How the Telangana Women’s Rugby League is empowering girls through rugby

Telangana Women’s Rugby League is empowering girls through rugby.

At 8 a.m. on March 3, the ground at the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Telangana Backward Classes Welfare Residential College in Bibinagar, about 39 kilometres from Hyderabad, slowly transforms into a rugby field. Around 30 girls from across Telangana, including Medchal, Medak, Khammam, Suryapet, Nalgonda, Asifabad and Karimnagar, have gathered here for a practice session ahead of the Telangana Women’s Rugby League 2026, to be held on March 6 at the Gymkhana Grounds in Hyderabad.

“The group will play Rugby 7s — seven players on the field with five substitutes,” says V. Sheshu Babu, secretary of the Black Archers Rugby Club, which is hosting the event. The league is sponsored by the Lions Club of Hyderabad Athena, with support from the Rugby Association of Telangana.

“The first edition in 2025 also had 12 teams, but this year’s league is bigger and better because we have female representation from across the state,” he adds.

In a huddle | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Young women from humble backgrounds are breaking barriers to make a mark in rugby. The memory is still fresh in Korra Nikita Yadav’s mind. “In the Telugu film Sye, a character says, ‘Rugby is not for girls.’ But now they have to eat their words,” says the Hyderabad-based rugby player.

For her friend Bekkam Shruti, a Telangana police constable (law and order), passing the ball on the rugby field comes naturally. She has been playing the sport for more than five years now.