PT Usha is one in every of India’s largest athletes, however on Thursday, her mythical standing mattered little. Instead of her medals, the dialog shifted to her phrases — phrases that had been spoken reputedly with out empathy; that diminished India’s wrestlers’ protest to at least one this is “not good for sports”; that in comparison those wrestlers (Olympic medalists, no much less) to a gaggle with “no discipline”.
When Usha was once named because the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president in December 2022, there was once hope that an athlete-led federation could be higher than the former provision. She had, in the end, change into the primary Olympian and global medalist to move the IOA in its 95-year-old historical past. And it takes a sportsperson to understand a sportsperson.
But Thursday’s remark from the previous nice (who’s now additionally a Rajya Sabha MP) that the protests are “tarnishing the image” of the rustic don’t observe with the ones expectancies.
The wrestlers had been at the streets on two events up to now 3 months — first to whinge towards alleged sexual harassment and psychological torture by means of the executive of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and now to protest towards the loss of motion taken on their grievance in spite of a couple of assurances.
The level of the primary protest was once to call for justice, and of the second one, to deliver the problem again into the limelight after their cries fell on deaf ears — even though an Oversight Committee was once shaped, its file has now not been launched; no FIR has been filed; and, they are saying, no development has been made.
Here is a gaggle of athletes making an attempt to wrest again regulate in their recreation from a political candidate who has allegedly, and by means of a number of accounts, handled it like a non-public fiefdom. This isn’t indiscipline, however an pressing and unequivocal call for for exchange.
Usha has been a sportsperson lengthy sufficient to grasp the issues other people in her occupation regularly face, and as IOA leader, the least one may be expecting from her was once to lend them a sympathetic ear. Rather than getting drawn into the desire for procedure or learn how to method the subject or hard that the wrestlers will have to’ve “come to us”, Usha can have finished higher by means of getting out of her newly occupied prime chair and status shoulder-to -shoulder with them, if best to hear their facet. Don’t pull them up for elevating their voice.
It’s just right to have athletes who aren’t afraid to talk out — now not only for the prevailing, however for long run generations of hopefuls. The wrestlers have taken a courageous stand. Don’t disregard them, listen them out. The fees they have got made are critical, and the least they advantage is a clear and thorough investigation.