Less than a week after 2016 Rio Olympics bronze medalist Sakshi Malik announced her retirement from wrestling and Tokyo medal winner Bajrang Punia returned his Padma Shri, Vinesh Phogat, the third top wrestler who was part of the protests against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, has announced that she will return her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awards.
Phogat announced her decision on social media with a sarcastic caption, where she thanked the Almighty for bringing her and the others to this condition. “I am returning my Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjun Award. Many thanks to the Almighty for bringing us to this condition,” Phogat wrote in the caption, which was translated from Hindi to English.
In the post, she also shared a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in which the 29-year-old questioned whether female athletes are only meant for slogans like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, while also hinting at a possible retirement from the sport.
“Respected Prime Minister, Sakshi Malik has quit wrestling, and Bajrang Punia has returned his Padma Shri. The entire country knows the reasons why athletes who won Olympic medals for the country had to take such steps, and being the leader of the nation, you must also be aware of this matter. Prime Minister, I am Vinesh Phogat, a daughter of your country, and I’m writing this letter to tell you about the condition I’ve been in for the past year,” she wrote.
“I remember the year 2016 when Sakshi Malik won a medal in the Olympics, and your government appointed her as the ambassador for the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ campaign. When this announcement was made, all of us female athletes in the country were happy and were sending each other messages of congratulations. Today, when Sakshi had to quit wrestling, I keep recalling that year 2016 repeatedly. Are we female athletes only meant to feature in the government’s advertisements? We have no objection to appearing in those advertisements because the slogans used in them make it seem like your government is working earnestly for the upliftment of daughters. I had dreamt of winning medals in the Olympics, but now even that dream seems to be fading away. I just pray that the dreams of upcoming female athletes do come true.”
“But our lives are not at all like those fancy advertisements. Female wrestlers know from the suffering they’ve endured in the past few years how much we are struggling. Those fancy flex boards of yours must have become old by now, and now even Sakshi has retired. The oppressor has managed to maintain his dominance, even putting forth slogans in a very grand manner. Just spare 5 minutes of your life to listen to the statements given by that man in the media, and you’ll know what he has done. He has called female wrestlers ‘mantras,’ openly accepted on national TV that he finds female wrestlers unnatural, and hasn’t missed a chance to humiliate us female athletes. More alarming than this is how he has pushed numerous female wrestlers into oblivion. This is extremely alarming.”
“Many times, I’ve tried to forget this entire sequence of events, but it’s not that easy. Sir, when I met you, I also explained all this to you. For the past year, we’ve been on the streets fighting for justice. Nobody is listening to our plea,” she added.
“Sir, our medals and awards are being valued at 15 rupees, but these medals are more precious to us than our lives. When we won medals for the country, the whole nation celebrated us with pride. Now, when we raise our voices for justice, we’re being called traitors. Prime Minister, I want to ask you, are we traitors?”
“I don’t know in what circumstances Bajrang decided to return his Padma Shri, but seeing that photo, I feel turmoil inside me. After that, I’m also starting to feel disgusted by my own awards. When I received these awards, my mother distributed sweets in our neighborhood and told my aunts to watch Vinesh on TV, how beautifully my daughter looked while receiving the award.”
“Many times, I get anxious thinking, what would my aunts say to my mother when they see our situation on TV? No mother in India would want her daughter in such a state. Now, I, taking the awards, want to get rid of that image of Vinesh because that was a dream, and what’s happening to us now is reality. I was awarded the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award, but they hold no meaning in my life anymore. Every woman wants to live life with respect. Therefore, Prime Minister, I want to return my Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award to you so that these awards don’t become a burden on us in the path of living with honor,” she further wrote.
A couple of days back, Bajrang had returned his Padma Shri in protest against the election of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh loyalist Sanjay Singh as the president of WFI.
The sports ministry also intervened in the matter, and had suspended the newly elected body of the WFI, while directing the Indian Olympic Association to form an ad-hoc body to run the day-to-day affairs of the wrestling federation.