Karate is more than sports for J’khand girls in country-side
RANCHI: A central scheme to motivate girls to take up martial arts as a career is luring scores of young girls in the Jharkhand’s countryside.
The scheme offers a woman karate coach ` 500 for each class in a government school.
Throwing away the taboos attached with the sport, especially in rural hinterland, girls are learning karate, participating in state-and- national-level tourneys and eventually manning the cap of coaches.
HT spoke to a promising Karate player, Richa Sonkar, who had begun practising the martial art three years ago as a self-defence exercise fed up with sexual harassment.
Today, enthused by the government’s patronage to martial arts for girls, she has adopted the sport as her career and is inspiring scores of other girls in the process to take up the sport.
All of 14 and she has already made a mark in karate. A class 8 student of a government high school in Koderma, Sonkar has won a silver medal in the ongoing Jharkhand State Karate Championship at Ganpat Rai Indoor Stadium in Mega Sports Complex.
Ask her about her future plans and she assertively says that she wishes to become a karate coach.
Sonkar’s minces no words while speaking about her introduction to Karate.
“They (boys) often harassed me on my way to school and back. Karate not only gave me self-confidence to handle the eve-teasers but also made me feel empowered.”
Aradhna Pattnaik, secretary Human Resources Development department of Jharkhand gov- ernment, said they had already begun self-defence karate and yoga course for girls in Kasturba and most of the high schools in the eastern state.
“Girls who started martial arts for their safety are adopting this sport as career is good shine. We would enroll trained girls as karate coach for our schools,” the secretary of human resources development department added.
Ritika Kumari of Khunti, Aradhya Sharma of Koderma, Ugmani Kumari of Gumla, Arti of Dhanbad like several girls had started karate classes as school homework but now they are challenging each other in the Jharkhand State Inter District Karate Championship.
GIRLS ARE LEARNING KARATE, PARTICIPATING IN TOURNEYS ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND EVENTUALLY MANNING THE CAP OF COACHES