The Delhi Police did not register an FIR for three months which is illegal as per the Indian law. The FIRs were filed only after the Supreme Court intervention on 28 April 2023. The protestors are demanding arrest of Singh and investigation into the allegations. The protestors have accused the government of trying to protect the accused as he is from the ruling party of India. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union home minister Amit Shah have both been silent on the case.
The sexual harassment accusations by the women wrestlers come under the category of cognizable offence), under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in the Indian law, means an offence in which a police officer has the authority to register as an FIR
and make an arrest without a warrant and to start an investigation.
Now the issue is why the police have not performed their most important and immediate duty? Why there is a differential treatment?
When under the similar situation any common individual would have been behind the bar, and rightly so, why Singh is still at large? Is it because he is a five-term Lok Sabha MP of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he is untouched by the police and no one in the government is raising a finger and even the parliamentarians are quiet?
Who is on the receiving end? They are the golden daughters of the motherland India: Vinesh Phogat, only woman to win multiple medals in World Championship, first Indian woman wrestler to win gold in both Commonwealth and Asian Games; Sakshi Malik, first women wrestler won Olympic medal and five more such golden daughters of India.
Instead of honouring them with highest regard, we have brought them down on the road. Whole world is seeing how we are treating our gems!!
Sakshi Malik rightly said that they have to “win this war” to ensure our daughters can achieve such success for the next fifty years, otherwise “we shall go back by another fifty years”.
Shashi Malik also said that in 2012, a group of half a dozen junior female wrestlers attempted to submit a sexual harassment charge against Singh with authorities in Uttar Pradesh, but “the case vanished within 24 hours.”
This unfortunate issue raises following very important issues that include: possible existence of political and police nexus, inefficiency of Union Sports Minister in handling the case being unable to submit any report, total submission by police hierarchy to politician, helplessness of a common citizen while seeking justice and growing feeling of disenchantment with police by the citizens of this country.
The case has also underlined the difficulty women in India experience in speaking out about sexual harassment charges, particularly against men in positions of authority, where they are frequently subjected to a public smear campaign or legal action.
In these circumstances, the Modi government’s slogan focused on saving the girl child: Beti Bachao, Beti Padao (Save the girl child, educate her) sounds hollow and hypocritical. The Prime Minister started his Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign in 2015 from Haryana, which is notorious for female foeticide and lowest sex ratio in the country.
Ironically, these women fighting for action against the WFI president, hail from the same State. His government is ignoring the protest against sexual violence by some of Haryana’s most-acclaimed daughters.
A country which is bereft of non-cricketing heroes, should treat its Olympians with dignity and honour. But with the government siding with a person who is facing grave charges from the women wrestlers, it
is evident that our country will never learn to respect its achievers.
Other countries provide the best of the facilities for its to excel at every level. But here in our country, our budding sports persons have to struggle at every step in their endeavour to become a national-level athlete, starting from food, to infrastructure and funds for survival. The condition of women athletes is even worse in this country.
In fact, survival of women in our society is at stake from the birth itself. If they survive foeticide, then they are discriminated against and admonished at every stage of their life. Their education is hindered and they are married off early. Even if they manage to
get a decent education, they are prevented froing out to do jobs.
Even if they are allowed to work, they have to juggle between home and work responsibilities, put up with sexual predators in public and workplace. Things are even tougher for women athletes, especially those who take up “manly games” like boxing and wrestling.
Despite our sportswomen scaling all these seemingly insurmountable challenges and bringing laurels for their country, instead of honouring them, the system is trying to crush them, which is a shame.
