IOA president comes down hard on wrestlers protesting against sexual harassment
The recently-appointed president of the Indian Olympic Association, the much-decorated PT Usha, has strongly criticised the wrestlers’ months-long protest against the sexual harassment by their association’s president, terming it as “indiscipline” and “negative publicity” for the country, shocking the protesters who had expected empathy and support for their cause from another woman, and that too, a huge star.
The issue of the sexual harassment of women wrestlers by the (now former) president of the Wrestling Federation of India and BJP MP from Kaiserganj in Uttar Pradesh, Brij Bhushan Saran Singh is blowing up.
After no action against Singh by the government or IOA despite three-and-a-half months of on-and-off protests by the country’s top wrestlers like Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia, Ravi Dahiya and others at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi (they are demanding an FIR against Brij Bhushan and a police investigation), now, the president of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), legendary athlete PT Usha, also a nominated Rajya Sabha MP, has come down hard on the protesters.
Yesterday, speaking to reporters after the IOA’s Executive Committee meeting that nominated Wushu Association of India president and IOA Executive Council member Bhupendra Singh Bajwa and former shooter Suma Shirur to an ad hoc committee to run WFI, Usha said that “[t]his kind of agitation is not good for the country’s image and amounts to indiscipline. This negative publicity is not good for the country”.
She added that the IOA would be “with any athlete who has represented India, but under the rules, regulations and law of the land”.
Her comments were not taken nicely by the protesters, with all of them expressing disappointment. Tokyo Olympics medallist Bajrang Punia said that it was “unfortunate that as a woman she is not able to understand the pain these women are undergoing”.
Rio Olympics medallist Sakshi Malik felt “let down by her statements”. She gave back in no uncertain terms to Usha’s comments on indiscipline: “As athletes, we don’t have an iota of indiscipline in our blood. We win medals and bring honour to the country only because we are disciplined”.
Vinesh Phogat, another of the protesting star wrestlers, expressed the protesters’ frustration at the composition of the ad hoc committee to run the WFI and its forthcoming examination of witnesses, as announced by PT Usha at the press conference yesterday.
“Brij Bhushan’s people have been made witnesses. We also have witnesses, athletes and coaches, please make them witnesses too. We only trust the Supreme Court,” she said.
On Wednesday, she had also told The Indian Express about the lack of support from the country’s top cricketers who “come forward to congratulate us when we win something”. She exhorted them, saying, “Are you so afraid of the system? Or maybe there’s something fishy going on there too (Unke daal mein bhi kaala hai, yeh maan ke chale hum)?”
“You put photos, you put brand collaborations … can’t you put one post saying there should be justice for us. That’s all we request,” she said.
