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Business News/ News / India/  Wrestlers to throw their medals in Ganga, sit on hunger strike at India Gate. Read full text of their letter
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Wrestlers to throw their medals in Ganga, sit on hunger strike at India Gate. Read full text of their letter

The protesting wrestlers have said they will throw their medals into the Ganges and sit on a indefinite hunger strike at India Gate. The protest follows the alleged manhandling of several wrestlers by the Delhi Police during the inauguration of a new Parliament building by PM Modi

Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Sangita Phogat pinned to the ground by security personnel on Sunday.Premium
Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Sangita Phogat pinned to the ground by security personnel on Sunday.

Protesting wrestler in national capital capital Delhi have said that they will throw their heard-earned medals into river Ganges and sit on a hunger strike "until death" at the India Gate.

This comes after several of them including Sakshi Malikkh, Vinesh Phogat, Sangeeta Phogat were manhandled by the Delhi Police and detained on the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was inaugurating new Parliament building. 

Sakshi Malik, a bronze medallist at the 2026 Olympics, said in a statement on her Twitter handle that the wrestlers will go to Haridwar on Tuesday to immerse the medals into the holy river at 6 pm.

Sakshi Malik, a bronze medallist at the Olympics, said in a statement on her Twitter handle that the wrestlers will go to Haridwar on Tuesday to immerse the medals into the holy river at 6 pm.

Here is the complete text of the letter posted by grappler Sakshi Malikkh on Twitter in Tuesday.

(Note the letter is written in Hindi language using Devanagri script. Mint is posting a translated version of the same)

"You all saw what happened on 28 May. How the (Delhi) Police behaved with us and brutally arrested us. We were conducting a peaceful protest movement. The Police ransacked our place of and took it from us.

The next day Police lodged FIRs against us. 

Has women wrestlers committed a crime by asking justice for all the sexual harassment meted out to them?

The police and the system are treating us like criminals, while the harasser (alleged Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, WFI Chief) verbally attacks us in public meetings.

(The harasser) is tightening the bolts up by making women wrestlers uncomfortable on TV. He has even demanded publicly that the POSCO Act be changed.

Us women wrestlers have been feeling that we have nothing left in this country (India). We have been remembering the moments when we won medals in Olympics, World Championships. 

Now we ask, why did we win those medals (for India)? Did we win those medals so that system (India Government)  can treat us like this- drag us, malign us, and term us criminals?

The entire of yesterday many of our women wrestlers were hiding in the fields.

The System should have caught the oppressor (the sexual harasser), but they chose to picket, break, and intimidating the women wrestlers. 

Now it seems that these medals decorated around our neck have no significance. Now, I am dying just thinking of returning them (medals), however, this also means accepting a compromise with our self respect, how shall we live like that?

The question came as to whom to return?

To our President, who is a woman herself.

However, the mind said refused to concede. This is because she is residing just 2 kilometres from our protest site, saw everything that happened and decided to remain silent about it. 

(Should we return the medals) To our Prime Minister, who used to call us daughters of his house? 

The mind did not agree, because he (PM Modi) did not take care of the daughters of his house even once.

Rather he (PM Modi) called our harasser to the inauguartion ceremony of new parliament building. At the event, he dressed in dazzling white was taking pictures, the white-ness of which was stinging us, as if saying ‘that I am the system’. 

In this glittering system where do we stand, daughters of India?

have we been reduced to slogans and agenda facilitating a seat in the power structure?

We don't need these medals anymore because by wearing them is like maintaining a façade for propaganda for the ‘glittering white System’. 

And then the same system exploits us, and if we we speak out against that abuse, the ‘system’ prepares to put us in jail.

We are going to shed these medals in the Ganga, because she is Mother Ganga.

The more sacred we consider Ganga, in the same sacred manner  we earned these medals, by working hard. These medals belong to the whole country, and the right place to keep the sacred medal is with Mother Ganga. 

These medals cannot be returned to the system that use us as propaganda and then stand with our harasser.

Medal is our life, our soul. Post their their immersion in the Ganges there will be no point in our living. 

That's why we will sit on fast unto death at India Gate.

India Gate is the place of those martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the country.

We are not as sacred as their (Indian Soldiers) victories but while playing at the international level our feelings are also like those soldiers.

The unholy system is doing its work and we are doing ours.

Now people will have to decide whether they stand with their daughters or that glittering white System that stands with our haraser.

Today at 6 pm we will float our medals in the Ganges at Haridwar.

We will always be grateful to this great country.

 

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Published: 30 May 2023, 05:45 PM IST
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