Look down in anger

Observe male coaches and physiotherapists working with female wrestlers or boxers, rubbing their arms and legs during practice or a bout, and you realise their touch is clinical and diagnostic, almost forensic. It’s curative and restorative.

Women in contact sports know exactly what ‘bad touch’ is it’s the violent touch of the adversary inside the boxing ring or the wrestling mat. To excel in their sport, they must perfect the art of avoiding this bad touch. But women in sport are more fearful of another ‘bad touch’ unwanted attention from men in positions of power in the sports set-up

There exist predatory coaches, and the number of cases of sexual harassment of female athletes by them, across the world, is appallingly high. But when you see boxer Nikhat Zareen being carried off from the ring by her male coach after she won gold in the World Championships in 2022, or wrestler Sakshi Malik on the shoulders of her coach after winning bronze at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, or Mary Kom’s coach rubbing her arms and legs and furiously fanning her with a towel to cool her body, you know that such interactions transcend normal gender dynamics. That’s one of the several wonderful aspects of sport.

Though the female wrestlers have been protesting against Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for several months, some details of their complaints to Delhi Police about his behaviour have emerged only over the last couple of days. You’re likely to be shocked by the allegations, but unlikely to be surprised over the decades, surveys have consistently shown that most women in India have faced sexual harassment of one nature or the other.

Yet, it is a bit unnerving that the super-strong, super-successful female wrestlers, who have bravely defied societal norms and won world fame and are role models to millions of girls, have had to endure sexual harassment from the WFI president. If it had been any other man, someone like Sakshi or Vinesh could have easily choked him into physical submission. But the power dynamics of a sports association are such that its boss can make or mar the career of a sportsperson.

The situation becomes even worse if the alleged predator is a member of a political party and, god forbid, an MP or a minister. The horrible and sad drama of the wrestlers protesting, and being forced into submission and pinned to the ground on Delhi’s roads by hordes of police personnel, is a powerful argument against politicians in sports associations. As it is, it’s difficult to manage sports associations and create champions; when politicians enter these associations, they bring a new power dynamic into their functioning, and that must be strictly avoided. In the normal course, it’s difficult for a woman sportsperson or staff member to summon the courage to protest or complain against harassment by a non-politician office-bearer of a sports association; when the predator is a powerful politician, the troubles of the victim are multiplied manifold.

It’s mystifying why the government and the Delhi Police is protecting Brij Bhushan, whose past is unsavoury and includes a killing that he has confessed to on camera. But perhaps it’s not so mystifying if you consider that the wrestlers’ protest is being cast as a caste issue if it’s wrestler Jats vs the others, perhaps the ruling dispensation reckons that the mathematics of polarisation would favour it. That’s a very cynical way of looking at the very serious issue of harassment of women in sports and across Indian society. The protest, instead, should be seen as women’s struggle to become free from harassment in sports fields, in offices, on the streets. Everyone must have the right to work, play, jog or walk without having to face physical or verbal harassment of any kind.

The Great Khan of Pakistan

The followers of Pakistan’s greatest ever cricketer, Imran Khan, say the Great Khan is being brutally suppressed by the army. Finally, after various ethnic groups of Pakistan Bengalis, Baloch, Mohajirs, Pakhtoons, Kashmiris, the Balti it’s the turn of the Punjabis to feel the boot of the army personnel on their back. Imran Khan’s supporters have turned against the army they’ve been digging out stories and videos about atrocities the army committed in East Pakistan, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh to show how brutal the men in ‘vardi’ really are. It’s as if the chickens have come home to roost for Pakistan’s most populous state.

There was some irony in the beautiful house of the Lahore Corps Commander being destroyed by Imran’s supporters. This house once belonged to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country’s founder, the Baba-e-Qaum Father of the Nation. Jinnah, it’s been demonstrated by several historians, most recently and very persuasively by Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, was used by the British to divide India in order to serve their interests in the region. The haste with which the British departed, the haphazard planning and transfer of power, the uncertainty over the boundary, led to the horrible holocaust in India.

One finds no joy in watching acts of vandalism Jinnah and the other prime actors of that terrible episode are out of harm’s way, anyway but Jinnah House being destroyed by Pakistani ‘nationalists’ reminded one of millions of homes and lives destroyed due to his divisive, communal rhetoric and acts in the run-up to Partition. Dr Ahmed, currently visiting India, says even as Jinnah advised Indian Muslims to embrace martyrdom and sacrifice everything for his dream of a new country, he wasn’t willing to sacrifice anything of his own. He wanted PM Nehru to ensure that his own house in Mumbai was let out to a foreign national no native, please! for a monthly rent of at least Rs 3,000. ‘What did he sacrifice?’ asks Dr Ahmed. ‘Nothing!’