N A Vinaya, the former woman cop who won the Vanitha Ratna Award instituted by the state government, has been promoting She Play Grounds across the state in association with many women’s groups for the past few years. Vinaya retired on May 31, 2023, as the sub-inspector of the Women's Police Station, Thrissur.

After retirement, Vinaya decided to dedicate to the cause, exploring possibilities for bringing more women to football grounds and other games, which she believes would be a panacea for many of the emotional as well as social issues women face.

“The world of sports was always for men, and there was a notion that women are just to prepare men for the mega sports events. In 2015, when I was the sub-inspector of the women’s police station at Thrissur, I had discussed with many women about the absence of women in sports. They all said they wanted to play football. Then we started our search for a football ground. To our dismay, we realised that men controlled all grounds. So, there arises a need for exclusive playgrounds for women. We had prolonged discussions with the councillors about allotting women's space and time. At Royal Street in Viyyoor, women had built their playground," Vinaya said.

Vinaya believes there is a need for gender-neutral teams and matches, wearing the same jersey where women would play shoulder-to-shoulder with men. “We should start from the LKG level, as mixed sports are the best way to eliminate man-woman discrimination," she said. According to Vinaya, when two persons play in the same jersey with a single aim, all barriers of gender, religion, class, and colour vanish. There is only the expertise that matters. When women engage in sports, they will also engage in society in all its spheres, including its evening life, sharing platforms, exchanging ideas and grabbing a share in governance, she said.

Vinaya joined the police force in 1991 in Wayanad. Even on the first day of joining after training, she had taken on the male-dominated force, demanding the same uniform for women. Vinaya refused to wear the traditional khaki sari of the women cops, which was then the official dress of women in the police force. Instead, she had opted for pants and a tucked-in shirt like her male counterparts. After much furore, her superior gave the nod. Thus, Vinaya became the first woman cop to wear pants and a tucked-in shirt. It took almost a decade for the force to recognize the need for a unified dress code in the force. In 2002, the DGP issued a circular, changing the uniform of women in police from sari to pants and bush shirts. “We were treated as just an ornamental stuff in the force in those days," said Vinaya.

During a state police meeting, Vinaya had to protest on the ground for registering the score points of women members of the police units along with men on the scoreboard while participating in police meets. She had faced suspension and increment-cut and was on the verge of dismissal from service for sending a legal notice to the DGP for his comments against women.

Post retirement, Vinaya had converted her 32 cents of land into a state-of-the-art playground where a large number of women of all ages reinvent their freedom through the game. In three schools, authorities welcomed her suggestions where she has been imparting training to girl students and female staff in football and cycling. To start with, Vinaya also offers cycles to schools for training, and when schools buy their cycles, she takes them back to the next school. “At Koliyadi school near Sulthan Bathery, 75 per cent of female teachers learned cycling, and a football team is also coming up," she said.