Hope Is Powerful: Can WFI Suspension Change How Indian Sports Federations Work?

WFI suspension prompts hope for change in Indian sports federations.

Image used for representation.

(Photo: The Quint)

Hope can be powerful. And it doesn't have a timer attached.

So, when wish becomes reality, after morale sank like a stone in the lake, there is that morse code of optimism tapping through the darkness that descended on 18 January 2023, when wrestlers began their protest at Jantar Mantar, accusing Wrestling Federation of India Chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexual exploitation and intimidation.

Singh’s resignation was demanded along with the dissolution of the WFI, extremely valid under the circumstances.

But the powers that be kept the powder dry as troll armies shredded the integrity of the wrestlers.

And, just when the lunacy of the internet, the ambivalence of everyone, including the sports ministry had subsumed the controversy, the suspension of the WFI, for unbridled arrogance and the shameless temerity to make women wrestlers travel to Gonda to participate in the National Championships, made people in power realise that mixing national politics with the reckless decadence of one man can have disastrous effects, especially with general elections around the corner.

Faith Has Been the Biggest Loss

Things came to such a pass that Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh was forced to announce he was quitting wrestling. Post the WFI elections, won by Sanjay Singh, a placeholder for Brij Bhushan, the diktat came to retract.

A heavily garlanded Singh after his business partner won the WFI elections as President must have irked a few in the ruling party, the unwarranted audacity of that act (garlanded and serenaded) was the final straw (hopefully).

“I served wrestling for 12 years; good or bad only time will tell. I have taken retirement from wrestling. I am breaking my relationship with the sport. Now whatever decision has to be taken, whether to liaise with the government or handle the legal processes, those decisions will be taken by the elected members now. The Lok Sabha elections are around the corner, and I have to move ahead,” he told PTI.

Singh’s surprising surrender could have come much earlier when the wrestlers started their agitation.

In sport, it’s all about verbal confetti.

Or the lack of it.

Suspending the WFI, now, is the classic example of the ambulance running over the athletes and then transporting them to the hospital.

Blood has already been spilled. Wounds are a foot deep and will take ages to heal, if at all they do. The biggest loss has been faith and to figure out for future generations the difference between faith and fakery.

Other Sportspersons Had a Chance To Stand By Their Peers...

Dignity has been crushed. Principles thrown away. Respect shredded. International medallists, which include an Olympic winner, straight out told that their opinion was irrelevant with no place in the polity of today.

Legislature, Executive, Judiciary stood by the wayside and watched the annihilation, the public dismantling of Modern India’s only super-heroes, the sport stars, especially in the Olympic arena where winning is as rare as expecting Ben Johnson to be exonerated for the misdeeds of Seoul 1988.

Indian sport comes in all shapes, stylings, and apparitions.

The specifics of the story, the timelines are well etched across every Indian fan, the sports ministry, like fine lines on all things that don’t age well.

Brij Bhushan, a master at bending the truth but most in sport federations excel in the art of dishonesty.

Players, at times, do go overboard, yet we must understand they are players, Olympic medallists, Asian medallists, national champions, a tribe in such a minority that not giving weight to their opinion is not just wrong but goes against the very fabric of why we celebrate champions.

Five-time World Champion and Olympic bronze medallist, MC Mary Kom, not exactly a paragon of standing by women athletes and Olympic medallist, Yogeshwar Dutt, weighed down by his allegiance to the ruling party in Haryana threw away a home run chance to lend their voices to what could bring about a revolution in Indian sports federations.

Maybe, both could have taken inspiration from what played out in American gymnastics leading to a complete purge in the body.

Gian Singh, an Asian medallist, 84’ Olympian and a member of the 7-member IOA ad-hoc committee said on the WFI suspension: "This decision has been taken a little late. But it is correct. If we take a stand on this, if the government works properly on this, let's see what will happen but the starting is good."

On Sakshi Malik quitting and Bajrang Punia and Virender Singh Punia returning their Padma Shri, Gian says:

“I don't comment much on them. I don't know about the right and wrong of these things. Whatever those children felt right they did whether it is right for me or wrong for you. For me, the solution to this is important. The government has taken the first step of the solution. If this is done in a fair way, then the wrestlers will feel good. Sometimes it happens late but the decision should be right, and the solution should be right. The right federation should be formed. Not too late. It can't be done in 11 months. I don't think this is such a big thing for the government to solve it.”

Vinesh Phogat in a media interview after the WFI suspension, explained: “Had we accepted defeat, women across the world, be it wrestling or any field, would struggle to raise their voices. WFI should have people who should be good for wrestlers, especially women; we are saying this from the beginning. I hope the things we have tolerated; others don’t have to. That’s our fight.”

Gian, in fact, says, that Anita Sheoran, who was standing for WFI President and lost, had before the elections admitted to feeling scared.

“Just before the elections, I had gone, and I had spoken to her for a while, even then she had told me that she was feeling a little scared. If anything happens to me, please make a video. But I told her, if it makes you feel safe, go sit in your car and if you win, then we will call you. She accepted my suggestion.”

Sanjay Singh polled 40 votes to Sheoran’s seven.

On going forward, Gian says,

“Apart from this, now, if the government sits with us and talks, I say don’t call wrestlers, any other players, can give good suggestions because if they think wrestlers can be biased then call other sports people. So, there will be no bias at all. Ask them, what can be right, what can be wrong, and how can we debate this, if your intention is right. That's it.”