Why Usha should stand by players, not pull them down
PT Usha is one of India’s greatest athletes, but on Thursday, her legendary status mattered little. Instead of her medals, the conversation shifted to her words -- words that were seemingly spoken without empathy; that reduced India’s wrestlers’ protest to one that is “not good for sports”; that compared these wrestlers (Olympic medallists, no less) to a group with “no discipline”.
When Usha was named as the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president in December 2022, there was hope that an athlete-led federation would be better than the previous disposition. She had, after all, become the first Olympian and international medallist to head the IOA in its 95-year-old history. And it takes a sportsperson to know a sportsperson.
But Thursday’s comment from the former great (who is now also a Rajya Sabha MP) that the protests are “tarnishing the image” of the country do not track with those expectations.
The wrestlers have been on the streets on two occasions in the past three months -- first to complain against alleged sexual harassment and mental torture by the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and now to protest against the lack of action taken on their complaint despite multiple assurances.
The point of the first protest was to demand justice, and of the second, to bring the issue back into the limelight after their cries fell on deaf ears -- though an Oversight Committee was formed, its report has not been released; no FIR has been filed; and, they say, no progress has been made.
Here is a group of athletes attempting to wrest back control of their sport from a politician who has allegedly, and by several accounts, treated it like a personal fiefdom. This is not indiscipline, but an urgent and unequivocal demand for change.
Usha has been a sportsperson long enough to understand the problems people in her profession often face, and as IOA chief, the least one could expect from her was to lend them a sympathetic ear. Rather than getting drawn into the need for process or the right way to approach the matter or demanding that the wrestlers should’ve “come to us”, Usha may have done better by getting out of her newly occupied high chair and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them, if only to listen to their side. Not pull them up for raising their voice.
It’s good to have athletes who are not afraid to speak out -- not just for the present, but for future generations of hopefuls. The wrestlers have taken a brave stand. Don’t dismiss them, hear them out. The charges they have made are serious, and the least they merit is a transparent and thorough investigation.
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