Vinesh Phogat’s Story Has Shattered the Chimera of a Government That Cares

Having sacrificed her career to speak up for what matters the most, Vinesh is today the rarest of athletes in India.

Vinesh Phogat became the first Indian woman to reach the final of an Olympic wrestling event, but was disqualified on the day of the final in what was a heartbreaking ending to her career.

(Photo: PTI)

There was nothing delectable about the conspiracy theories seeking to explain Vinesh Phogat’s heartbreaking disqualification from the Paris Olympics. Nevertheless, what’s happened around the wrestler, and the reactions of important actors, especially those who wanted nothing to do with Vinesh or Indian wrestling a year ago, deserve closer scrutiny.

The heaviest dose of this scrutiny must be directed towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Known for his penchant for hogging credit and claiming any and every achievement anywhere in the country as his and his government’s, Modi famously ‘consoled’ Vinesh after her quarter-final loss at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

A video of that conversation between the two, in August 2021, at the PM’s residence during an event held to felicitate India’s Tokyo Olympics contingent, is now part of Indian sporting lore, not because of what Modi had told Vinesh, but for everything that happened after.

In January 2023, Vinesh and her fellow Olympian wrestlers, Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik, alleged sexual harassment of female wrestlers by the then Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President and Member of Parliament (MP) from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, sparking off perhaps the sorriest episode in Indian sports that would expose the BJP’s duplicity on women empowerment, and the depths of character assassination that its paid trolls can stoop to, no matter if the targets are world-beating Indian athletes and bonafide patriots.  

Vinesh had revealed a lot at the time about her interactions with PM Modi. As days passed and the wrestlers’ sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar dragged on without the BJP taking any action against Brij Bhushan, or Delhi Police registering an FIR in the case, Vinesh revealed to the media that she’d told Modi about the mental and emotional torture that had become commonplace for athletes under the Brij Bhushan-led WFI. Modi, Vinesh said, had promised her a resolution then and asked her to focus on her game and not let distractions bog her down.

Nothing came of Modi’s promise, though. It must be remembered that before she launched her protest against Brij Bhushan, Vinesh had, on several occasions, been effusive in her praise for PM Modi and his involvement in Indian sports, dishing out anecdotes at will about their interactions to any journalist who’d listen.

It’s tragic, as it is perplexing, that Modi, knowing full well from Vinesh that all was not well within the Brij Bhushan-led WFI, would, regardless, let Bhushan run the show at the Federation until the athletes’ grievances over sexual harassment spilt onto the streets.

The protest turned ugly in May last year when Vinesh and her colleagues resolved to march towards the new Parliament building to host a Mahila Mahapanchayat in the vicinity. Delhi Police, under the direct command of the Home Ministry led by Amit Shah, swooped down on the protestors and dragged them through the streets, into their police vans. India’s most celebrated wrestlers were treated like the andolanjeevi whom Modi and his party colleagues could identify by their clothes.

Days later, Delhi Police, under pressure from all quarters, filed a diluted chargesheet against Brij Bhushan. A few months later, however, the government allowed Brij Bhushan’s proxies to contest the WFI election and consolidate their dabdaba or hold over Indian wrestling by winning 13 out of the 15 posts in the Federation.

Anguished by the developments, Phogat and Punia wrote letters to PM Modi explaining their decision to return their national sporting honours. They were stopped in their tracks on their way to the PM’s residence to request a meeting, compelling them to leave their awards on the Kartavya Path. A teary-eyed Malik would hang up her boots in despair during a press conference.  

If India’s sports administrators hadn’t already made clear their allegiances in this saga, more proof would follow in the early months of 2024. In March, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced its decision to dissolve the government’s ad-hoc body that had been governing wrestling in the country. Instead, control of the WFI was handed over to its newly elected body, led by incoming President Sanjay Singh, a close confidante of Brij Bhushan.

