By Rajdeep Sardesai
In a hyper-partisan age where opinion is often shaped by WhatsApp forwards, India’s protesting wrestlers have discovered just how fickle public adulation can be. Those who feted our medal winning wrestlers, celebrated their life story on celluloid, rushed to take photo ops with them, have now chosen to distance themselves from their unprecedented agitation. Lauded as heroes, the same champion wrestlers are now being damned as part of a political ‘toolkit’ gang, accused of theatrics when they threaten to throw their precious medals into the Ganga, even targeted as ‘anti national’ by government cheerleaders . Instead of being appreciated for raising public consciousness on the troubling issue of sexual harassment by men in power, they are being asked to provide ‘proof’ of their allegations first. Suddenly, the victims have become the accused while the alleged perpetrator gets away all too lightly.
That the street protests would get tangled in coarsened politics was almost inevitable the longer they dragged on. That the Delhi police would never allow the protestors to march to the new parliament building inauguration was also only to be expected. Ironically, the same police which insensitively dragged the wrestlers away as if they were a rioting mob had prevaricated for months before finally being pushed by the Supreme Court to file a First Information Report on the wrestlers complaint. Indeed, the cacophonous political debate must not be allowed to mask the significance of what has transpired over the last few months: to quote India’s first Olympic individual gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra, “every athlete deserves a safe and empowering environment.”
I recall being at Jantar Mantar in January when the protest first began. In a sporting milieu, where our athletes, unless they are elite cricketers, can scarcely raise their voice, the courage shown by the Olympian wrestlers was striking. ‘Why did it take you so long to speak out against sexual harassment,” I asked a tearful Vinesh Phogat, a world champion who has become a face of the protest. Her answer was sobering: “Do you know how tough this has been for us? If we had spoken of sexual harassment, our parents would have stopped our training and got us married off straight away. Truth is, we were scared because our careers would have been finished.”
Which is why our wrestlers need to be applauded and not demonized. The likes of the Phogat sisters and Sakshi Malik, an Olympic bronze medalist, are not just any other athlete: they are path-breaking sporting revolutionaries whose impact goes well beyond just their akharas. These are trail-blazing women who redefined a sport that was seen as an exclusive male bastion. A woman in the wrestling ring was not just breaking a stereotype but also challenging centuries of prejudice and starkly unequal gender relations. Their incredible life struggle represented a coming of age moment for women in rural Haryana and went far beyond what any catchy ‘Beti bachao, Beti padhao’ slogan could ever have achieved.
And yet, while the wrestlers became symbols of national pride and gender empowerment, what they could never really change is the asymmetrical balance of power between those who run the sport and those who play it. The man whose arrest they are calling for, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, is a six time MP, a political ‘bahubali’ (strongman) for whom the Wrestling Federation of India is a personal fiefdom, a chance to assert his supremacy as the ‘mai-Baap’ of the wrestlers. The athletes may have won glory and brought medals for the country but it is the MP who has remained the dominant figure in the sport.
Moreover, Brij Bhushan is not just another BJP MP: he is someone who for more than two decades now has been an influential figure in the politics of central UP. Even during a turbulent period in UP’s politics, when many leaders struggled to navigate the complex Mandal-Mandir flux, Brij Bhushan managed to expand his political-business empire with familiar tactics of money and muscle power. His chequered CV includes being arrested under TADA for harbouring aides of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and self confessing on camera to murdering a political rival. Yet, because of the ‘winnability’ factor taking precedence over all else, no one in the Modi government has dared call him out.
Which is why the wrestler’s protest is a landmark moment in the history of Indian sport. For much too long, our athletes were afraid to speak out against all powerful officials: if they were women, then their lips were totally sealed. While officials enjoyed five star luxury facilities, the athletes were expected to quietly accept a secondary status, often living in makeshift accommodation. During the 1978 Asian Games in Bangkok for example, many players survived on home cooked food from a local gurudwara. On another occasion, a sports federation official bought old blankets from Delhi’s Azad market to get tracksuits made for the team at the last minute!
Much has changed in Olympic sports since the 2010 Commonwealth Games when the country began the gradual climb up the ladder of sporting excellence. Systematic, well drilled initiatives, like the sports ministry’s recent Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) programme, have opened up new opportunities. Women athletes in particular are now shining across sports: not just wrestling but badminton, weightlifting, boxing, have thrown up world champions who have transformed popular attitudes to sport and gender. The spectacular success of women’s cricket has been a big boost.
But on-field triumphs demand greater respect off it. In a sense, that’s what the wrestlers protest is all about. Why the reluctance to even question the MP on serious allegations against him? Why have Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act provisions not been applied? Why has the sports minister been reluctant to dialogue with the wrestlers? Why has the otherwise voluble women and child development minister been strikingly silent? Why hasn’t the prime minister said a word? The right to protest is a fundamental right in a democracy. One might differ on the methods being used to protest, but surely there is need for greater collective empathy for the cause. When Olympians are charged with rioting while the accused MP is a VIP guest at the new parliament’s grand opening, you begin to wonder: will justice ever be done?
Post script: While it is reassuring that some of our Olympic stars like gold medal winners Neeraj Chopra and Abhinav Bindra have expressed their solidarity with the wrestlers, one hasn’t heard a squeak from our celebrated cricketers except Anil Kumble. It’s time some of them played with a straight bat beyond the boundary too.
(The writer is a senior journalist and author. mail: [email protected])