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Indian wrestlers demand an overhaul by the Wrestling Federation of India

In January, India saw unprecedented protests as top athletes spoke out against the country’s wrestling federation, accusing its president and coaches of sexual misconduct. Rudraneil Sengupta reports on why this was a watershed moment for Indian sports and the challenges ahead.

The protests began on January 18 when some of India’s most famous wrestlers – including Olympic and Commonwealth Games medalists – gathered near the office of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) in the capital Delhi to denounce the organisation’s functioning.

The demonstrations intensified after two-time world champion Vinesh Phogat claimed that at least 10 women wrestlers had told her they had been sexually exploited by WFI president Brij Bhushan Singh.

While Mr Singh dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and sparked by just a few athletes with “ulterior motives”, the protests only grew.

Days later, the federal government suspended Mr. Singh from his post and formed a panel to oversee the union’s activities. The Indian Olympic Association has also set up a committee to investigate allegations of sexual harassment against Mr Singh, a lawmaker and politician from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

While the protests have been called off, the issue is unlikely to blow over anytime soon – the wrestlers have said they were not consulted before the panel was formed.

When contacted, Phogat said she did not want to “talk more about” the sexual abuse allegations.

“But we will take the right action and file a police complaint at the right time,” she said without giving more details.

WFI President Brij Bhushan Singh has denied all charges against him

Experts say the unity shown by the athletes points to a growing movement in Indian sports to improve its administrative systems. This includes new laws and increased participation of former athletes in governance, as well as private and non-governmental organizations that offer an extra layer of support for athletes.

“It is absolutely significant that all the top athletes in a sport have come together in one voice to speak out against the abuse of power,” says sports journalist Sharda Ugra. “It simply hasn’t happened before in Indian sports.”

Sir. Singh, who has four pending criminal cases against him – he has denied all the charges, which include attempted murder – has been at the helm of Indian wrestling for over a decade. In 2021, he sparked controversy by punching a wrestler on stage – he later said the young man had committed age fraud to enter a tournament. No official complaint was filed against him.

Recent protests have also raised questions about widespread allegations of sexual abuse in the sports industry.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve had athletes come forward and confess to me about abuse at the hands of coaches, but they don’t take the next step to file an official complaint,” says Manisha Malhotra, a former tennis international player who now works as head of sports excellence and scouting at the private company JSW Sports, which provides financial support and coaching to several top Indian athletes.

She attributes the reluctance to the fear that their careers will be affected.

What Indian sport needs, Ms Malhotra says, is “its own MeToo moment”, something like the way gymnasts in the US came together to bring down Larry Nassar.

Nassar, a former gymnastics doctor, was sentenced in 2018 to up to 175 years in prison for multiple sex crimes after more than 150 gymnasts testified against him.

More than 150 gymnasts testified against Larry Nassar in the United States

But athletes in India face several challenges.

A recent Right to Information filing – which gives Indians access to government information – revealed that 45 sexual misconduct complaints were filed between 2010 and 2020 against coaches and officials from the Sports Authority of India (SAI), a government department that runs training centers and camps for elite athletes across age groups.

Of these, five coaches had their salaries cut, one was suspended and later reinstated, and two others had their contracts terminated. The rest of the complaints were dismissed.

There are some signs that things are changing. Last year, seven athletes came together to accuse a renowned track coach of sexual abuse. He was arrested and the case is ongoing.

This year, SAI fired its cycling coach after investigating a complaint from a female cyclist who said he had made sexual advances towards her and forced her to spend a night in a room with him during a camp abroad.

Ms Malhotra says the Indian sporting ecosystem needs to do more to support athletes who speak out.

“But the people who run different federations are also powerful people in their own right, and that makes it difficult for athletes to tell the truth,” she adds.

Most of India’s sports federations also do not have oversight committees to deal with allegations of sexual harassment, as mandated by law – fewer than 10 out of 56 recognized sports organizations currently have them.

Jiji Thomson, a former bureaucrat who headed the SAI between 2013 and 2015, says he heard a lot of informal complaints about sexual harassment during his tenure.

“But it was difficult to get people to file official complaints. Every time we went to investigate, athletes would withdraw,” he says.

SAI did not respond to questions sent to it via email and messages.

Vinesh Phogat says wrestlers will file police complaint ‘at the right time’

For promising young athletes, many of whom come from harsh and rural backgrounds, the opportunity to attend an SAI training center is often the first step towards realizing their dreams.

“The sports hostel system is a hard-fought opportunity for young girls who want to be independent,” says Payoshni Mitra, executive director of the Swiss-based non-profit organization Global Observatory for Gender Equality & Sport.

“If they were at home, their families would marry them off. So the stakes are high for these girls,” she adds.

But athletes say life at these centers is far from perfect.

A former international track athlete, who spent more than a decade in an SAI hostel, says the first thing she was taught at a national camp was to “obey everything” the coaches and officials told her. She was 10 at the time, says the athlete, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I learned to fear them from an early age,” she says. “I saw what happens when there is sexual abuse, physical abuse or psychological abuse.

“You want it to stop and you want to speak up. But everyone is telling you, either you have a sports career or you come into this fight and lose everything. Who wants to risk that?”

Rudraneil Sengupta is a Delhi-based independent journalist

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