For a tense hour on a scorching afternoon on June 7, Yasar Pakhali of the Spartan Sports Club became a Spartan in deed — along with his friends, the 23-year-old kept vigil at the narrow entrance to Kolhapur city’s the minority Bara Imam pocket, which was under siege from a furious mob of Hindutva activists.
“A barrage of stones began hitting the houses in our locality. We immediately rushed out and blocked the entrance to prevent the mob from getting in. We stood our ground, just like the 300 Spartans,” Mr. Pakhali, an avid footballer who plays as midfielder for Spartan Sports, said.
For Mr. Pakhali and the residents of Bara Imam, the narrow lane leading to their locality was transformed into a veritable Thermopylae of mythic antiquity, where not an ancient or medieval but a modern war was being waged — a war on Kolhapur’s progressive ideals enshrined by its 19th-20th century reformer-ruler Rajarshi Shahu Maharaj (1874-1922).
