Hina Bano's Journey to the Indian Women's Hockey Team

When Hina Bano received the news of her maiden call-up to the Indian senior women’s hockey team on Monday, emotions came rushing in all at once. Hina’s first instinct was to call her mother. She broke down inconsolably — not merely out of joy, but from the memories of everything her daughter had endured to get here. For the 22-year-old midfielder from Lucknow, the Indian senior team jersey is proof that persistence can survive fear, resistance and even violence. A recent study by BBC and Collective Newsroom on women’s participation and viewership in sport showed that female participation in UP has risen from 1% to 10% over the last five years. Behind that increase are stories of women who have fought social and personal battles simply to continue playing sport. Hina’s story is one of them. She lost her father when she was two years old and was raised by her maternal grandfather Ujagar Ali, a barber for army personnel, along with her uncles. Sport was never seen as a viable path for girls. “My grandfather and uncles were against me playing hockey because they worried about what society would say if I went away to a hostel,” Hina said. Hina began playing hockey in 2014 after her coach Abhishek encouraged her to shift from athletics to the sport. “Once I started hockey, I couldn’t stay away from it,” she said. The resistance at home intensified. “When I refused to stop playing, they would beat me. I cried many times, not because of pain, but because the thought of not playing hockey anymore scared me.” The pressure forced her to quit for nearly three years. Yet the game kept pulling her back. In 2017, she secretly attended trials at the SAI centre in Lucknow. Her school principal and coaches visited her home to convince the family to let her pursue the sport. “It took a lot of persuading,” she said.