While the entire country is praising the female Indian athletes for their medals at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, some people can't manage to keep religion and caste out of it.
Assam-born Lovlina Borgohain and PV Sindhu's medal-winning performance at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has sparked a flurry of curiosity of some people in their caste and religion as they take to Google to know the same. Last week google searches of Borgohain and Sindhu's caste and religion have peaked bringing disgrace to India.
On Google, Lovlina Borgohain's religion is now the third most searched topic about the Indian boxer.
After reaching the semi-finals, the boxer created history by becoming the first woman from her state to guarantee a medal for her country in boxing.
She achieved the feat after a 4-1 quarter-final victory over Chinese Taipei's Nien-Chin Chen in the welterweight (69kg) category.
Borgohain still has a chance to win gold, and while sports fans across the country were congratulating her on her achievement, many were more interested in learning about her religion.
Manipur, Goa, Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, and Odisha accounted for the majority of 'Lovlina Borgohain's religion' search traffic.
Meanwhile, after winning bronze in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Google searches for PV Sindhu's caste spiked on August 1.
The majority of PV Sindhu's caste searches came from Telangana, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, and Rajasthan.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time, that people are more invested in knowing about our athletes' caste and religion than searching for their salary and achievements.
After her medal win in the Rio Olympics, Google searches for wrestler Sakshi Malik's caste exploded, and the drama is far from over.
Wrestler Sakshi Malik earned bronze in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Her caste has been continuously searched on Google since then.
According to Google data, terms like 'Sakshi malik caste' and 'malik caste' joined the top trend in January-February 2021. Malik's caste searches emerged from the states like Rajasthan, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh.
As netizens observe google’s trending searches, the topic has also emerged on Twitter and is trending there.
Also Read: India loses to Belgium 5-2 in Men's Hockey Semi-final at Tokyo Olympics
Pointing out to these absurd google searches, one of the social media users said, “People googling for Sindhu’s caste are not doing it merely out of curiosity. Data shows that they are more interested in the caste than her education or salary. Show this to those who still say that the caste system is not real in Urban landscape, this data is mostly from smartphones.” The user also shared a graph showing the analytics of google searches for PV Sindhu’s caste.
Meanwhile, another user wrote, “Always! Less than 24 hrs of winning the second consecutive medal at the #OlympicGames, people are searching for PVSindhu’s CASTE AGAIN! Happened last time too. Next would be Telugu states fighting over her, both CMs trying to beat other announcing rewards.”
“Google searching Indian boxer 'Lovlina Borgohain', and the second suggestion that comes up is ‘Lovlina Borgohain religion’. Because yes, her religion would let you take a call on what narrative to follow on the outcome of her matches. People are sick,” said a third user.