I want to start this post by borrowing a theme from John Grisham’s A Time To Kill and narrate a story.
Imagine a group of sportsmen who have earned trophies for our country. Imagine the large-scale celebration of the sport and the sportsmen by the people of India. Imagine social media being flooded with glorified pictures and videos of the win and happy tear-stained faces lifting the cup. Imagine the same tear-stained faces, this time in anger and frustration, being pushed, kicked, and beaten. Imagine the sport is cricket and the sportsmen are the boys from the Indian Cricket Team.
Is this even plausible?
I usually avoid posting anything related to politics or religion. Not because I am scared to voice my opinion but I think the online world is no longer a place for healthy discussion of a difference in opinion. Instead, there is a lot of hate if viewpoints don’t match, with name-calling and mud-slinging. However, the recent turn of events at the Wrestler’s Protest didn’t go down well with me and I wanted to pen my thoughts on the same and invite a healthy discussion of views.
If you are in India and have been living under a rock and do not know what the Wrestler’s Protest is all about, you can read up on the same by clicking here. We have all seen the disturbing photos and videos of these sportswomen who proudly represented India and won her accolades being manhandled. Now, immaterial of who is right or wrong, who is guilty or not, and whether the protest is politically driven or not, I think the way the protesting wrestlers were treated was deplorable.
Immaterial of being a celebrity or not, isn’t it the constitutional right of a woman to raise her voice against abuse and feel safe in doing so?
Do less popular sports and sports people deserve praise only for the day/week/month that they won the medal for India and be mistreated after?
In a cricket-obsessed country like ours where the boys in blue are revered and treated like demi-gods, is it even imaginable that they are meted out a similar treatment? Wouldn’t there be a blood bath if this happened?
Does a sportswoman deserve lesser respect than a sportsman?
When the protest was a peaceful one, why should there be a physical force to curb it?
Do the people who trained so hard to bring laurels to India, deserve the treatment they got?
Couldn’t this have been handled in a more dignified manner?
Don’t these deserve an apology for the treatment meted out to them?
Shouldn’t the leadership wake up at least now and rectify the situation?
These sportswomen were even willing to sacrifice their medals in protest of their treatment. Imagine them contesting and winning under a neutral flag and not for India. Chances are that many of us will still blindly share on social media how proud we are and comment on the ‘Indian’ who won but we won’t see the India that let her down.
Food for thought….
I welcome all healthy discussions on this topic, not just ones that match my thought process. However, I do not support hate comments or personal attacks. Those, I will be deleting and blocking.
This post is a personal take on what did not sit well with me about how the Wrestler’s Protest is being handled. It does not support and one party or try to influence the case. I have intentionally not included any pictures to highlight any one person.
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Zariya Healings.
I too raised this issue being a woman, and asked the question- Couldn’t this have been handled in a better way? Even if it was politically motivated, there are ways of soothing frayed tempers, especially when we talk of Beti Bachao.
The unfortunate part is that people only revere those with muscle power and look at ‘chairdom’. There is no say for intellectuals and women in the current times. If we had more educated people in the top positions, maybe things would be differennt. An open mind is what we need to resolve such issues.
This reminded me of this Netflix movie we watched about the India’s Women Cricket team and how different the treatment was given to them compared to the men’s team. It’s saddening to know how unfair and little women are still seen compared to men. Sometimes its not direct but still we allow things to happen beneath our noses.
Agree with your thoughts, Vasumathi. Even i refrain from touching sensitive subjects. You never know how they end up. Seeing how girls who have won laurels for the country are treated like trash is heartrending. You have rightly shared the preamble. Instead of singing the National Anthem, we should ask people to read the preamble. The law is truly blind and politicians get away with murder. Nobody can touch them. Despite the situation, he remained unapologetic and never looked repentant. Instead, he boldly stated the opposite.
Only in Kitchen the women must be master is the thought of every men, whilst today she is excelling in each and every field. The fact is her excellence brot in many changes to family and society, yet her impotance is never really valuabled.
