Ranjona Banerji | No need for a joint silver, Vinesh feat sans parallel

And yet. Of course there has to be an “and yet”. Because sometimes sport is more than winning. It is about rising above yourself. It is about being the best you can be. It is about fighting against all odds, no matter the outcome. It is also about knowing you can be weak. Knowing that some moments will not go your way. That loss is inevitable no matter how good you are at winning.

The battle over winning and losing is almost like a cliché from a Rudyard Kipling poem. Which is why it’s up there in Wimbledon, as tennis players wait to enter Centre Court: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same”.

And then there are those who fight outside their arena of expertise. No matter if they lose an advantage in their sport, if they are nullified, if they are punished and excoriated. They still fight for something beyond and outside themselves.

The name which comes to mind worldwide is that of boxer Muhammad Ali. He risked a jail term because he refused to fight in the Vietnam war. As he famously said: “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America… And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. …Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

Ali never went to jail eventually but he was stripped of his boxing licence for a while, his one claim to fame and glory. Until now. Today, thanks to justice and to his own belief in himself, he is remembered both for his sport and his conviction outside his sport.

And now, there is Vinesh Phogat, Indian wrestler and fighter for justice. For much of 2023, Vinesh and her fellow wrestlers, male and female, demanded that the Wrestling Federation of India chief, BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, be held to account for serial sexual molestation and harassment of women wrestlers. Vinesh said at least 10 women wrestlers had spoken to her about Singh’s assaults.

Olympic champions Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia and World champion medallist Vinesh were at the forefront of the protests. In return, they were vilified by a pro-BJP media, mocked and demonised by BJP spokespersons on TV and beaten up by the police.

Vinesh and the others lived on the pavements of Delhi for over a month, as they refused to budge from their demands. They were beaten up and arrested. The photograph of Vinesh being pinned down on the ground by the police registered itself on the Indian consciousness. The power of a vindictive state against a woman asking for justice for crimes against women. It was an image hard to forget.

The BJP-led government finally relented, in a manner of speaking, and the police filed charges against Singh. He was also denied a ticket in 2024 general elections. However no official statement was ever made acknowledging or condemning Singh’s behaviour and assaults and no further police action has been taken.

Sakshi Malik retired from the sport in disgust. Vinesh and Bajrang returned their prestigious Khel Ratna awards to the government because of the appointment of a close associate of Bhushan Singh as the new WFI president.

For Vinesh, the next struggle began – to get back the sport of wrestling. The WFI was in turmoil and was suspended by United World Wrestling because elections were not held on time. She suffered a knee injury during training. The WFI suspension was lifted on condition that the protesting wrestlers would face no penalty.

Knee surgery ruled her out of the Asian Games. She then had to drop a weight category because in her absence, her slot was filled by another wrestler. She dropped to a lower weight and finally qualified for the 50 kg category.

Her first two matches at the Paris Olympics demonstrated her skill and strategy. And her steadfast determination not to lose her cool. But for fighters like Vinesh, maybe easy is not how you get to victory. After two almost flawless matches and one where she vanquished a champion that everyone had declared unvanquishable, she found herself beaten by a mere 100 grams.

The rules of wrestling seem unreasonable to anyone from the outside. Because Vinesh was not just disqualified from the final match when she weighed in, but from the competition itself. Her silver medal snatched away, her position in the competition pushed down to the bottom.

For those of us, who admired Vinesh in her steadfastness in the protests against a powerful man accused of sexual harassment and assault, for those of us who were dismayed and disgusted by the image of this talented woman wrestler being brutally pinned down by the police because she was fighting for justice for women, a medal at the Olympics was like an affirmation. Of women’s rights, of a battle against patriarchy and power, of David versus Goliath (and how sad that I cannot offhand find a female metaphor here).

This need that we have does not invalidate Vinesh’s achievements so far, her skill, her talent. We know that Vinesh is a very good wrestler. We have seen her win emphatically up to her silver medal match. We have seen her stand strong against a vindictive state.

In our estimation, she should not need to prove herself any more. Nor should she have to bear the weight of expectation from a medal-hungry nation, always looking to create and tear down heroes for our own satisfaction and self-worth.

There’s a case out there over Vinesh’s disqualification. That will answer the strict and sometimes heartless “winner or loser” question in sport.

But in real life? Vinesh is a winner over and again. For us, for herself.