Breakthrough raises protesters’ hopes

Julio Ribeiro

THE protesting wrestlers have suspended their agitation till June 15 after an assurance by the Union government that a chargesheet will be filed against outgoing Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh by then and the federation’s elections will be conducted by the month-end. The Centre has managed to break the deadlock after Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur held talks with Olympic medallists Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik. However, the government should have intervened much earlier rather than letting this terrible dispute fester and cause acrimony.

Wisdom has dawned on the Sports Minister and the BJP. They have compromised on some key demands of the wrestlers.

Wisdom has dawned on Thakur and the BJP. They compromised on some important demands of the wrestlers, the main concession being to expedite the filing of the chargesheet. The concession shows that the police were being prodded by those in power to delay the investigation. The more important concession was to isolate Brij Bhushan, his family and close aides from the WFI.

The MP’s purpose of running the federation collapses if he is no longer in charge and none of his aides is anywhere around. The dignity of women, which was what this whole agitation was all about, will be restored and the BJP will now breathe easier till 2024.

The wrestlers’ complaints disclosed a clear and unmistakable pattern in the MP’s behaviour. He has been accused of first lifting their T-shirts, that too without a ‘by your leave’, placing his hand on their stomachs and then moving it upwards to their breasts! Since this was his ‘modus operandi’, the girls tried first to avoid him, but were forced to report to him when he summoned them to his office. Some of them stated that he asked for sexual favours in lieu of nutrition supplements that he would provide at his own expense. Of course, they were shocked.

The girls decided never to go alone to the common dining room for fear of encountering him there. They were aware that their sporting careers were in his hands. It was only when Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik took up the cause and were joined by Bajrang Punia that the MP’s actual intent was publicly disclosed.

There was a news report about Brij Bhushan calling new entrants among girl wrestlers to his home at a late-evening hour “to be introduced to him”. This incident was not probed because if it had been, he should have been relieved of his job as president of the federation on that ground alone. Even the police are not allowed to summon women accused of cognisable offences to a police station after dusk, and here was the WFI president calling girls to his residence at an hour when they should have been asleep.

There is no doubt in my mind that at the beginning the Sports Minister tried to protect his party colleague. Olympic medal-winning boxer Mary Kom, and champion athlete PT Usha, obviously indebted to the ruling party for their appointment as Rajya Sabha MPs (Usha is also president of the Indian Olympic Association), took a wishy-washy stand on their own tribe of sportswomen. Even Roger Binny, president of the BCCI, did not support fellow members of the 1983 World Cup-winning Indian cricket team when they protested against the treatment meted out to women wrestlers.

Spare a thought for the Delhi Police. Bashing the police is a popular national pastime. But have the critics tried to analyse why the police are so eager to lay their hands on Opposition leaders and stray critics of the party in power while going slow on BJP legislators and assorted supporters of the regime? The party in power, whether it is the BJP today or the Congress earlier, wields influence over officials. It is not only transfers and postings that are in the hands of the political class. That class can ensure the rapid rise of one official and the eclipse of another, irrespective of his or her merits.

Today, even good officers try to steer clear of cutting-edge jobs. If they are compelled to accept such assignments, they have to compromise to survive! There can be no doubt in the minds of those who know that the police drag their feet in even clear-cut cases because of the promptings of their political masters.

With Rahul Gandhi being hauled to the courts for a stupid joke and AAP’s two ministers lodged in jail, the BJP has been proclaiming that nobody, just nobody, is above the law. Except if you join the party!

But now, prominent cricketers, boxers and other sportspersons who have not been won over with the lure of office have joined the chorus for demanding action. A couple of BJP MPs have chipped in. What is more potent is the universal opinion of ordinary citizens, especially women — voters, all of them! Only diehard ‘Mulayamites’ who believe implicitly in his adage that ‘boys will be boys’ will forgive the WFI president.

Had Brij Bhushan been from one of the Opposition parties, he would be in Tihar jail by now. Nevertheless, the government has given an indication that action against the colourful MP, who once was marked by the local police as a ‘history-sheeter’ and proceeded against under TADA provisions, is being contemplated. The Sports Minister is sounding conciliatory now, whereas he was pugnacious earlier.

There has been much delay in the inquiries by the Sports Ministry and the police. Already, one of the complainants, a minor girl of 17, has retracted her statement made before a magistrate. If there is more delay, more complainants will oblige — that appears to be the strategy. Brij Bhushan is not new to the world of crime, even as he was acquitted in many cases earlier in his career. But the women wrestlers are not the ones to be summarily disregarded.

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