It couldn’t have been more emphatic than this.
The 10-0 scoreline against Kazakhstan’s Laura Ganikyzy vaulted Vinesh Phogat into a position of strength, giving India and her (her 3rd Olympic Quota) an Olympic quota for Paris. The sort of comeback, that perhaps Vinesh herself would hesitate before predicting.
It was January 18 2023 – 458 days ago, to be precise – when Vinesh, Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia and a bunch of other wrestlers sat at Jantar Mantar, pleading for justice against a group of Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) office bearers, led by the then President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. The charge – sexual harassment.
The International Olympic Committee and the United World Wrestling were quick in condemning the police action, calling it ‘very disturbing.
A Miraculous Achievement, Against a Federation With Sexist & Narcissistic Tones
Now, back from a knee surgery and over a year out of international competition, Vinesh shows what it is to keep out the Noise, shut out everything and purely focus on what can be classified as ‘Redemption’. If she goes all the way to Paris and what many believe her to be a contender for a podium finish, it would be vindication.
Like a heavyweight boxer, dropped to the canvas numerous times yet pulls out that punch in the last seconds of the final round for a stunning KO (knockout) victory. Winning an Olympic Quota has that feel and texture.
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Coming Face To Face With the Noise of Negativism
There is an essay by The New Yorker’s music critic Alex Ross on Noise, in which he explains “Sometimes we embrace it, sometimes we hate it—and everything depends on who is making it.”
At Jantar Mantar, for Vinesh and the other wrestlers, the Noise was about negativism. Ross writes – (if we have the power to juxtapose Jantar Mantar into his thinking, the setting up and smashing of barricades, the police swooping, dragging away the wrestlers, each limb grabbed and taken away like sacks of garbage, pushed, hurled into police vans) – “Unwanted sound is the basic definition. An act of aggression is implied: someone is exercising power by projecting sound into your space.”
Sexual harassment was the sound injected into the women wrestler’s space. What Vinesh and the others fought was the Noise of domination, of males exercising power and superiority.
This Is Vinesh Phogat’s Time
When they came back for a second sit-in at Jantar Mantar, with doubts cast on their motives, Vinesh had said:
Vinesh Phogat
In a direct reference to Brij Bhushan, she remarked: “A person who is not good himself, how will he make good people sit?”
Vinesh and the others, in the face of a government that kept quiet, more so turned their faces away, protected their own (Brij Bhushan, a sitting Lok Sabha member), appealed to other sportspersons to come forward and support their fight.
Vinesh Phogat
In the Asian Olympic Qualifiers at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Vinesh didn’t drop a point in reaching the final. This is Vinesh’s time. Unstoppable. Tenacious.
She will feel free now. All that Noise, Jantar Mantar, trolls, and the rest, in the distance, like an echo dying off. She will look forward to Paris – the Noise she would so readily embrace, whichever way the campaign goes. An athlete back in its den, on the prowl, the glimmer of the medals, proud torso on the podium.
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