Politics is the one and only topics that I dont love to discuss and talk about never, ever. But this topic is not just politics but also about sports which is one of my favorite topic or segment. Be it men or women each and every person on earth need to be treated with dignity and respect… so even if was men wrestlers and not women in this case I would have said the same thing….. they where doing protest in a decent way what gave you the power to mishandle them with so much harshness. Sportsmen and women are the pride of India. they represent the nation and won several accolades for the nation…. things need to be handled in a generous and peaceful way. Oneway we talk about the Save Girl Child Mission and see what we are doing on other hand… I as a woman is broken heart now watching this incident
You’ve hit the nail on the head with your thoughts on the preamble. It’s a fantastic suggestion to have people read it instead of singing the National Anthem. It’s disheartening to see how the law sometimes turns a blind eye, allowing politicians to get away with serious offenses. It feels like they’re untouchable. Now, Vasumathi, addressing your question about why physical force was used to control the protest, it’s important to note that the protest wasn’t exactly peaceful. The intention was to disrupt the new parliament inauguration ceremony, and if you delve deeper, you’ll realize that this protest was driven purely by political motives.
I fully support their rightful demands regarding sexual harassment and unfair treatment that they face. However, I find the rest of their demands to be baseless.
I completely agree. In spite of all the protests, no action is being taken. Instead, they are waiting for the protests to die down. That is something that always happens when top shots or people with political pull are involved.
Politically motivated or otherwise, this was not the way the women wrestlers should have been treated. I don’t undertsand why no action is being taken. These are our medal winners. If they don’t feel safe, what is the point.
The treatment of accomplished girls, who have brought glory to the nation, being disregarded is truly heartbreaking. The treatment endured by the women wrestlers is entirely unjustifiable. It is perplexing why no action has been taken, especially considering that these individuals are our esteemed medal winners. If they do not feel secure and protected, it raises serious questions about the purpose and significance of their achievements.
It’s a sad state of affairs Vasu. Fighting for justice against biggies is like hitting your head on a brick wall. The damage happens only to you.
It’s sick the type of things that that person is being charged for and it’s sick that he misuses his position, power n authority n expects to get away with his cheapness.
But look at who suffered from the beginning till the end… the women wrestlers😔
I also don’t talk much about political issues for similar reasons. The way our medal winners were treated is simply not acceptable on some days you put them on high pedestals and in some situations you just don’t acknowledge them.
Politics is a dirty game. Yes, the girls deserved better respect but the moment they let motivated people take centre stage, they made a huge mistake. They bullied P T Usha too, btw. Doesn’t she deserve respect as a woman too? This can’t be a one-way street. There’s lot more that meets the eye here. They went back to work and didn’t surrender their medals (conveniently omitting to give up the cash rewards and lands they got). Things will unfold with time. Our opinions will seem hollow then though. General public is often made to see only selective news.
This is my opinion and may not sit right with everyone. Leaving it here.
Yes, it was disturbing to see. But I wouldn’t want to compare. What has happened is wrong. And that is what we need to highlight. And wrong done to any sport is not acceptable. Let’s not bring in comparisons or bring in the ‘women’ in the picture. But the government needs to take action against the perpetrators of the incident.
I think it is our right to put up our opinions. If men or women are treated humanely and not based on what field they are and work in things would be better.
I am a big fan of John Grisham and his opinion. This was really sad indeed. Politics is a really dirty game.
It is truly unfortunate that the women who have already achieved so much for the country are facing this atrocity! Politics is truly a dirty game.
As per the law, when so many people have complaints about a single person a FIR has to be lodged and enquiry has to be started. The authorities were not even registering am FIR for a very long time and till that is done the enquiry can’t be started that’s where they played first. Now that some has started the witnesses have started to tell the court that they had faked some allegations. The game of money and authorises has started. Everyone deserves action on their complaints and fair trial which is so not happening here and the wrestlers are just left to be manhandled by the Police
Girls being manhandled without a solid reason is a crime in itself. The girls with laurels deserve much better than we are providing them. I felt so bad when the TV channels repeatedly aired the wrestler girls being mistreated.
I completely agree with you and I’m unafraid to say that this kind of political pandering to patriarchal sycophants is a huge problem in the leadership of our country. The wrestlers’ case was terrible in and of itself and what’s been happening in Manipur since then is far worse. Something has to change.