New Delhi: Read portions from the testimonies given by wrestlers against BJP leader and former chief of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, before showering him with petals. He may have been acquitted by a court of law, but he most definitely does not come out smelling of roses.

The decorated champions who have won medals for India and draped the national flag around their shoulders have been let down by the criminal justice system. Four of six complainants stood firm, took the witness box and fought with all their might.

They had felt violated and had spoken up, unafraid, undeterred. The trial was held in camera, and neither the testimonies nor the judgment can be quoted. But the wrestlers' allegations were already in the public domain before the trial began, and discussing those allegations is not sub judice.

The wrestlers cited seven incidents of sexual harassment at the hands of Singh between 2016 and 2022. In one such complaint, a wrestler recalled what happened at the 2016 Olympic Qualifier Tournament. 

She detailed it thus, remembering what happened when Singh signalled her to come sit at his table at a restaurant: “The moment I sat on the chair, he put his hand on my chest without my permission and squeezed it. Brij Bhushan slid his hand from the chest area to the stomach and asked me to take a breath. I could not understand why he (was) doing so. Thereafter, he took his hand again from the stomach area to the chest and repeated it three/four times…”

Let’s take another testimony, equally terrifying; equally traumatising.

“I won… After winning, Sharan congratulated me and thereafter grabbed my hands with his and put them over his stomach, and stood for the photograph… thereafter, in front of everyone, he said, ‘apna breath check kara (have you checked your breathing)… He kept his hand over my chest and slid it down over to my stomach in the garb of checking my breath. After repeating it three/four times, he exclaimed, ‘aaj tera breath theek hai…(your breath is ok today)”

The wrestler also testified to why she didn’t push his hands away. She said: “In case if I reacted, my career would have been spoiled…” 

A Clear Pattern

There is a clear pattern in what the six-time former BJP MP and former wrestling chief liked doing, but his acquittal—and the laborious trial—make it evident that he wasn’t the one in the dock.

Instead, his battery of lawyers put the wrestlers in the dock. The same misogynistic arguments came to the fore, yes, the same nauseatingly familiar charges and regressive accusations: Why didn’t you complain earlier? Why did you choose your career over your body? There was no understanding of the fact that victims of sexual harassment need time to process their ordeal; no understanding of the fact that there can be some mixing up of dates and cities where the harassment took place, considering the number of national and international tournaments they’d participated in. No understanding either that the WFI boss kept a close eye only on female, not male, wrestlers. 

The Supreme Court had sought to settle the matter in Bharwada Bhoganbhai Hirjibhai versus State of Gujarat (1983). It had clearly said, “By and large, a witness cannot be expected to possess a photographic memory and recall the details of an incident. It is not as if a videotape is replayed on a mental screen.”

Senior advocate Rebecca John, who represented the wrestlers in Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court, is clear. “Courts are trained to overlook the minor discrepancies and are trained to not discredit the complainants,” she told me, calling Singh’s acquittal “a very sad and deeply disappointing moment.”

She was saddened and disturbed for several reasons. In the case of the wrestlers, the court did not protect the victims when a powerful person was put on trial. But she also knows otherwise. John also represented journalist and Article 14 Editorial board member, Priya Ramani, who was sued for defamation by former minister of state for external affairs, M J Akbar, a powerful member of the ruling elite. 

‘Women Can’t Be Punished For Raising Their Voice’

In a judgement, read out at the same Rouse Avenue court in February 2021, the judge said, “A woman has the right to put her grievance on any platform of her choice, even after decades.” 

Ramani had called out the former editor during the #MeToo movement, when women named celebrity predators. No, I’m not going to censor the Ramani case only because she’s a colleague who works for the platform that I’m writing this piece for. 

It is important that Akbar lost the defamation case, and it is especially important to point out that the judge said that women “cannot be punished for raising their voice against sexual abuse.” Ramani had testified to how Akbar had invited her to his hotel room for a job interview and made her extremely uncomfortable.

The judgement settled the why-didn’t-you-complain-earlier charge, but the wrestlers have had to contend with the same line of questioning. They, in fact, had to battle to even get an FIR registered. Delhi’s Connaught Place police station got down to its basic job only after the Supreme Court directed it to do so. That’s how difficult it is to take on a strongman; that’s how tough it is to try and walk the path to justice.

Remember this too: the champions who won accolades for the country had to sit on the streets on a dharna for months. The protesting athletes were also pinned to the ground by men and women in khaki when they tried to march from Jantar Mantar to the newly inaugurated Parliament building in May 2023. They were so broken by an unmoved, uncaring police and political apparatus that they were willing to immerse their medals—gold, silver and bronze—into the Ganges. Their hard-won medals were being weighed on a scale measuring Singh’s usefulness in Uttar Pradesh, a state from which he was winning elections.

‘I Should Never Have Got Into This’

The law had almost caught up with the former WFI President, but his famed muscle power—infamous actually—came in the way. A minor girl, from a village in Haryana, had accused Singh of inviting her to his room, where he tried “making forceful physical contact with her”. He had asked her, the complaint said, to meet him personally and keep in touch. That was on 10 May 2023.

The minor’s father had dreamed of a future for his child. He had trained her well, got her accustomed to grime pits, had woken up well before dawn, only so she could conquer. He had fought patriarchy, battled the so-called social norms that confine women, fought his own family—including his father—because he had a dream and his child had the potential.

That potential carried the minor to the Asian Championships trials. Her potential also caught Singh's attention. The father, who had taught his daughter how to wrestle, was unprepared to wrestle with the consequences of what his daughter had put into an affidavit. 

The complaint registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) could have led to the strongman’s arrest. Instead, the Delhi Police asked for the case to be closed because the father, unable to withstand pressure—he doesn’t specify from whom—took his daughter back to the police on 5 June to modify the complaint. When I called him soon after, he said, “I should never have got into this. My life is a mess. I am very troubled.”

He insisted in our conversation that he had not withdrawn his original complaint but had only made amendments. He insisted then that he stood with the wrestlers, but the amendments freed Singh from being tried under section 10 of the POCSO. The section deals with “aggravated sexual assault” against a minor and could have attracted a jail term of up to seven years.

I called him again after the Rouse Avenue Court acquitted Singh, and he said, “Why are you calling me? We have moved on. My daughter won medals last year.” 

That is his truth. He chose to move on.

Is This The Definition Of Nari Shakti? 

The wrestlers, who took the witness box and lost, want the acquittal challenged. That is their truth. What is hurtful for them, and for all who stood by them, is that they are having to watch the man they accused celebrate what he calls “an honourable acquittal.”  

Yes, Singh was acquitted despite powerful testimony corroborated by a coach, a physiotherapist and other wrestlers. He was acquitted even after everyone saw the photograph of him with his hands on a wrestler’s stomach. 

How much evidence is evidence enough?

That’s a question that needs to be weighed seriously. 

Is it fine that the WFI office functioned from Singh’s residence? Is it okay that the wrestlers received show-cause notices each time they spoke of their safety and their fears, when they had nothing to gain but a lot to lose? When celebrated wrestler Vinesh Phogat identified herself as one of the complainants against Singh last year, the wrestling federation actually asked her why she had denied India an assured medal at the Paris Olympics by being 100 grams above the permissible limit. 

Is that the definition of ‘nari shakti’? 

That’s it, friends. It is important to outrage. Let me leave you with one last question, raised by Rebecca John: Why blame the women for not accessing the justice system, if this is the end result? 

Why indeed?

(Harinder Baweja is an independent, investigative journalist and the author of A Soldier’s Diary: Kargil the Inside Story and They Will Shoot You Madam: My Life Through Conflict.)

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