By Diptayan Hazra
New Delhi [India], July 16 : From being a school and college 'Panja' enthusiast to founding India's first professional arm-wrestling league, Parvin Dabas has come a long way. As co-founder of the Pro Panja League, Dabas is not only transforming the way India views arm wrestling but also giving it a professional structure rooted in Indian culture.
While speaking to ANI, Parvin shared what inspired him to turn an age-old sport into a nationwide spectacle.
"I always felt Panja had the potential. I was a sportsman in school and college, and I've always loved combat sports, boxing, MMA, everything. Everyone in India has played 'Panja' at some point. It's emotional, easy to understand, and has a strong Indian identity, even in the name," he said.
"There are many sports whose Indian name has no connection. But this has an Indian name and a very strong connection. Everyone knows it's to put the other person's hand down," he further said.
The idea, he explains, was not just to professionalise the sport but also to present it in an entertaining, glamorous format. Before launching the league, his team conducted tournaments for 3-4 years to experiment with presentation and structure.
" You don't need any new shoes, pads, bat, racket, just one table and a neighbourhood starts playing. It's truly a sport for the masses," Dabas noted.
The inaugural season in 2023 exceeded expectations for them.
"It exceeded the expectations of everybody. Even we, you know, I don't think anyone knew that 'Panja' could be so popular on TV. Before the first season, I had asked somebody, a friend in the sports industry, how many viewers should make us happy. You know, what is the kind of benchmark we should keep that if we get this many viewers, we should be happy. So he had said, if you get 20 million viewers for this sport, then you should party and we got 32 million unique viewers and the reach was much, much more," he said.
"We beat several other leagues in their first season. It also showed that there was a lot of word of mouth because people were watching and enjoying it actually," he added.
"The players also really performed well. I tell them, one will win and one will lose. That's every match but it's not just about winning, it's about how you win. You've got to bring your personalities out, your emotions out and everybody has a different personality and you can see, there are a lot of fans now," he noted.
In Mizoram, over 20,000 fans filled a football ground during one of our events, showing that the sport had serious on-ground support too.
The Pro Panja League drafted 180 athletes across ten weight categories but what makes it unique is the solid grassroots network behind it.
"See, talent identification and development is a very big part of it. For us, athletes are stars. Or we have always said, see, we are not selecting you. You are selecting yourself based is your performance. We have always believed in merit and that is why we have these ranking tournaments. We have just returned from Kerala. There were 1,500 kids there. Every other month, a new star comes out," he said.
"You can see a lot of new sub-junior, junior players are there, who weren't there before but because of Pro Panja League, they have a dream. They have the inspiration of a platform, 'That we have to play in this,' so, a lot of new kids are coming from all over India," he noted.
"We've done over 50 events across India, north, south, east, west, everywhere. Every two months, new stars emerge, especially in sub-junior and junior categories," Dabas said.
"We are doing events all over and out of that, you know, we are also doing international events here now. For talent, for talent development because when kids have to go out, there is more airfare. Just now, in October, we did the Asian Cup here in Mumbai," he noted.
Recent milestones have proven the effort is paying off. In May 2025, India hosted the Asian ArmWrestling Championship in Delhi, and for the first time ever, finished second overall, behind powerhouse Kazakhstan.
"Which shows that the work and grassroots development that we have been doing for the last 4-5 years is bearing fruit now. You can see the result of the hard work. For the kids as well," he said.
"We brought international experience to India. Kids came by bus or train, stayed at affordable hotels, and still competed at the highest level," he noted.
"We came second to Kazakhstan. They are number one in the world also. So, for them, to be able to sit at the table with these armwrestlers, to be able to meet them, to get advice, to get experience, for them, it's a very big thing," he said.
"So many international armwrestlers are coming to India. Our team size was 175. A total of 520 kids came from all over Asia and in the Asian Cup, we had around 100-120 kids," he noted.
Launching a new league wasn't without hurdles. Convincing broadcasters, team owners, and stakeholders about the sport's viability was the biggest challenge, according to Dabas.
"There were a lot of challenges. The biggest challenge, of course, was convincing the channel, you know, that this is a sport that can do well and then, the events that we did, it helped there because we had proof of concept, we showed how big an event is, how big a stage is, you know, all of that. you know, convincing them was a big thing. Then, of course, convincing different stakeholders, team owners and everything, of the viability of the sport because nobody, before our league, had seen this professionally. All of this was in our mind. Of course, we had done different events, so they saw and they were convinced with that but, you know, on such a big stage, that was one of the things of convincing people and of course, the first league, people have to see how it will turn out. Fortunately, many people gained a lot of confidence from the first season, and now, a lot of people are joining us for the second season," he said.
The second season begins on August 5 in Gwalior, a city with a massive Panja fan base.
"We did our first overseas event in Dubai. We also do single-day matches, which are called Pro-Punjab Mega Matches. So, there are a lot of things lined up. In the states where we haven't done it yet, we're going to those states. We're going to Bihar for the first time in October. So, this whole calendar year is being planned. We're taking Team India to Bulgaria in September for the World ArmWrestling Championship. We also sent a police team for the World Police and Fire Games from India. So, there's a lot of pride for that," Dabas said
In a historic first, arm wrestling will feature at the Para-Youth Asian Games in December, and India will be sending a team.
"The biggest and the best thing is that it's our sport which brings men, women and especially the disabled on the same platform," he noted.