I’ve turned the narrative around: Boria Majumdar on Banned & road ahead

Senior journalist Boria Mazumdar recently launched his latest book, ‘Banned: A Social Media Trial’ at Kunzum Cafe in Delhi, where he chronicles the trial that he went through when a period of online controversy erupted in 2022 involving a former cricketer following which the BCCI had imposed a ban on him for two years. In the book, Mazumdar narrates his side of the story and launches a strong defence, while countering all the accusations. Simon & Schuster India is the publisher of ‘Banned: A Social Media Trial’. The event was organised by CommsAdda. 

Mazumdar is an acclaimed sports journalist, author, and sports historian, who has co-written ‘Playing It My Way’, the autobiography of Sachin Tendulkar. He has founded a multi-sports digital platform, RevSportz, besides serving in The Times of India as an editor covering the Summer Olympics of 2020. He is also the author of two other books – ‘A History of Indian Sport Through 100 Artefacts’ (2017) and ‘Eleven Gods and a Billion Indians: The On and Off the Field Story of Cricket in India and Beyond’ (2018).

Speaking exclusively to Adgully at an event on Saturday to launch his book, ‘Banned: A Social Media Trial’, Boria Majumdar shares details about the entire incident, its horrific aftermath for his family, the trial by social media. At the same time, he also speaks about the people who remained steadfast for him, the response received for his latest book, as well as the future plans for his company RevSportz and the road ahead.

How did you react at the point when the trial hit you?

I froze as clearly I was not a part of it. I was not guilty. Moreover, it was not about me and was not restricted to me. It was about my family – my wife, my daughter, my mother, my sister, my father and everybody. When you see your own people get depressed and abused and the smoke of negativity hits your family, you freeze because you have lost control. You have failed as a son, as a husband and as a father. I was under depression and was even contemplating suicide. So, it was a very tough situation.

Now, when I write and look back, I have come through it; but at that time, it was the most disastrous and hopeless situation that I could be in.

You had built up a strong reputation over the years, and yet they took a dig at you...

Not just a dig, they took me down to an extent. I had a reputation, credibility, and stature, but all of that was being torn to shreds every day on social media.

Now, you might say that social media is flippant and ask me ‘why did you take cognizance of all this?’ It is very easy to say it’s flippant, but when a hundred thousand tweets or posts on Facebook are of abuse against you and your family, you don’t want to be abused.

I’d rather run a digital company now. How am I not supposed to be on social media? I cannot shut myself up and say to hell with it, because then how do I run my company? I’ve always said that I have to be in the system to change the system and I had to fight it.

But at one point, I had no resolve left. What kept me going was the support and strength that I got from my family – my wife, my mother, and my young daughter did not give up on me. They gave me the courage to fight back. Besides, sportspersons such as Abhinav Bindra, Gopi, and Michael Klaus did not give up on me. While it was a difficult period, but so many people held my hand at that time. So, it was important for me to be able to come out of it.

How did Kolkata as a market react?

A lot of Kolkata turned up for me when I launched my book, ‘Maverick Commissioner’, which gave me hope. However, it is also a fact that I received a lot of viciousness from trolls and the maximum abuse in Bangla; my wife got the maximum abuse in Bangla, as if we were trying to hurt a Bengali. I was construed as this powerful, rich, upwardly mobile, privileged person, and it was easy to take digs at me and take me down. To some extent they were successful.

But I was able to come back because of the resilience of my family and my colleagues as they did not break down. Some people continued to believe in me, such as my publishers, my sponsors, my teammates; and ultimately, education is something I had to bank on. What did I know to do? To read and write. So, I have spoken up and have now given 100 interviews as I’m ready to face any challenge.

At what point did you decide that you have had enough and now you want to fight back?

When I went to Oxford in the first couple of months, I had given up. Initially, I thought this would blow over and people would listen to me because I have served sports for 25 years. Besides, I have a strong credibility and stature. But I realized I was fighting a losing battle. However when I went to Oxford, no one was abusing me there, it was an alien world. I have been to Oxford as a student, and every year I have gone back. It was kind of a self-discovery for me and catharsis at a level. I went there with my family, spent some quiet time, and started writing ‘Banned: A Social Media Trial’. Words are my friends. They started coming back to me. My thoughts started coming back. We went to the Commonwealth Games, and we did some fantastic work for RevSportz. So, I realized there is a world beyond cricket, and now we have done some superb work for the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games. Thus, I realized work was coming back, and that’s how the zeal, the passion, the optimism came back. And then with the book, I think the story ends.

You are a person of repute and have a certain stature, so you could fight back. But there are certain people within the sports ecosystem, who do not have that kind of resolve when they get abused in some manner. As a sports person, how do they respond and react to such kind of a situation?

There is no straight answer to this. Sports people get discriminated against by people in power. Journalists get discriminated against by people in power. This is a reality of our age. All I will say is there is light at the end of the tunnel, provided you want to see that light. It is very tough because when you are fighting power – raw power – it is abusive. But then again, we have seen this at multiple levels. People have fought against power. In colonial times, we fought against power. In sports, India fought against power. What is sport? It is of power. You use sport to tell a story – a nationalist story, a political story, our story, the underdog story. So, you have to dig deep. You have to deal with your own inner belief that you are right, and you have to fight it out. I don’t have a direct answer, but if I can help in any way, because I have written this book and I know what it is like, I will be more than happy to help anybody and coach as well as counsel.

On the book front, are you using social media in any manner to promote it?

Social media wanted to give up on me, however, I will not give up on social media. I have turned the narrative around. People now buy the truth and have accepted the truth. My hashtag was #TheTruthRevealed. Today, the abuse has stopped and the narrative has changed. The reaction to my book has been overwhelming. The book is a best-seller everywhere. I have posted around 50 articles in the last month, and not one abuse came my way. I have posted many photographs, Instagram posts, and Reels. I run a social media company and live on social media.

Today is a media-agnostic world. I don’t need a big media or an established media house to do my work. We all have a voice. I think the voice has reached out to people who matter and it is reaching out to people who matter. People from my school, my university, and college, have connected to me along with people from different parts of the world. The voice is growing. And that is what is very important – that the voice is no longer a lone voice. As they say, “Muthi Banray”, the underdog has a voice.

What has the response been like on social media?

The response that I have received on social media has been fantastic. People I don’t know or hardly know are writing “Unputdownable” about the book. They have shared how it has inspired them, imbuing a sense of great resilience. Whether it is LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, people are writing in, including bloggers, reviewers, and normal people. So, it has given me a lot of hope and optimism.

What’s next? Do you want to go back to doing what you were doing earlier?

I have already started doing cricket stuff again. I mean, I was never away as I was doing international cricket in other parts of the the world. But I will do it in India. I want to make RevSportz the country’s number one multi-sports digital platform. We are now valued at about Rs 50 crore and have a team of around 42-43 people. I want it to be a team of about 200 in a couple of years and do some quality work on sports, which we can look back on as sustainable legacy, translating to the fact that sports journalism, sports media, and making a difference in sports are possible.