It saddens me to say this. India’s ace wrestlers, who have been valiantly protesting against sexual abuse by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, might have been pushed onto the backfoot.
As so often happens with women who go public with allegations of harassment and abuse, the sheer might of the system usually prevails and outlasts the complainant.
On the face of it, the wrestlers have said their return to work should not be seen as a diminishing of the cause. It’s also true that their sustained commitment and staying power is what has led to the most recent round of talks between them and the government. Union sports minister Anurag Thakur has set a June 15 deadline for the filing of the charge sheet and a June 30 deadline for elections to be held for the management of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). These concrete proposals are to be welcomed; the government has belatedly recognised the wide public sympathy for the wrestlers, especially after images of them being dragged and pulled away from the protest site in Jantar Mantar went viral.
So why am I sceptical about what happens next?
The strongest legal basis for the immediate arrest of Singh, a six-time Member of Parliament with four pending criminal cases against him, was the application of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act (POCSO). One of the seven complainants, who chronicled 12 different instances of molestation, abuse and harassment in their first information reports (FIRs), is a minor. But for the past week, a series of contradictory statements have been made by the father of the minor. Now he says, he falsified the allegation of abuse, because he felt his daughter was treated badly. These flip-flops, which appear to be the consequence of possible pressure and intimidation (he said in an interview that his family was living in fear), will hurt not just his daughter’s case, but also potentially weaken thecase for everyone else. In his initial complaint, the father referenced the fear that stopped his daughter from coming forward. Could the same fear be in play today?
The fact is, as senior sports journalist Chander Shekhar Luthra pointed out, the allegations of abuse against Singh are not new, they are well documented. It was in 2016, Luthra told me, that the first such instance surfaced when three young sportswomen at a camp in Lucknow told the physiotherapist that Singh asked them to come up to his hotel room. “We reported the story, a Hindi newspaper broke it in fact, but it was all hushed up,” Luthra said. The FIRs allege that officials in the government were also aware of the trauma being inflicted by
Singh on the female players. The Indian Express newspaper reported that an international referee, Jagbir Singh, also corroborated an account by one complainant that Singh “tried to place his hand on my buttocks” during a photo opportunity at the Asian Championships.
Former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar told me he investigated Singh for links with the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, specifically on charges of sheltering gangsters.
Though the case eventually collapsed in court and Singh was acquitted, Kumar said, “Bhushan is a dangerous man.” Kumar, who was once also an adviser to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, underlined the fact that the sexual harassment of women in sport is “not uncommon.” He went so far as to say that he was even aware of complaints that the mothers of young women cricketers and cricketers themselves were allegedly asked for sexual favours by selectors and coaches. I had goosebumps as I listened to him.
The wrestlers have forced the country’s gaze on the underbelly of how Indian sport is managed. This did not start with the BJP and won’t end with it either, unless we get politicians out of sporting federations. Else, the nexus of political power and control of federations can never be broken.
Minister Thakur promised a clean-up of WFI. But this won’t be easy. As the wrestlers have pointed out, Bhushan has had an entrenched hold over the federation. His son, Karan Bhushan Singh is the vice-president; his son-in-law Aditya Pratap Singh is the joint secretary.
The capture of WFI by the Singh parivar appears comprehensive. Though his previous rally in Ayodhya was cancelled last weekend, Singh has announced that he will address a rally in his Uttar Pradesh constituency on Sunday as part of a mass outreach programme.
Amidst this signalling of power, can you really blame a complainant’s family for being frightened? Especially if you fear that Singh — or those linked to him — can make or break your entire professional career? How the police handle this case and what happens to Singh will be a signal to all of us, India’s women, young and old, and especially to those girls who are just starting out.
Do we want them to believe that this is the cost of speaking up?
Do we want them to think silence is safer?
Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist. The views expressed are personal