In response, Vinesh, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), would call Modi a ‘spin master’ for virtue signalling on women empowerment in his political speeches, before drawing his attention to the IOA’s decision. Known for calling a spade a spade, Vinesh might have felt she’d called out the biggest spade of them all, for betrayal cuts the deepest when it comes from those we hold closest. ‘Ye toh apne hi ghar ki hain (she’s from my family),’ Modi had once said about Vinesh; she too, held Modi in high esteem.

Three years later, it seems most who’re influential in India’s sports administration, right from the PM, are holding a grudge against the erstwhile ‘family member’ Vinesh for her outspokenness on rampant sexual violence in Indian wrestling, perpetrated by a BJP leader. 

Much of what’s happened leading up to and in the aftermath of Vinesh’s disqualification from the Paris Olympics seems to reflect that grudge. The IOA’s decision to hand over control of the WFI to its newly elected body meant that Brij Bhushan’s aide and the new Federation President Sanjay Singh was present at the Olympic Village in Paris, following Vinesh’s competition from close quarters.

Leaving aside how triggering this must have been for Vinesh – the protesting wrestlers have filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking to have the WFI election of December 2023 declared illegal – there’s the more serious matter of what happened immediately after the wrestler’s disqualification.

Advocate Rahul Mehra, who’s representing Phogat, Punia and Malik in the Delhi High Court, has alleged that after she was found ‘overweight’ by 100 grams and disqualified from the competition, Vinesh was left to fend for herself, the idea of challenging the disqualification not even being broached by either the IOA or the WFI.

In retrospect, immediate statements about the disqualification, from PM Modi and the IOA seem in line with Mehra’s assertion – both seemed strangely accepting of the cruel twist of fate. “Come back stronger,” wrote Modi, betraying his premature acceptance of Vinesh’s disqualification.

News agency ANI later distributed news that Modi had asked IOA President PT Usha to explore all options for challenging the disqualification. If Vinesh’s lawyer Mehra is to be believed, the wrestler filed her appeal in the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) herself with French lawyers at the Olympic Village. Later involvement of the IOA and through the Association, of celebrated Indian lawyer Harish Salve was an attempt to save face.  

Meanwhile, tone-deaf statements by Indian sports administrators betrayed the abject lack of empathy that defines sports governance in this country – from PT Usha blaming Vinesh and her support staff for failing to cut weight and absolving the IOA’s medical team of any responsibility, to Sanjay Singh citing the wrestlers’ protest as the chief reason behind Indian wrestlers’ poor performance in Paris, to Minister for Sports, Mansukh Mandaviya, who in response to an outcry in Parliament over Vinesh’s disqualification, turned accountant and recited a bill of the government’s expenses on the wrestler’s preparation, subtly driving home the point that the Modi government deserves plaudits for aiding Vinesh despite her visible anti-BJP tilt during and post the wrestlers’ protest.

Mandaviya’s speech added no substance to the debate over how India would challenge the disqualification. Instead, it seemed like a BJP-sanctioned laundry list of accusations and rebuttals that paid trolls must leverage to blame Vinesh for her ouster.

On the eve of the formal announcement from CAS that Vinesh’s appeal against her disqualification had been rejected, PM Modi met with the Paris Olympics contingent, claiming credit for having delivered air conditioners to Indian athletes during the Games.

Conspicuous by her absence was Vinesh. The ‘family member’ seems conveniently forgotten today. The bahubalis of Indian wrestling she railed against have reclaimed their dabdaba. Sexual violence in Indian sports is yesterday’s story, ‘cooked-up’ by an athlete who was ignominiously disqualified from the Olympics, they will tell their coteries in private dinners.

But Vinesh’s story wouldn’t be forgotten easily. Having sacrificed a promising career to speak up for what mattered the most, Vinesh is today the rarest of athletes in India - a vocal opponent of an administration that believes in punishing dissenters and taking no prisoners. The world of suffering she’s endured between Tokyo and Paris was not for nothing; it’s shattered the chimera of an administration that cares. It really doesn’t!

If it didn’t for a world-beating Indian Olympian – a unicorn amongst Indian athletes – what hope do you and I have?  

(Harshit Rakheja is a former journalist. Views are personal.)