As much as it pains us to accept it, the fact remains that throughout the process of voicing our desire for some semblance of justice, there have been and there will continue to be detractors who claim that our demands are a simple manifestation of our avarice and in the process, claim the grounds for these demands to be inadequate or petty. While we might be tempted to engage with these claims and get entrenched in qualifying our demands to the government, which we still have faith in, we know full well that it would amount to a mere exercise in futility. Rather, we only wish to point out again that right from the outset, what has been cause for grief are the persistent lackadaisical attitude of the authorities concerned and their seeming disregard of us. Standing testament to this, we need only consider the first immediate response to our first press release where our parents’ approach of voicing our grievances (in print) was questioned as opposed to actually addressing these grievances or immediately initiating healthy dialogue towards resolving the issue. Further, as much as we appreciate the step that the Director of Youth Resources and Sports did take in setting up a committee to organize an award ceremony, as well as an assurance of the final sitting raking place in the month of May as the funds had already been received then, we find it disappointing that the assurances have amounted to nothing even having moved into a new month. Just as disappointing, if not more, is the fact that our demands for assistance and some felicitation from the government have been plainly interpreted as a desire for an award ceremony. As sportspeople in a state where we still have much headways to make at even the regional and national levels, it goes without saying that most of us come from humble backgrounds and hence even the slightest form of assistance from the government proves to be a monumental contribution towards our careers and our drive to do our state proud, a fact that we do not take lightly.
Patience is a virtue and it holds true all the more for us sports people across every facet of our lives that we have centred on our respective disciplines. With this in mind, while also taking stock of the sad possibility that perhaps, this will only go on to be the first of many steps that we may have to take again in the near or distant future, we have collectively reached upon the decision to carry out a period of peaceful agitation if no progress is made towards the resolution of the issue at hand by the month of June itself. Without a doubt, this decision has been made with a lot of trepidation and sadness that carrying forward our grievances in this manner will be seen by many as an attempt to strong-arm our government and authorities into submission. While we cannot and do not wish to curb anyone’s opinions, as critical as they may be towards our cause, we only hope that our protest will be seen for what it truly is -- not a move for mere financial gain or a protest against financial depravation but rather, an expression of our disappointment at the persistence of an injustice on general principle.
