L10 COVER LOUNGE COVER L11 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2014° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2014° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM UTEE C HAND COURTESY D ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT did not tell her what it was for, way she is, but her family and but they took blood, and made her older sister (Saraswati) were her strip. The next day, again very depressed. Dutee started without any explanation, she opening up to me. She had was told to leave the Games. A many questions about the test, few days later, back in India, about her own body, about Soundarajan saw footage of her androgens.” race splashed across news chan- Neither Chand nor her family nels, with a report that said she really understood what was hap- had failed a “gender test”. pening, and why anyone would Many of the reports suggested say their girl is not a girl. Other that Soundarajan was a man dis- villagers too stood behind her. guised as a woman who cheated They told her she had that her way to a medal. The AFI “thing”—essence, not genitalia— called to tell her that she was that made her a girl. barred from sports, and that her Mitra and Chand travelled to Asian Games medal had been New Delhi, where they hunkered taken away. A few months later, down for a series of meetings Soundarajan drank a bottle of with sports officials. The options veterinary poison in her village. were laid out for her: Quit sports She was saved by a friend who or put yourself through medical rushed her to hospital. Then intervention. Soundarajan was forgotten. “Dutee, Payoshni and I were In 2011, Mitra, who was work- locked up in a room talking ing in London, decided to inter- about what to do for a long view her. In the course of the time,” Thomson says. “At some interview Mitra learnt that point, Dutee broke down. Then Soundarajan was never given we ate lunch together, and when her medical report (a serious we resumed talking, Dutee said, RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT breach of protocol—such reports straight away, ‘I don’t want sur- Miles to go: (clockwise from are supposed to be handed over gery or hormone therapy.’” above) Dutee Chand leading to the athlete first). Together, “When I read that my condi- the field in the 100m at the they filed a right to information tion is treatable, I thought they Junior Asian Athletics (RTI) request for the report. meant that I could take a medi- Championship this year; Mitra made a documentary on cine, like you take a painkiller,” SAI chief Jiji Thomson; Soundarajan to explain her con- Chand says. “But when I was Santhi Soundarajan, whose dition. Soundarajan had female told that it would involve chang- running career was derailed genitalia, but the chromosomal ing my body in some way, I by a gender test; and Chand set-up of a man (XY instead of didn’t want to.” Chand’s deci- goes for an evening run at XX). She produced more testo- sion provided the trigger for SAI the railway training insti­ sterone than the average to act. tute in Bhusaval. woman, but she was also insen- Thomson immediately began sitive to the hormone, which ran negotiations with the sports inertly through her. None of ministry to allow the challenge these conditions is uncom- to be filed, listing carefully the mon—in fact they are far more potentially high expenditure of common in elite sports than in taking the case to CAS. average populations—and none “I told my minister, no one of them proves that Soundarajan has ever challenged this before, is not a woman. this is absolutely unprece- Mitra showed the documen- dented,” Thomson says. The tary to sports officials in India, word spread. Karkazis, Kidd, ªTheir sports career is the but got little response. In 2012, Bunting, all got involved. Mitra Soundarajan’s story got another spent all her time on the phone livelihood for their family. jolt when it was reported in a or writing mails. newspaper that she was working On 27 September, a Saturday, It is very hard to challenge in a brick kiln. Suddenly, there Thomson and Mitra waited anx- was a wave of sympathy and iously for a go-ahead from this policy because it support. The Union ministry Bunting to file the appeal with of youth affairs and sports CAS. Chand had been officially requires an interruption to offered her a job as a coach. barred on 29 August, and CAS one's career, and the toll But questions about her rules mandate that an appeal gender continued to haunt must be filed within a month of that can take is huge.º her—when she was given the ban. Time was running out. ATHLETICS admission to the coaching “Then the call from Bunting course at SAI’s National came through in the evening,” track to win a scholarship to a general, Jiji Institute of Sports in Thomson says. “I had stopped government-run sports hostel in Thomson, with Patiala, administrators my officers from going home just Bhubaneswar. Then she began whom she had denied her a place, saying for this. We immediately started winning everything. In 2013, she worked earlier to they could accommodate the process for filing the appeal. became the first Indian to reach rehabilitate another her neither in the The almost 5-hour time differ- the final of an international 100m athlete whose career women’s hostel nor in ence saved us. Those were tense event (at the IAAF World Youth had been destroyed the men’s hostel. Mitra last moments.” WHY DUTEE CHAND Championships). She became because of gender found herself up against a The stage was set. the senior national champion in questions—the middle- wall—the then director 100m and 200m the same year. distance runner Santhi general of SAI even suggested What makes you a woman? This May, two months before her Soundarajan. another gender test to resolve Why women athletes need to be ban, she had broken the 14-year- Soundarajan’s story is the issue. In early 2013, SAI got a tested for eligibility is perhaps old national junior record in like an inventory of every- new chief, Jiji Thomson, who the last explosive question left in 100m by a large margin. Sports thing that can go wrong took an unusually sympathetic sports, and at its centre right was her key to a different life. when an athlete’s most basic view of the case, and ordered now is the hyperandrogenism “The pressure on athletes to identity is questioned. She that NIS immediately take her in policy. Men and women both remain eligible is extraordinary,” was born into a desperately and put her in its guest house produce testosterone, but men Karkazis says. “Their sports poor Dalit family in Kathaku- instead of the hostel. typically have more than 10 career is the livelihood for their richi village in Tamil Nadu, and Mitra was relieved, when she times the amount in their body. CAN CHANGE SPORTS family. It is very hard to chal- grew up in a house without elec- took up Chand’s case, to find The use of synthetic testoster- lenge this policy because it tricity, running water, or a toilet. that Thomson was still at the one has been clinically proven to B Y R UDRANEIL S ENGUPTA & peted at the senior level, the 18- news channels, that she had She decided to challenge the who will testify for Chand. Jim requires an interruption to one’s Her parents made a living work- helm. She raised the issue with boost muscle growth and explo- Why should a natural, inherent D HAMINI R ATNAM year-old Chand is well known. In failed a “gender test”. Chand was ruling at the the Court of Arbi- Bunting, a lawyer who represents career, and the toll that can take ing in brick kilns, a profession him, and Thomson took the sive power, and aid recovery ···························· June, in a breakthrough in her completely bewildered by the tration of Sports (CAS) in the Sport Dispute Resolution is huge.” recently in the news for being unprecedented step of sending from physical activity. Using condition prevent one of India's he sprinter Dutee Chand fledgling career, she won two news. It made no sense. Lausanne, Switzerland. Centre of Canada, is working as widely regarded as being akin to out a carefully drafted state- synthetic testosterone is simply leads a quiet, disciplined gold medals at the Asian Junior What she did have, and did “What I have is natural,” she Chand’s legal counsel, pro bono. The challenge slavery. Soundarajan’s athletic ment saying that Chand’s gen- seen as doping, and there is most promising young sprinters Tlife. It involves attending Athletics Championships in Tai- not know about, is a condition says. “I have not doped. I don’t “I marvel at Dutee’s courage It was a breach of confidentiality talent, though, was spotted early, der was not in question, and she agreement in the scientific or classes for 9 hours at the Zonal pei, Taiwan. Bigger stages called hyperandrogenism. Her deserve the ban. This should and strength,” Karkazis wrote in that set everything in motion. when she was in school, and it was being tested only for hyper- sporting community that this from competing? It's a question Railway Training Institute in awaited her—she was set to com- body produces a larger amount never happen to another girl an email. On 16 July, the details of changed her life.