A fighting spirit

Kolkata (West Bengal – India).

For young Muslim and Hindu girls of Kolkata, boxing is becoming the path to a brighter future. Simmi, Karamjit, Aditi and sisters Ajmira and Kashmira train as boxers alongside other neighborhood girls at the Kidderpore School of Physical Culture, a club in a Muslim ghetto of Kolkata.

In 2011 there were around 200 female boxers in India. The Muslim communities of West Bengal contribute about 55 per cent of the total. This would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Asit Banerjee, the president of the “South Calcutta Physical Cultural Association” began a campaign for women's participation in the sport at a meeting of the Indian Boxing Federation in 1998. Now, women boxers have already made an impact on India. Light-flyweight Mary Kom won a world boxing championship in 2003 and now she is an example for many Indian girls, especially after the successful release of “Marycom” a Bollywood movie (2014).

With a rape occurring every 20 minutes in a country with a population of 1.2 billion, women are far from being seen as equal in all segments of Indian society. To combat this, training academies around Kolkata set out to boosts girls’ morale, and self-confidence, as well as to help them learn self-defence and to stay fit.

However, for some young women, boxing is not only a means of self-defence, but a way of life. Ekbalpore, near Calcutta’s docks, is a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood dotted with dingy slums and gambling. Unemployment is high. The coaches of the KSOPC Boxing Club, Merajuddin Ahmed, popularly known as “Cheena Bhai” and his brother Nasim try to help the youth in their neighbourhood without any kind of sponsorship. The main problem here is poverty: many families can’t even afford the bus fare or the good diet necessary for a boxer. Girls share boxing gloves at the club, as they are expensive, and lament the fact that there is no sponsorship for women boxers. However, what these girls do possess is an undeniable fighting spirit.