Wrestlers plan to do a Muhammad Ali, throw their medals into sacred Ganga, say their life meaningless now

Tribune Web Desk

Monica Chauhan

Chandigarh, May 30

A day after Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik posted a video from her Twitter handle, clarifying that they have not given up, the protesting women wrestlers on Tuesday said they would throw their medals into the Ganga as they failed to find any other place more sacred than the holy river to submit their medals that were a symbol of their hard work and struggle.

In a message on social media, Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik said they couldn’t return the medals to President Droupadi Murmu as she was seated merely 2 km from their protest site Jantar Mantar, but never came to enquire about the hardships they faced during their protest.

🙏 pic.twitter.com/wdMCzeADEo

— Sakshee Malikkh (@SakshiMalik) May 30, 2023

She said they couldn’t return the medals to Prime Minister Narendra Modi either as despite the Centre’s tall claims about initiatives for the girl child, he had failed to come to the rescue of the daughters who had made India proud in international events. “Moreover, our harasser (Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh) was invited to the inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday and he was posing for photographs in a white attire and seemed to be saying ‘I am the system, nobody can fight me’,” she wrote.

Sakshi wrote that all the protesting women wrestlers were going to throw the medals into the Ganga as there was a resemblance between the purity of the river and their perseverance and hard work through which they had earned the medals for India.

“These medals are dearer to us than our lives. But after what happened on May 28, our life has been rendered meaningless,” she wrote. The protesting wrestlers were detained on way to the new Parliament building on Sunday as they wanted to confront Brij Bhushan. The protest site Jantar Mantar, too, was cleared of the protesters.

Interestingly, renowned African-American boxer Muhammad Ali had thrown his Olympic gold medal over the Jefferson County Bridge in his native Louisville and into the Ohio river in disgust against the rampant racism in the then America.

In his autobiography, Ali wrote that he had thought that winning the Olympic gold would improve things but, on his return, he found things to be much the same. After being declined service at a restaurant because he was an African-American, he was so angry that he is said to have thrown his gold medal into the river.

Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia, Sangeeta Phogat, Sakshi Malik and several others were detained by Delhi Police on Sunday when they tried to move towards the new Parliament building for women's 'Mahapanchayat'.

Unprecedented scenes of police dragging Olympic and world championships medal-winning players, including Sakshi, Vinesh, Punia and Sangeeta Phogat, were witnessed when the wrestlers and their supporters breached the security cordon ahead of their march towards the new Parliament building. 

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