At Sword’s Point

LUNGE FOLLOWED BY a long parry and a crafty riposte—the sequence intensi­fied as the scoreline jammed up at 14- 14. India’s Olympic hope CA Bhavani Devi was shown the red card for moving early after the referee called “allez (start or re-start)” even when her request for a video referral was turned down as she was sure both she and her opponent, Uzbeki­stan’s Zaynab Dayibekova, had moved together. That’s when Dayibekova halt­ed Devi’s gold rush at the Asian Fencing Championships in China’s eastern sea­board, Wuxi, on June 19, with the score now reading 14-15. Though Devi was leading 14-13 in the semi-final against Dayibekova, she conceded narrowly and controversially, settling for bronze in the tournament, making history in the pro­cess by securing India’s first-ever medal at the Asian Fencing Championships. On the way to the semis, the 29-year-old Devi beat the reigning world champion Misaki Emura of Japan 15-10 in the quar­ters. Devi, the daughter of a priest from Chennai, also holds the distinction of be­ing the first Indian fencer to have quali­fied for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as well as bagging a gold at the 2022 Common­wealth Games (CWG), and is an inspira­tion to those who aspire to make it big professionally in the international circuit.

Devi hails from a middle-class family while other emerging fencers are making a beeline for the sport from small towns and less fortunate backgrounds. The 24-year-old Karan Singh Gurjar from a remote village in Rajasthan, for instance, is India’s next big bet in fencing after Devi. At the Padua World Cup in Italy in March, he defeated then World No 7, Maximme Pianfetti, of Italy, finishing 32nd out of 203 participants. He also finished 32nd at the Asian Fencing Championships in Wuxi, and is training hard to qualify for the Paris Olympics next year.

Again, fencers Taniksha Khatri and Sheetal Dalal, both 20, hail from small-town Haryana, and have dollops of confidence to qualify for the Olympics. Khatri has bagged a silver at the Junior Asian Fencing Championships in Seoul, in 2022, and is even a London CWG silver medallist in the same year. Khatri merits her position and global 113 rank in the épée version of the combat sport to “reflexes, coordination and speed”, while Dalal counts on “strategy” for success. Both are now preparing for the Hangzhou Asian Games in September-October, and will then try their hand to qualify for the Olympics.

Fencers RS Sherjin and SN Shiva Mangesh hail from poor backgrounds in Tamil Nadu but they represent Chhat­tisgarh nationally. While Sherjin won bronze at the 33rd Senior National Fenc­ing Championship in Pune this year and participated in the World Cup in Milan, Mangesh bagged gold in the épée event of the 29th Junior National Fencing Cham­pionship in Sonipat last year.

Fencing is an elitist sport that came to India in 1974 though the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports recognised it only in 1997. It is elitist since, traditionally, it is related to duelling, a gentleman’s preserve that was well understood by the nobility of medieval Europe. Fencing gear, including the blade (weapon), suit and mask, is ex­pensive, and the piste or playing area needs to be 14 metres long and 1.5 metres wide.

At the very core, fencing is all about footwork and weapon (blade) manage­ment, just like D’Artagnan, the best among Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, the Gascon who exemplified much courage but little money—akin to the droves getting drawn to the sport from small-town India.

Today, the sport of fencing uses three weapons—épée, foil and sabre—and all three have their roots in the art of the duel. While in épée and foil styles the op­ponent is generally poked, sabre relies on the slashing technique as it grew out of cavalry fighting on horseback. Unlike a duel, no blood is drawn in modern fenc­ing. Instead, the point system ensures that when a fencer is hit, the weapon retracts and a score is recorded manually.

Despite the relatively late entry of the sport to the country and the high entry barrier, there’s a growing demand for the sport, and that too from far-flung areas and less affluent stations. After Bhavani Devi qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, more wannabe bladerunners are seen knocking at the door.

“There are about 8,000 fencers who are registered with us, and 1,500 of them are seniors competing at national and other tournaments,” says Mohit Ashwini, fencing coach at the Netaji Sub­has National Institute of Sports (NIS), Pa­tiala. Ashwini expects at least two fencers to qualify for the Olympics. He credits the enthusiasm for the sport to primarily four establishments. “Fencing Association of India [FAI], Sports Authority of India [SAI], Army Sports Institute [ASI], Pune and Bengal Engineer Group [BEG] Centre, Roorkee, conduct trials to select grassroots-level athletes in fencing,” he says, giving a background sketch of how fencing evolved in the country. “It all started in 1989 when a German coach came to India. He was the first foreign coach for fencing in the country and chose fencers from Manipur and Kerala,” two states with a tradition martial arts related to the sword. While Manipur had Thang-Ta practitioners, Kerala was known for Kalaripayattu. The German selected fencers from these two states and brought them to train at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi. Down the line, even Ashwini’s home state Haryana picked up promis­ing fencers and got them to train at the Motilal Nehru School of Sports, Rai, in Haryana. “By 1999-2000, young profession­al fencers and quality coaches sprung up.” Ashwini, too, joined NIS at the turn of the millennium, and soon got an opportunity to conduct classes for diploma in fencing.

FAI, though, remains the nodal body for the sport. It organises national camps and trials, apart from sending athletes and coaches abroad, and conducting a variety of courses. “We have taken efforts to pro­mote the sport over the last 20-30 years. We have made a chain of fencing associations right from the district level. Many associ­ates, former fencers and coaches are now working hard to promote the sport at the grassroots level. Besides, SAI is playing an important role by providing infrastruc­ture at every corner of the country. Apart from SAI, the Services Sports Control Board, and the state sport departments of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have to­day established fencing academies with international facilities, including foreign coaches,” elaborates Satej Dynandeo Patil, president, FAI. The association, adds Patil, has given a proposal to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to establish more Khelo India fencing academies. For tyros, Khelo India is an initiative that was pro­posed by the government in 2017 to revive India’s sporting culture by engaging with children at the local level. “We are provid­ing fencing equipment to every state and district fencing associations. We are going to strengthen our state units by making available the best fencing infrastructure.”

