita’s has been a short but successful journey in the sport. She started rowing only in December 2022 after a chance meeting with Narayana. Since the Mix Double Sculls event was added to the Para Asian Games programme in Hangzhou, Narayana and his coach were on the lookout for a partner. Though Anita, 29, knew nothing about the event or para sport in general, she was keen on giving it a shot.
“I had met with an accident in 2013, and my left leg had to be amputated,” says Anita, who hails from Rajasthan. “People in the village would think ‘this girl can’t do anything’. I was determined to do something different. I have done my MA (master of arts); but this is the first time I feel like I am headed somewhere.”
Though Anita was used to strength training in the gym, the elite programme she was put on to by the Rowing Federation of India, was gruelling. Rowing is particularly painful for athletes with lower body disability, since it’s the core and legs that power the boat. She suffered blisters and mental exhaustion at the beginning, but trained on without complaining. Only eight months after she had started competing, Anita-Narayana won a silver at the Para Asian Games in Hangzhou. In April, they won the Paralympic Qualification Regatta held in South Korea, to qualify for Paris.
The 29-year-old is yet another story of how sport is empowering people with disabilities and changing the world around them. “People would earlier look at us with sympathy,” says Kadam. “Now they look at us as achievers for our country.”
These heroes will be out in numbers as India aims to overhaul the Tokyo tally and set a new benchmark yet again. If the country is to take huge strides in sport, the Paralympic programme can be used as another avenue to inspire and mobilise the next generation.
“It was very heartening to see so many people stay up and watch Neeraj Chopra at the Paris Olympics,” says Joshi. “I want people to watch, enjoy, explore para sport as well. And not treat it as, ‘oh good for them’. No. We are just as much sportspeople. We are also putting in as much effort. Para sport is competitive. So don’t treat us differently. We are here, we are fierce, we have put our heart and soul into it.”
Deepti Patwardhan is a sportswriter based in Mumbai.
