A-bout Bhushan Jr in fray

Rohit Mahajan

Moments after winning a bronze at Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Sakshi Malik forgot years of pain and taunts and broken ligaments and dislocated joints; this is what it takes to win an Olympics medal. At the same Rio Olympics, there was a sickening sound and an anguished scream when Vinesh Phogat’s knee got impossibly twisted during her bout against Sun Yunan. This is what it takes to win medals in top international events — a broken leg and ligaments, and years and blood and sweat and tears, for ‘India’s daughters’ to be lionised.

But daughters lose, too, and far too often for comfort. After Karan Bhushan Singh, son of former Wrestling Federation of India president and Member of Parliament Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, was given the ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election from Kaiserganj, the family stronghold, wrestler Sakshi Malik said: “India’s daughters have lost.”

Addressing the BJP, she added: “Leave the arrest, today by giving the ticket to his son, you have broken the morale of crores of daughters of the country. If the ticket goes to only one family, is the country’s government so weak in front of one man? Only votes are needed in the name of Lord Shri Ram, what about the path shown by him?”

It’s interesting that Sakshi, India’s only woman wrestler to win an Olympics medal, invoked Lord Rama — in a dismal world, bereft of hope and justice, the final resort for the believers is god; among Indian athletes, the most rooted to Indian traditions and customs and religion are the wrestlers. Sakshi invoking Lord Rama is symbolic of the most devout of Indian sportspersons losing faith in the system.

The imperatives of power are severe — chillingly unfeeling, cold-hearted, insensitive; siyasat ke seene mein dil nahin hota (politics is heartless), as they say. So, while Brij Bhushan Singh does have an ongoing sexual harassment case against him, and the Delhi Police did file a chargesheet in connection with the case in June last year, the fact is that he and his clan are highly electable — too powerful a man to be alienated in what could be a close General Election. Perhaps, in political circles, allegations of ‘mere’ sexual harassment don’t amount to too big a sin — in the outgoing Lok Sabha, 44 per cent of the MPs have a criminal record; nine are accused of murder, and three of rape.

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), among the serious charges against the MPs are murder, attempt to murder, creating communal disharmony, kidnapping, rape and other crimes against women. No major political party is unblemished — according to the ADR, 118 (40 per cent) of the BJP’s 294 MPs had mentioned criminal cases in their affidavits. Out of the 46 Congress MPs, 26 (57 per cent) had declared criminal cases in the affidavits. So, with MPs with murder and rape cases against them completing their terms in the Lok Sabha, perhaps parties really believe that the sexual harassment case against Brij Bhushan Singh isn’t serious enough for his clan to be banished from Parliament.

This is a strong indictment of the state of our democracy, and leads to disenchantment; when politicians are caught lying, dog-whistling, instigating riots, stealing public money or, as in the case of JD(S) Member of Parliament Prajwal Revanna, committing sexual crimes, this adage is thrown up: ‘In a democracy, we deserve the leaders we elect.’ But do we Indians really deserve the likes of Brij Bhushan or Prajwal? Aren’t they new royalty, foisted upon us? They’re dynasts of democracy, behaving like the potentates who ruled their riyasat as per their whims and fancies before Independence. Democracy, designed to end succession and rule by birth, has strengthened satraps and their fiefdoms across the country.

Sakshi’s comment that “India’s daughters have lost” is interesting, too; it’s true that only women can really feel and know what it’s like to be a woman in India — the stares, comments, whistles; public groping; the impossibility of venturing out for a serene walk or drive at night in most parts of India. Women only can feel the fear when a powerful politician they’ve accused of harassment continues to wield and accrue power. Yet, when half the population of a country “loses”, the other half loses, too — though the hurt and fear may not be personal in their case, men too lose when men from the clan of, say Brij Bhushan or Prajwal (grandson of a former Prime Minister, no less), become lawmakers.

The state of women, the crimes against them, invoke a very stirring question, raised by American activist Catharine A MacKinnon: ‘Are women human?’ It can be argued that by being denied human rights, a very large section of them is being treated as sub-human. Yet, there’s hope, and it lies in the spirit of Vinesh, who slays her demons every night as she pursues that elusive Olympics medal.

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#Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh