With wrestlers’ agitation gaining momentum, Centre just can’t afford to look the other way

The government appears to have got itself into a serious tangle by turning its back on champion women wrestlers demanding action against Wrestling Federation of India president and BJP Member of Parliament Brij Bhushan Saran Singh for allegedly sexually harassing some of them, including a minor. Their agitation has assumed momentous proportions in the past few days after the police as well as the Sports Ministry failed to take prompt action against Singh despite the grave nature of the charges. It was only after the Supreme Court intervened that the police belatedly registered First Information Reports (FIRs) against the Wrestling Federation chief but he is yet to be properly questioned. What has really escalated matters are images flashed across television channels and publications all over the country of the police beating up and arresting the protesting wrestling champions to stop them from marching to the new Parliament House even as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi prostrated himself inside at the feet of male Hindu seers and priests during the inauguration ceremony last Sunday. To make matters worse the accused BJP MP proudly posed for media cameras at the inauguration ceremony waving his hands triumphantly even as the female athletes were being pinned down to the ground at the point of police batons and dragged to jail. Although the women wrestlers were later released the authorities have so far only come up with the stock routine response that the police were investigating and law will take its course. With the Lok Sabha polls less than a year away, these are hardly desirable optics for PM Modi as he prepares to win a third successive term in office. The entire fracas between the ruling party MP and champion female athletes in the country has the potential of blowing up into a major embarrassment for the government, similar to what happened after its mishandling of the farmer’s agitation, forcing the Prime Minister to abandon the implementation of hastily passed new farm laws. Significantly, the farmers still angry with the government despite the turnaround have declared their open support for the women wrestlers and both now seem to be collaborating in the agitation against Singh. By so openly choosing in favour of his party MP with a dubious past that includes three dozen criminal charges over champion women athletes who have won medals at international competitions across the world the Prime Minister clearly runs the risk of antagonising several shades of public opinion. The urban middle class who have traditionally leaned towards PM Modi would look askance at the public humiliation of sporting heroines of the nation. The fact that the women wrestlers were being brutalised by the Delhi police at the same time as the Prime Minister was seen to pay obeisance to saffron robed monks inside the new Parliament house is unlikely to endear him to those who hail the Prime Minister as the maker of modern India. The controversial BJP MP will also incur the wrath of women both in cities and villages since they have experienced first-hand sexual harassment from male predators. The women’s vote that PM Modi had assiduously cultivated with his Beti Padhao and Beti Bachao slogans along with free cooking gas cylinders and toilet construction schemes stands in danger of drastically turning against the ruling party. Interestingly, in the recent Karnataka elections where the BJP suffered a humiliating defeat, surveys have revealed that women voters more than the men turned against the party after several of the schemes supposed to benefit them were not properly implemented. The Prime Minister’s dogged refusal to respond to the cry for justice by the aggrieved women wrestlers could well aggravate this hostility. There are also disturbing regional and caste ramifications to the tussle. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), umbrella organisation of various farming groups across the country, has given a call for a nationwide agitation to secure the democratic right to protest by Indian wrestlers and all other sections of society and to demand the arrest of Brij Bhushan Saran Singh. While the powerful Jat peasant community in western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab have rallied around the wrestlers describing them as their “betis and bahus”, the controversial BJP MP, a Rajput who wields considerable influence in sections of eastern Uttar Pradesh has been enlisting support from his caste brethren. Singh, who was involved with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, has also support from some seers in Ayodhya who have threatened to hold a rally in support of the Wrestling Federation chief and demanded the revocation of the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse (POCSA) act, under which one of the FIRs have been filed against him. There is also disquiet in sections of the BJP at the cavalier way the government has treated the women wrestlers. In Haryana from where all the three leaders of the agitation, Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Pogat and Bajrang Punia come, BJP leaders including the Home Minister Anil Vij and Hisar MP Brijendra Singh have expressed sympathy for the agitating female athletes and urged the Central government to hear their demand for justice. With both parliamentary and state assembly polls due in the state next year, the BJP central leadership is in a quandary on what to do. For the Opposition dispirited not so long ago on what appeared to be a lost electoral battle in 2024 the dramatic turn taken by the women wrestler’s agitation has come as a huge boost almost immediately after the good news from the Karnataka polls. This is the kind of issue which will provide further ammunition to opposition parties across the country against PM Modi and his party in the campaign leading up to next year’s national polls. The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator. Views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.