Wrestler Vinesh Phogat, the first Indian woman to win two World Championship medals, dropped a bomb Wednesday accusing BJP MP and three-time Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexually harassing many wrestlers at national camps in Lucknow.
Joined by senior wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia, Ravi Dahiya and Deepak Punia, the group had been on a sit-in protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. On Friday, following their letter of complaint to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president PT Usha, a seven-member committee led by boxer Mary Kom was formed to probe the allegations against Singh.
The protesting wrestlers also met sports minister Anurag Thakur for the second time on Friday, after which they called off the protest. The ministry, it is learnt, will be setting up an oversight committee to manage day-to-day administration of the WFI and also conduct an inquiry into the allegations. WFI chief, meanwhile, Friday refused to resign from his post and called the protest “dharna of Shaheen Bagh”, even as the sports minister announced late night that Singh will be stepping aside.
With the BJP having to brace another backlash from Haryana’s Jat community, which has been miffed since the year-long farmer protests, the allegations of sexual harassment against its six-time MP with some of the biggest names in India’s sporting community demanding his resignation doesn’t look good for the party.
And that’s why, the wrestlers’ protest at Jantar Mantar is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Also read: ‘Wrestlers’ protest like dharna of Shaheen Bagh’ — WFI chief Brij Bhushan refuses to resign
Women in wrestling
Haryana is home to India’s best wrestlers. Families take pride in having a pehelwan in their house.
But the sport, long dominated by men, only recently opened doors for women. It’s a story India knows well through the cinematic retelling in Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal (2016), loosely based, ironically, on the life of Vinesh Phogat’s sisters. I have previously reported from Haryana how Sakshi Mallik’s Olympic medal had caused a revolution in the state, allowing women to enter local akhadas.
“Women generally have nobody to complain to. If they tell their families about any sexual exploitation they face at national camps, they would immediately be called back home and married off,” a wrestler part of the protesting group at Jantar Mantar, and a Commonwealth Games medalist, told ThePrint requesting anonymity.
The Jantar Mantar protest shines light on the plight of women in the wrestling community, which needs to go beyond just accepting them. It should rectify the alleged horrid conditions at coaching camps.
A senior police official had recently expressed concern to ThePrint about the clandestine akhadas and how they’re a “blind spot” for the police and other authorities.
The protests have also seemingly united the Phogat family. Geeta and Babita Phogat, both members of the ruling BJP, have come out in support of the protesting wrestlers.
Also read: ‘Daughter, a curse?’ Olympians question PM’s silence on #MeToo charges against WFI chief
A breaking point
Singh, MP from Kaiserganj in Uttar Pradesh, has been the unopposed president of WFI for more than two decades. ‘Why were senior wrestlers quiet about this alleged harassment for all these years’ — he has argued.
The relationship between the WFI and the wrestlers has been deteriorating for a while, especially since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Sources in the wrestling world have pointed out two major points of inflection.
First, the WFI’s 2021 rule preventing players from representing states, other than their bona fide ones, in national championships. Players fear this rule will bring down the level of the game at the national level, because wrestling is largely concentrated in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. They have called this policy ‘arbitrary’ and say they weren’t consulted before it was formulated.
Second, the WFI has been putting ‘bans’ on players for not participating in national championships. Sources at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) told ThePrint that senior players were banned by the WFI for not participating in Senior National Championships held in December in Visakhapatnam.
Players complain that by stressing on participation in inconsequential national matches, the federation overworks them and they lose their focus from international matches.
The current spotlight on India’s wrestling community won’t go away simply with the resignation of the WFI chief. The sports ministry and the wrestling federation should speak with senior players, understand their complaints and demands, and take necessary steps for reform.
Vinesh Phogat, Shakshi Malik and other players have given the government and the wrestling federation the perfect opportunity to bring much-needed reform. It is their turn to play the bout now.
(Edited by Prashant)