Jhongo Pahan (17) comes from the land of the well-known Adivasi scholar and hockey champion Jaipal Singh Munda, but it’s a different sport where he’s winning laurels. The teenager, who lives deep inside the forests in Khunti district’s Silda village, has claimed a silver medal in the 50-metre archery at the Asian Youth Para Games 2025, held in Dubai earlier this month. According to his parents, Jhongo was born with paraparesis, because of which he couldn’t walk. Family members describe him as an introverted, underconfident boy who avoided socialising because of the “natural discrimination” he faced because he would crawl to get around. Jhongo’s journey as an athlete began relatively late — just two years ago, in fact. His coaches, Md Danish Ansari and Ashish Kumar, identified his potential during their voluntary initiative to find athletes from marginalised communities and train them in archery. “Our objective was to identify those who are marginalised within the marginalised and train them through archery. Hockey has gained popularity because of Adivasis, but one must not forget that archery …