'Bahubali' & power play

Even the most powerful people of the land are oppressed by the yoke of compulsion. This compulsion, however, is not particularly oppressive or repugnant to them because it’s the compulsion of power — in a democracy, where votes and numbers are of the utmost importance, notions of justice and fairplay are expendable.

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These are the lessons from the reactions of BJP leaders over serious allegations of sexual harassment made by female wrestlers against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the BJP Member of Parliament from Gonda in Uttar Pradesh, and the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president.

Singh seems to be just the sort of ‘electable’ candidates who are courted by political parties despite their shady past. In the 1990s, Singh spent months in jail after being arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly helping associates of gangster Dawood Ibrahim. He has several criminal cases pending against him, including attempt to murder; on camera, he has confessed to killing a person; in 2004, Ghanshyam Shukla died in a road accident after replacing Singh as the BJP’s candidate from Gonda, and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee called Singh and said: “Marva diya (you had him killed).” The same year, his son shot himself with Singh’s licensed gun, addressing Singh thus: ‘You have not proved to be a good father… You have never cared about my sister or me… You thought only of yourself… We see our future as dark.’

Such a man — carrying a baggage of crime, extreme emotions, trauma and entitlement — exudes bad karma and proves to be a political time-bomb. Logically, he should be an anathema to all political parties — for, his past, his actions, the allegations against him would be in conflict with the avowed principles of any political outfit.

Yet, Singh thrives. Delhi Police filed a sexual harassment case against him on the complaint of female wrestlers only after being asked to do so by the Supreme Court. One of the complainants is underage, as a Delhi Police statement noted: ‘The first FIR has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, along with relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It was filed based on the allegations of a minor.’ It’s a non-bailable offence and legal experts say that arresting an accused in such cases is the norm, even though arrest is not mandatory.

Singh hasn’t been arrested for some reason — could it be that he’s a powerful politician from the ruling party at the Centre and wields significant power through his businesses and vote-bank in Gonda? That would be a reasonable conclusion.

Top Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia has thrown his lot with the protesters, at a significant risk to his career. What is the force that drives him, apart from the wish for justice to prevail and the ‘betiyan’ of India to be safe? Well, he’s married to Sangeeta Phogat, herself a wrestler and cousin to Vinesh Phogat, a prominent face of the wrestlers’ protest. Bajrang says he knows what female wrestlers have gone through. Bajrang and the other wrestlers, astutely, had foretold the likely response from Singh’s supporters and party brethren. After Opposition leaders visited the protest site at Jantar Mantar, Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi said: ‘When people who are caught by the ED, who are involved in the excise scam and facing heat over a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ of Rs 45 crore reach there, the credibility of the dharna gets dented… with these discredited people joining in, what more can be said.’

She said the government has a ‘very sensitive approach towards the wrestlers, and women’. The party’s support for Singh, a POCSO accused, belies this claim.

Politicians in sport

Some well-meaning but naïve commentators have suggested that the political leadership across the spectrum must bar politicians from administrative positions in sports associations. Just which political party is free of politicians who are or have been sports administrators?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave up his position as the Gujarat Cricket Association president only after being elected as the PM. He was replaced by Amit Shah. The current GCA president is Dhanraj Parimal Nathwani, son of Rajya Sabha MP Parimal Nathwani, a YSR Congress member and a director at Reliance Industries. Amit Shah’s son Jay is the secretary of the Indian cricket board. Sports Minister Anurag Thakur headed the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association without a break from 2000 before being replaced by his brother, Arun Dhumal, in 2019. Thakur had served as president of the Indian cricket board as well. Congress’s Madhavrao Scindia served as the BCCI president in the 1990s; his son Jyotiraditya headed the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) — and his son Mahanaryaman is a vice-president of the Gwalior cricket organisation and a member of MPCA. The Congress has Rajeev Shukla, the NCP has Sharad Pawar, the National Conference has Farooq Abdullah — the chain of political parties of all hues, politicians and their relatives, cousins or underlings, in the BCCI or other sports associations is long.

This is how things work in the real world — power is inherited and bequeathed. The rajas of yore would hate the very idea of democracy because it, theoretically at least, makes all persons numerically equal. The rajas of today, created by the votes of the dispossessed millions, know that to keep power, fuzzy notions such as justice or principles must be, sometimes, sacrificed. This is political expedience, and it’s this that is saving WFI’s ‘bahubali’ Singh from arrest.