Divya Deshmukh is on a felicitation spree, meeting ministers, celebrities and the ilk. Hours and hours of practice; travelling during weekends to Chennai for special chess classes. She has done what no other woman chess player in the country had done before—win the chess World Cup. She will spark another revolution in chess. This time for the women’s game.
At the beginning of the week, two Indian women, separated by a generation but united by their passion and excellence in chess, duelled in the final of the women’s World Cup. As soon as Deshmukh, 19, and Koneru Humpy, 38, advanced to the final of one of the game’s most prestigious events, it further entrenched what the 2024 women’s Olympiad had shown.
The Chinese may be the foremost practitioners of women’s chess but India’s barrier-shattering women have closed the gap. At the Olympiad in Budapest last year, India, purely going by seedings, didn’t stand a chance of winning gold. But youth and experience (Humpy, D Harika, Deshmukh, Vantika Agarwal and Tania Sachdev) combined to devastating effect. Yet, the chess fraternity wasn’t too keen on announcing a change of guard because China hadn’t sent their strongest contingent.
Russia couldn’t send a team and China’s roster lacked the stardust as both the world champion (Ju Wenjun) and the challenger (Tan Zhongyi) were absent. The top-ranked Hou Yifan hadn’t travelled and Lei Tingjie (the other Chinese in last year’s Candidates) was also missing.
But both Zhongyi and Tingjie were present at the women’s World Cup in Georgia last month. It’s what makes Deshmukh’s title and Humpy’s run to the final all that bit more special.
More importantly, the teen’s victory could have a multiplier effect. “It has the potential to inpsire a lot of girls,” says Swayams Mishra, a GM who played a big role at last year’s Olympiad. “Young kids will aim higher.”
Chess, at first glance, may seem like a game suited for both genders without many differences. But it cannot be further from the truth as girls face a lot of barriers, right from the entry level till the elite level. It’s why out of 88 Indian GMs, only four are women (Deshmukh became the fourth on account of winning the World Cup).
This disparity is set to continue but Mishra reckons change has already started to take place thanks to the performances by Deshmukh & Co. “Change is never overnight but there are girls coming up,” he says. “Women have shorter professional careers... Humpy continues to break stereotypes and her chess is at a very high level.
For a long time, women’s chess in the Indian context started with Humpy and ended with Harika. That’s already no longer the case. If Deshmukh became just the second Indian to win the World Cup across genders (first after Viswanathan Anand), R Vaishali won the Grand Swiss in 2023.
Thipsay, part of the Indian non-playing contingent at the 2022 Olympiad in Mahabalipuram, makes an interesting point about the growth trajectories of men and women players. “The men’s team picked up an Olympiad medal in 2022 and you had Praggnanandhaa advancing to the final in 2023,” he says. “It’s something similar to the women’s team in that they won gold at the Olympiad and now you have them winning gold at the World Cup. You can’t compare but it’s a similar kind of pattern.”
A lot of Indian GMs, some of whom have become successful coaches, have said that the teens’ early exposure to the Olympiad contributed to their early maturity vis-a-vis playing style, understanding positions, dealing with pressure and believing.
If all that is external, there is also the internal point about the competition within India. They may already be some of the best in the world but there exists a battle to be the best in India.
“What’s the nice thing is that competition within India is fierce itself,” Anand had told this newspaper earlier. “You may be one of the best players in the world but you may still be fighting for a spot in India. That will keep everyone on their toes. I would say in the next 5-10 years we can look forward to... it’s going to be great to be a chess fan in India.”