Patil’s deputy and FAI Secretary Gen­eral Rajeev Mehta, too, agrees that small-town India is today teeming with budding fencers though it’s an expensive sport. “Without the help of the government, you cannot run fencing in India. Even several industrial houses have come forward to help us, like JSW Steel,” says Mehta.

T THE STATE LEVEL, NEW talent is emerging. In the case of Maharashtra, fencing is prac­tised now across 36 districts with 80-odd fencers following a certifi­cate course in the sport. It is also becom­ing competitive, going by Maharashtra Fencing Association Mentor Ashok Dhudhare’s Under-12 and Under-10 camps. “I had started an Under-12 event in Nashik about 12 years back, and it was highly successful. I’ve been doing it ev­ery year at Nashik since then. Today, gold medallist Karan Singh Gujar is from one such camp. Now, we have even started the Under-10 camps,” says Dhudhare.

In Madhya Pradesh, fencer Pragya Singh is a farmer’s daughter but had never heard of the sport before joining the Madhya Pradesh Academy five years ago. Likewise, Shankar Pandey, son of a cook, had joined the Bhopal-based acad­emy six years ago. He then went on to win the 2018 Junior Commonwealth fencing gold in London and represented India at the World Cup in Kazan, Russia, in 2021. Also, take the case of Khushi Dabhade, the daughter of an operation theatre at­tendant, from the slums of Bhopal. On the basis of her performance, she was selected for the World Cup and has won several medals in national fencing competitions.

Among the 50 fencing centres ap­proved by the sports ministry, seven have top facilities, according to Ashwini—Ma­nipur, Assam, ASI Pune, SAI Aurangabad, Bhopal Camp Centre, NIS Patiala, and SAI Thalassery. Apart from them, there are numerous state centres. The ministry is learnt to be setting up 75 more fencing hubs countrywide—that will make the sport far more accessible.

The top fencers though prefer training abroad. CA Bhavani Devi, who was initially coached by Sagar Lagu at the national lev­el, switched to Nicola Zanotti in Italy, and now trains under reputed French coach Christian Bauer in Paris. She has in the re­cent past admitted to feeling the difference in quality and quantity of training under Bauer, perhaps a measure of her phenom­enal success at the Wuxi Asian Fencing Championships. Karan Singh Gurjar, too, trains at Bauer’s academy today.

Fencer Taniksha Khatri dissects the fascination to train overseas further. “I want to train abroad because in India, there are very few quality opponents. I was in Paris for five months, from Octo­ber 2022 to February 2023. I found a huge difference. I would call their [in France] training smart work, not hard work. Every session was a new learning. For instance, we learn techniques in India but they ac­tually simulate those techniques. There were two sessions [three-four hours per session] a week, whereas in India, there are four-five sessions. I like the French style and so I wanted to train in Paris because it is very different from the Hungarian close-touch fencing,” she points out.

Ashwini couldn’t agree more. He con­tends that in Europe, in particular, there are different and difficult opponents. Be­sides, “Our fencers are closer to every com­petition in Europe and don’t have to travel so much. There is also a problem of find­ing quality opponents. In Patiala, we have one-two very good fencers, but in Europe, say in Budapest, all top fencers practice in one centre. Obviously, the performance of our fencers [given such exposure] im­proves. India has to improve the number of competitions held here and have more international exposure to make a dent in the sport,” he observes.

Now comes the big question about the cost of the sport. Affordability of gear, mask and weapon is still a bother. Wan­nabe fencers have to be light on their feet and good with their grip so that their tal­ent catches the attention of the top fenc­ing bodies that can later sponsor them.

According to Ashwini, while a Chinese lamé (electrical jacket) costs anywhere be­tween `3,500-5,000, a European one will set you back by `10,000-12,000. Likewise, “an all-Chinese gear will cost `25,000. If you buy a non-FIE (Fédération Internatio­nale d’Escrime) kit with which you cannot participate at international competitions, and can be used in domestic competitions or training, it will cost `35,000-40,000. A complete FIE kit however is available for more than `1 lakh,” he says.

It’s not that domestic manufacturers have not tried. Narinder Sharma, pro­moter of Asian Sports, is based in Patiala and has been selling fencing equipment since 1998. He makes fencing gear from his two factories in Patiala with the four-layered fencing suit and the sword vend­ing for `2,500 apiece. Yet, the top fencers use international gear since, like many other domestic players, Sharma’s fencing equipment is not FIE approved.

On the whole, contends Rajeev Mehta of FAI, fencing equipment is expensive and most of it is imported from Germany. “We have tried to give impetus to local manufacturers under the ‘Make in India’ banner but they haven’t been successful. Chinese equipment is better and cheaper but the government doesn’t allow import from that country at the moment. So, we have to rely on German fencing gear.”

As a new day dawns, hundreds of fenc­ers from little-known India can be seen par­rying for popularity on the long and narrow piste at NIS Patiala. Bhopal Camp Centre, SAI Aurangabad, SAI Thalaserry, etc, are witness to similar scenes. With poise, agility and craft embedded in the sport, audiences are being ensnared as well—a bit like the duelling scene in the corridors of the Blade Club in Die Another Day (2002), where the sword fight between James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), by the way, was choreographed by none other than former Olympic fenc­er Bob Anderson who also doubled for Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi for the light sabre duels. Always trust a fencer to put up a fight.

About The Author

Moinak Mitra

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