The ongoing stir by Indian women wrestlers supported by their male counterparts has reignited the various issues surrounding the wrestling federation of India has put the spotlight on the age-old debate on who should lead sports bodies. the Wrestling Federation of India has been in the eye of the storm since last year as wrestlers protested against its chief and a powerful Rajput leader and a chieftain, BJP MP Brijbhushan Sharan Singh. Allegations pertaining to sexual harassment, funding and sponsorship were made and rejected. The National Sports code, by union sports ministry was implemented in 2011, but several sports bodies are yet to comply. The chief aim of the sports code – an amalgamation of government notifications on how NSFs should be run – is to end the hegemony of entrenched sports administrators and hold transparent polls with adequate representation from sports.
The National Sports Federation of India (NSFOI) promote the fundamental principles of Sports at a national level within the framework of sports. NSFOIs are committed to the development of athletes and support the development of sport for all programs and high performance sport in country. India’s top sports bodies are in trouble. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is facing suspension by the International Olympic Committee if it doesn’t hold elections very soon. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) could get banned by FIFA if it doesn’t get its governance-related issues sorted. Hockey India, too, is in trouble – the International Hockey Federation has threatened to strip India of its hosting rights for the 2023 hockey World Cup. Can controversy ever be far behind when it comes to Indian sports? In 2022, a year which was marked a historic Commonwealth Games campaign and several rare feats in several World Championships, there were also rampant administrative issues, on-field controversies and some downright strange incidents. The national cycling team was called back from a training camp in Slovenia after a female cyclist levelled charges of sexual harassment against the chief national coach. The coach was dismissed after SAI found him guilty.
Indian Olympic Association’s Athlete’s Commission member Om Prakash Karhana lately came out in support of the protesting wrestlers, who had accused WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexual harassment and intimidation, saying “justice should be delivered to athletes who are fighting for their rights”. The 36-year-old Karhana, a former national record holder shot putter and Asian champion, said sweeping the allegations of the wrestlers under the carpet would harm Indian sport as athletes will lose their faith in the system. The women wrestlers have come out in the open to fight for their rights, the system in the country should take steps to deliver justice to them despite police case being registered by Delhi Police under pressure from Supreme Court directions but still no action has come out in the open. The 10-member Athlete’s Commission has not taken a stand after wrestlers resumed their sit-in protest on April 24. A few members, though, have expressed their solidarity with the wrestlers individually. As an institution, the Athlete’s Commission has not issued a collective statement. But some individual members have done that.
Despite being the most populated country in the world, India is nowhere near the top when it comes to sports. There are, in fact, several smaller nations which fare much better than India in global sporting events like the Olympics. The lack of talented athletes surely can’t be the reason. After all, India was a country of more than 1.4 billion people and it’s hard to accept that India lack the sporting talent to succeed on the international stage. things are slowly changing. Indian athletes like Neeraj Chopra are regarded as the best in their sport. The problem is not with the athletes but the federations, which govern them. The majority of the national sports federations in the country are governed by power-hungry seasoned politicians. the majority of Indian politicians have entered this space not because of their love for a particular sport but because of the influence that comes with it. one thing politicians don’t like doing is vacating their seats like present president of the WFI. This problem has plagued various sporting federations across the country. The former AIFF (Football Federation )president Praful Patel, a veteran politician from National Congress Party, was forcefully shown the exit door by the honourable Supreme Court. Patel is not the only one. There are many others who are under the impression that can do whatever they want and nobody would dare question them.
The Sports Ministry has already suspended Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) assistant secretary Vinod Tomar, a fallout of the grapplers’ allegations of sexual harassment and corruption against the sports body’s chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. The union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur has formed an oversight committee to probe the charges levelled by some of the country’s top wrestlers, including Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Ravi Dahiya, against Sharan and his body. The aggrieved wrestlers had alleged that Tomar took bribes from athletes and was involved in financial corruption, helping him to build property worth crores. The oversight committee of the ministry will have the powers to take all decisions on matters concerning Indian wrestling while also overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the federation. The WFI had rejected all the allegations, including that of sexual harassment against its president, and claimed that the wrestlers’ protest was motivated by a “hidden agenda to dislodge the current management”.
India’s abysmally poor performance at the Olympics is nothing new. India has consistently failed to foster players with a competitive edge in any sport other than cricket. Even a large amount of public and private investment in sports has failed to produce substantial results. These failures are often attributed to the model of sports governance in India. Allegations of nepotism, fiefdom, unaccountability and financial irregularities give credence to such views. But in the recent past, it seems, the Indian state has started taking a keen interest in sports. it remains to be seen if the increase in the budgetary allocation will galvanise any significant change at the ground level. The Indian sports federations have power without responsibility. Primarily, this is because people are apathetic to how sports fares. Unless people resolve this apathy, there will be no change.” the Federations will always exist, but there is need to find better people to manage federations. The need of hour is to have a watchdog on federations to ensure they do their job.”
