Did you know about the connection between Kapil Sharma and India’s rise in the Paralympic universe? No, this is not a joke. It is a fun story though.
It goes back to 2016. The Indian contingent had just returned from the Rio Paralympic Games with four medals, two of them gold. With their Olympic counterparts having disappointed, the spotlight fell squarely on the triumphant Paralympians.
Their performances got amplified both in the mainstream media and on social media. Editorials were written. Tweets were tweeted. Cash rewards were announced. And in the middle of all this, the four winners—Devendra Jhajharia, Deepa Malik, Mariyappan Thangavelu, and Varun Singh Bhati—were invited as guests on The Kapil Sharma Show.
This kind of mass appeal was clearly a turning point.
“Up until 2014, the pool of athletes at the national level used to be less than 200. That suddenly shot up. Before the Tokyo Paralympic Games, we had 800-1,000 para-athletes turn up to take part in the para-nationals,” says Deepthi Bopaiah, CEO of GoSports Foundation, which has been working to empower Olympians and Paralympians for 16 years now. “The kind of reaction we saw after Rio helped spread the word, it helped spread awareness about the Paralympics.”
Cut to 2024, and a few more giant strides have been taken. In a year that saw India win the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and Gukesh Dommaraju become the youngest world chess champion, it was our Paralympians who delivered the most heart-stirring moments.
Avani Lekhara shooting a 10.5 with her final shot to make up a 0.8-point deficit to win gold.
Sumit Antil breaking the Paralympic record with each of his first three throws of the javelin.
Sheetal Devi, just 17, becoming India’s youngest Paralympic medallist and only the second armless archer in history to win a Paralympic medal.
Day after day for just under two weeks, a string of Indian athletes held the nation completely spellbound. The triumphant contingent returned with 29 medals—five more than it had managed in its previous four Paralympics put together.
The most interesting part? Unlike many sporting success stories in India, this wasn’t a complete flash in the pan. “There has been a huge change,” says Lekhara, who won a gold and bronze in her Paralympic debut in Tokyo and defended the gold in Paris earlier this year. “The awareness among athletes, the information that’s out there, the infrastructure and the resources available are so much better.”
This year, the Union government budget for the Paris Paralympic cycle was Rs 74 crore, a threefold increase from the Rs 26 crore spent during the Tokyo edition of the Games. Even the number of para-athletes who were part of the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) increased from 30 to 50.
According to Anukool Bharadwaj, Chief Strategy Officer at Olympic Gold Quest, another after-effect of Rio 2016 was improved access to the best of sports science and nutrition. Additionally, para-athletes also started getting access to the same coaches that were training top Olympians. Suma Shirur, for instance, a former Olympic finalist herself, was the chief coach of the Indian Olympic air rifle contingent at both Tokyo and Paris. She has also coached Lekhara since 2018.
Shirur admits that using her knowledge as an able-bodied athlete and coach to train a para-athlete wasn’t straightforward. “I had never really known any person using a wheelchair, let alone an athlete,” she says. “For instance, in the air-rifle event, our balance points are our feet. I had to work with Avani to find out what the balance points needed to be for athletes in a wheelchair. Avani educated me about their challenges and needs and I used my expertise to fit the Olympic way into Paralympic challenges.”
What has impressed Shirur most is the mental resilience Paralympic athletes bring to competition. “They’ve already endured so much in life—the very fact that they’re out there requires immense mental strength. When they step onto the global stage, they’re thinking only about winning, fuelled by a belief and determination few can match.”
After winning his second straight javelin gold at the Paris Games, Sumit Antil had talked about para sport becoming “a movement” in India. “The media is covering us and most importantly, the people are supporting us. We are recognised and more people are keen to play sport. That’s the real change.”
India’s journey mirrors the experience of more developed countries, where Paralympic success has helped reshape societal perceptions of disability. “Like any other mega-event, the Paralympics leave a tremendous sporting legacy. But what makes them unique is the social legacy they leave behind, too,” Craig Spence, the Director of Media and Communications at the International Paralympic Committee wrote a decade ago.
His words ring true even today. “We’re seeing a shift from sympathy to empathy,” says Bopaiah, pointing out that just the fact that the Paris Paralympics were streamed live meant so many fans got to see first-hand how high the level of competition was. “Definitely, there is a change in terms of accessibility, but we need to evolve a lot more. In India, we understand accessibility only in terms of wheelchairs and making ramps. But there’s so much more to be done to become truly inclusive.”
If the last two Paralympic Games are anything to go by, India’s stock is set to rise steadily, if not astronomically, given the heightened awareness as well as active government support and growing media interest. Success almost inevitably breeds success, especially when it comes to elite sport. What will be interesting to see is the kind of societal change this movement could spark. As Lekhara herself said: “A world that keeps growing more inclusive, where the differentiation is minimal to non-existent—that’s the real goal.”
