Miss Diva’s Identity Crisis: What can be done?
It’s been five years since the inception of Miss Diva. After three dreadful years under ‘I am She’, Miss Diva seemed like a ray of hope for pageant followers in India. In such a short span of 5 years, Miss Diva has already won three international crowns; one Miss Asia Pacific World and two Miss Supranational titles. Going by its massive success in just a few years, one may say it’s the best national pageant Indian fans were hoping for. Wait! But why did they start Miss Diva in first place? Did they start it because India was not winning at Miss Supranational? Or was it started because we needed to win more small scale pageants? As ridiculous as it sounds, the reason was neither of the two.
Turns out Miss Diva was supposed to bring the Miss Universe crown back to India. When I found out about this I was really shocked, because I thought the title “Miss Universe India” was just a marketing gimmick. If not, why doesn’t Miss Diva seem serious about winning Miss Universe? Is Miss Diva a “Miss Supranational India” pageant in disguise? Jokes aside, the current state of Miss Diva pageant seems confused and mismanaged. Browsing through fan interactions on social media, I couldn’t find even a single Miss Diva supporter. In fact I couldn’t even find their instagram profile. Even though the Miss India Org is not a big fan of the pageant fans, not having fans at all should sound alarming.
The fan community keeps listing down things they want to change about Miss Diva pageant. Unfortunately that list seems never ending, so much so that the fans are now demanding that the Miss Diva pageant should be dissolved altogether. It all boils down to one basic question and the Miss India Org must answer it as soon as possible. And that question is “Why was the Miss Diva pageant started?” Even though Miss Diva did bring 3 international crowns for India, it has been failing miserably in serving its main purpose. In last five years India only made it to the semi-finals of Miss Universe twice, once in top ten and once in top fifteen. Since the last three years India has been struggling to even place at Miss Universe. Does that mean we didn’t have suitable candidates to represent India at Miss Universe? As a matter of fact we did have some exceptionally good candidates at Miss Diva, but those candidates were wasted on smaller pageants.
For a pageant that was supposed to bring back the miss universe crown, Miss Diva simply seems to have lost its identity. Over the last 5 years girls like Srishti Rana, Sushrii Mishraa, Lopamudra Raut, Vartika Singh, Naveli Deshmukh, Srinidhi Shetty, Aradhana Buragohain Peden Ongmu Namgyal, and Apeksha Porwal have competed in Miss Diva. I cannot explain how painful it is for me to read this list because any of these girls could have been groomed into great candidates for Miss Universe. If the Miss Diva pageant had chosen the best candidates from the batch for Miss Universe and if they had provided her with proper amount of training, some of these girls could have been crown contenders at Miss Universe. But unfortunately all of them were either sent to a smaller pageant or were not sent to any international pageant at all. When I use the term “smaller pageant” with reference to Miss Supranational or Grand International, it might offend some people. But tell me how many people in India know that India has won 2 Miss Supranational crowns in last 4 years? Winning Miss Universe or even making it to the top 3 at Miss Universe is worth much more than winning a smaller pageant. I don’t mean to discredit the winners of Miss Supranational pageant in any way. I have myself watched the live webcast of both Miss Supranational 2014 and 2016. I have supported and cheered for Asha and Srinidhi when they won Miss Supranational. But I would have preferred to cheer for Srinidhi at Miss Universe rather than at Supranational.
It’s time for Miss India Org to take a hard look at the Miss Diva pageant and make some tough decision. Nothing about Miss Diva seems working. It’s not a commercial success and it hasn’t even served its basic purpose. Something or rather everything about the Miss Diva pageant needs to change. Otherwise fans won’t be interested in watching another edition of “Miss Diva: Miss Supranational India”.
Article by: Jinendra Aherkar