How the government reined in the wrestlers

Stay quiet. Don’t argue. Don’t complain. Don’t ask questions. Don’t attract attention. Don’t ‘bring shame to your family’ and don’t show your temper. These injunctions are familiar to Indian women.

They hear them all their lives. In a revealing book published five years ago, Chup: Breaking the Silence About India’s Women, author Deepa Narayan claimed they are trained to develop seven habits, namely: to deny their body, to be quiet, to please others, to deny their sexuality, to isolate themselves, to have no individual identity and to be dependent.

The book was based on Narayan’s interviews with 600 urban, middle-class women, many of them professionals accomplished in their fields. This indoctrination of Indian women possibly explains our reaction to the women wrestlers who dared to accuse the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (who also happens to be a sixtime member of Parliament) of sexual harassment.

The women were trolled and questioned about their motives. Why were they complaining now, after staying mum so long? The Delhi Police infamously asked for “audio and video evidence” and lodged an FIR only after prodding by the Supreme Court.

With great reluctance, the police filed a charge sheet against Singh on June 16—but not before closing the case against the accused under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act. With Brij Bhushan, a bahubali (strongman) of the ruling party, allowed to stay out of jail, the father of the solitary minor complainant was allegedly forced to retract his daughter’s statement only a few days before the Delhi Police filed its chargesheet.

“I have to live. My family has to live. My daughter has a life beyond this controversy. I can’t see the suffering which my entire family is passing through,” he said in private. The minor girl had accused Brij Bhushan of “holding her tightly on the pretext of getting a photograph clicked; the accused squeezed her towards himself, pressed hard on her shoulder, and then deliberately brushed his hands against her breasts”.

The Delhi Police found no evidence to corroborate her statement. The other charges of stalking, molestation and sexual harassment at the workplace are bailable offences, with no imminent threat of arrest. The wrestlers suggested this entire exercise was orchestrated by the Police to coincide with the Supreme Court’s summer vacation.

The accused’s 12-year term as WFI president has come to an end and he is not eligible in any case to get re-elected. It would be bad optics and poor politics to allow his son, son-in-law or any other relation to hold an office so soon. Yet, even at the time of writing this piece, there are charges that several members of the WFI’s electoral college are beholden to Singh and were irregularly registered as voters.

There are also reports that the wrestlers selected to represent the country in the next Asian Games, Commonwealth Games (CWG) and Olympics will go abroad for training. The turning point came on May 30 when the leading voices among the wrestlers—including Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik—announced they would consign their medals to the River Ganga at the holy city of Haridwar.

The dramatic announcement brought to mind the great boxer Muhammad Ali, who tossed his Olympic gold into the Ohio river in protest against racial injustice in the US. Instead of applauding their courage in taking a step that was another first in Indian sporting history, the entire government machinery and the BJP’s IT cell went all out to defame the wrestlers for allegedly conspiring against the nation.

Vinesh, a multiple medal winner at the World Wrestling Championships and the Asian and Commonwealth games, has said that besides coaches who harass women wrestlers, “favourites of the federation” also mistreat female coaches. The treatment of some of India’s most feted atheletes is a shock to young hopefuls who might have followed in their footsteps.

Already, there are news reports that two prospective female wrestlers in Haryana have given up their wrestling aspirations after witnessing the treatment meted out to Olympic medallists by the Delhi Police. Coaches and retired wrestlers too worry that these scenes of a government crackdown will dissuade young girls from pursuing a career in wrestling.

Families of modest means send their girls across the country in the hope that sporting success might translate into a much-coveted government job and a better future. Not to be held up to ridicule and manhandled in this way. That too is a matter of family (dis)honour.

Not long ago, women’s wrestling ushered in a social revolution in Haryana, a state notorious for female foeticide and honour killings. It all began in Balali village, barely 10 kilometres from Delhi, where the three Phogat sisters decided to wrestle in spite of opposition from their own community. In the 2010 Delhi CWG, Geeta Phogat gave India the first wrestling gold. Four years later, it was the turn of her sister Babita Kumari and her cousin Vinesh Phogat to win gold in Glasgow.

Sakshi Malik won silver there. But now allegations of sexual misconduct by the WFI chief have left young athletes, their families and trainers anxious. A senior national coach told this reporter on condition of anonymity that “girls who come from families that cannot afford to travel with them are slowly dropping out”.

“At least two girls from my nearby village have stopped coming to my akhada because their parents were not in a position to accompany them everyday and they fear for their safety after this episode,” the trainer confided. Allegations of abuse against Brij Bhushan Singh are not new and are actually well-documented.

Three young sportswomen at a camp in Lucknow told the physiotherapist in 2016 that the WFI president had asked them to go up to his hotel room. It was reported in a few local dailies and soon forgotten. Another complaint that Singh “tried to place his hand on my buttocks” has been confirmed by an international referee.

Whether or not the wrestlers eventually receive justice, it is certain that in the first half of 2023, the democratic rights of peaceful protest were crushed in the name of democracy. Over to the Supreme Court again!