The Manika Batra dispute is not only about her

The point isn’t necessarily that Batra has been wronged in being left out of India’s squad for the Asian Games in Japan. The point is that the federation’s history has made such suspicions entirely predictable

- Rajat Kathuria

Institutions, like individuals, acquire reputations. Some earn trust through consistency and transparency. Others spend years accumulating controversy.

Institutions, like individuals, acquire reputations. Some earn trust through consistency and transparency. Others spend years accumulating controversy. The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) has struggled to escape the latter characterisation. Across administrations, personalities and factions, the federation has repeatedly found itself in courtrooms, embroiled in internal disputes, subject to inquiries and, at one recent point, placed under a Committee of Administrators. The details have varied, but the public reading of the institution has remained remarkably consistent. It is against this backdrop that the latest controversy involving player Manika Batra must be understood.

The immediate issue concerns Batra’s exclusion from India’s table tennis squad (though she is in the reserve list) for the 2026 Asian Games to be held in Aichi and Nagoya, Japan, from September 19 to October 4. Initially, she wanted to seek judicial intervention, but has now decided “put the sword down” after being left “mentally exhausted” by the fight; Batra, though, has alleged violation of the federation’s constitution which threatens to turn what would have been a routine selection dispute into a wider conversation about credibility and trust.

On paper, the matter appears straightforward. The selection criteria relied on a weighted combination of domestic and international performances translated into points. By that metric, Batra reportedly fell short of the qualifying threshold by three points. Ordinarily, that would have settled the matter. But then, normalcy has rarely been the defining characteristic of Indian table tennis administration.