Please concentrate on sports alone
Updated On: 20 January, 2024 04:06 AM IST | Mumbai | Lindsay Pereira
Athletes shouldn’t be allowed to question our government, given the number of benefits they have access to
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Olympic medallist Sakshi Malik (left) and other wrestlers during their protest against the then-president of the Wrestling Federation of India, whom they accused of sexual harassment, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi last year. Pic/X
I was saddened to hear about Olympic Bronze medallist Sakshi Malik announcing her retirement on a public forum. Why were there so many cameras, I asked myself, and why couldn’t she resign in private without calling for a press conference? Apparently, she was compelled to do this because no action had been taken against a certain Wrestling Federation of India chief accused of sexually harassing wrestlers. Was this reason enough, I wondered. Why retire just because the government is busy with more important things like renaming cities? Can sexual assault really be defined as a problem in a country where marital rape is treated as a minor inconvenience?
Her announcement was followed by a string of other similar acts of protest, beginning with fellow wrestler Bajrang Punia returning his Padma Shri award, and then wrestler Vinesh Phogat returning her Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award. It worried me because I dreaded the possibility of others following suit. What if the two or three other Olympic medallists in the country decided to return their prizes too? It was too upsetting to consider. I wondered if the government would do the sensible thing and ban press conferences completely but assumed that would still take a couple of years.
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