Sunday 26 October 2014

Sarita Devi

I had been critical of the Indian woman boxer Sarita Devi, who had behaved in a totally unacceptable manner in the medal awarding ceremony in the recent Asian Games by creating a scene by throwing tantrums and putting her bronze medal on the neck of her Korean opponent who was declared the winner in their bout.

 Many Indians at that time supported Sarita Devi, but in my opinion they were only being emotional.  Patriotism, of which I daresay I am not lacking, does not mean supporting every Indian even if he/she does something wrong.

I pointed out that none of the 3 Judges who awarded the bout by a very slim margin to the Korean was himself a Korean. It was a closely contested bout, and I myself thought that Sarita Devi did slightly better than the Korean, but then I am not a professional boxing Judge. Moreover, Judges, too, are human beings, and may have made a mistake. Lord Denning has said that the Judge has not been born who has not made a mistake. So ordinarily we should accept the verdict of the Judges, unless there is clear proof of bias.

  But Sarita Devi is a young, evidently emotional, woman, who later realized her mistake and unconditionally apologized. So the suspension order passed recently against her is  unwarranted, and needs to be reconsidered.

 The boxing authorities of the Asian Games should be told of Portia's speech in Shakespeare's  ' Merchant of Venice ', where she pleaded that justice should be tempered with mercy.

 In my opinion, in view of her apology, the authorities should have let off Sarita Devi with a stern warning that this kind of misbehaviour will not be tolerated in future, and will entail dire consequences.

1 comment:

  1. It is the part of the life, when a person is dominated by his or her sentiment and emotions, often and on he or she commit mistake, which should be treated as a natural, due to articulated emotions and sentiment and i f the same person seek apology, in this regard, then the natural judgement says that he or she should be pardoned. I completely endorse your view and also appreciate your feeling of mercy.

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