The Woman Grandmaster who made the bold move beyond the chessboard

Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, or Sara Khadem as she is better known these days, is not your usual chess player. She defied her government in Iran and made a bold statement: she played an international tournament without wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

She has had to pay a price for that. An arrest warrant was issued against her in Iran, but she was granted Spanish nationality. She is now living in and plays for Spain.

Sara is here in Mumbai at the moment, playing for PBG Alaskan Knights at the Global Chess League. This is her second GCL.

“In the league’s first edition in Dubai, I was a reserve player and came in the middle of the tournament,” Sara told The Hindu. “I played for Triveni. I rather like the GCL, it is fun, engaging. The time control and the points system also make the league different from other tournaments.”

This is Sara’s fifth visit to India. “My first time in India was in 2014,” she said. “I had played the World junior championship in Pune and I had won second place.”

She is impressed by the huge strides India has made in chess since then. “It was remarkable that India won both the men’s and women’s titles at the Olympiad last year,” said Sara. “My team, Spain, had tied for third place.”

Before that, she had, of course, represented Iran. “I really like Iran too, to be fair,” she said. “But I would say with a little kid, I prefer living in Spain,” she said.

Looking back at her decision to play the 2022 World rapid and blitz championship in World rapid and blitz championship, that was something she wanted to do after the death of Masha Amini. “Earlier I had this sort of mixed feeling about this whole thing, but many of my friends were being part of the protest in their own ways and were taking serious risks,” she said.

“When I got invited to this tournament, I didn’t want to go there wearing a scarf and making a move.” It was her first time without a scarf in a public event.

(The writer is in Mumbai at the invitation of Tech Mahindra).