Exclusive- World Para-Badminton Champion Manasi Joshi

Manasi Joshi is one of the best para-badminton players in the world. Period.

She’s a Badminton World Federation (BWF)World Champion in the women’s singles Standing Lower (SL) 3 category. She’s ranked among the top global athletes in her class, which includes players with moderate impairment in one or both lower limbs and poor walking/running balance. The TIME Magazine Asia Edition’s October 2020 issue named her a Next Generation Leader. A Barbie doll was modelled after her. She’s represented India at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, and won gold for the country on the international stage at the 2019 BWF Para-Badminton World Championships in Basel, Switzerland.

And yet, none of these achievements fully explain who she is or what she’s doing for the future of disability rights, access, sport, and representation in India.

In this revealing interview with Great Stories, Manasi Joshi speaks openly — not just about her career and the 2011 road accident in Mumbaithat changed her path — but about becoming a new version of herself, imagining the India that could exist if para-athletes were truly supported, and why her work off the court is as important as anything she does on it.

“I stopped being a story of return and became a story of reinvention.”

In the early months after the 2011 road accident in Mumbai that led to the amputation of her leg, Manasi was focused, like many in her situation, on “getting back.” Back to walking. Back to balancing. Back to something resembling the life she had before.

But then something shifted.

“I wasn’t simply reclaiming my old self—I was building someone entirely new,” she says.

“I stopped asking, ‘When will I get back to normal?’ and started asking, ‘What else can I become?’ That was the turning point.”

This wasn’t recovery. It was reinvention. She wasn’t returning to form—she was stepping into something she’d never been before.

“We’ve come a long way—and not just in steps.”

When asked what her prosthetic leg would say if it had a voice, Manasi delivers an answer that says as much about her personality as it does about her journey.

“It would say: we’ve come a long way—and not just in steps,” she says. “It would speak of our awkward beginnings, of learning to trust each other, of stumbling and recalibrating. It would laugh at how I blamed it for every misstep in the early days.”

What started as a tool became something more: a partner, a bridge, a symbol of adaptation and endurance. “Together,” she adds, “we’ve broken barriers—physical, social, emotional. We’ve shown the world that a limb can be more than functional. It can be transformational.”

The other version of Manasi Joshi — and what she would say today

“In an alternate world, I might have continued working as an engineer and living a predictable, perhaps quieter life,” she reflects.

That version of her would have had a stable job and a life without the public eye. But would she have felt the same fire, the same clarity of purpose?

“What I do know is that version of me would look at the life I live today — the medals, yes, but also the advocacy, the resilience, the reimagining of what’s possible — and feel proud.”

“She’d admire this version. Not in spite of the challenges, but because of how I chose to rise through them.”

“India celebrates resilience after tragedy. But rarely funds it before.”

This is where the interview turns direct. Clear-eyed. Critical.

If there’s one thing Manasi wants to see change, it’s India’s approach when it comes to recognising para-athletes.

“India often celebrates resilience after tragedy—but rarely funds it before,” she says. “A country that believed in me before I won would have seen my journey as worthy not only after the medal, but at every uncertain step leading up to it.”

So what would meaningful support look like?

“Investment in human potential. Access to physiotherapy, cutting-edge prosthetics, inclusive policies. The ability to travel with support staff. Systems in place not just to applaud you after success, but to believe in you before it.”

The part of her life that isn’t about badminton — but matters just as much

“Advocacy, without a doubt,” she says.

Beyond tournaments and rankings, Manasi works on the ground level to improve access to intelligent prosthetics, challenge public narratives around physical disability, and push for representation that isn’t rooted in pity.

“Sport gave me a platform. Advocacy gives it purpose.”

Her visibility now stands for something bigger than herself. “When I speak out, I’m not just representing my journey,” she says. “I’m speaking for those still waiting to be seen.”

What makes Manasi Joshi different

It’s not just that she wins. It’s how she wins.

It’s how she shows up for her community. How she refuses to let society flatten her story into inspiration. How she holds space for complexity — for pride and grief, frustration and joy, medals and movements.

Manasi Joshi is not asking to be congratulated after success. She’s asking for the country to do better before success happens — for all those still in the early chapters of their own fight.

She’s proven what’s possible on court. Now, she’s building what’s possible beyond it.