Phogats, politics, patriarchy

Vinesh Phogat — 30 years old, Asian champion, near-Olympics champion, World Championships medallist — is a mere child, a girl who must listen to and obey the patriarch of the family, Mahavir Phogat, the man who turned his daughters and nieces into world-class wrestlers. For Mahavir, she’s a chit of a girl — yes, she can easily wring your neck but, for him, she’s a mere overgrown kid whom he started coaching after his brother Rajpal died, killed by a madman in 2003. She must listen to him, as she did when he started training her in Julana village over 25 years ago.

Is it patriarchy that makes Mahavir Phogat tell niece Vinesh — through the press —- that she should not have joined politics, and certainly not the Congress party?

Patriarchy, unfortunately, seems to be the more charitable explanation for his public comments against his niece and protege, for the other explanation is politics — Mahavir had joined the BJP along with his daughter Babita in 2019.

A politician, said Nietzsche, divides mankind into two classes — tools and enemies — and those aspiring for great success in politics become adept in using people, and being used. In the case of the Phogats, politicians seem to have divided the family into enemies of each other.

Vinesh, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia — married to Mahavir’s youngest daughter, Sangeeta — were the face of the wrestlers’ protest against then Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over allegations that he had sexually abused several women wrestlers. To Mahavir’s credit, he did put himself on the right side in this significant battle for women’s right to pursue a career in sports without being molested by officials or coaches — this, every insider knows, is a very big problem in sports. Mahavir, in fact, went so far as to say, in early August, that Vinesh’s reaching the final of the 50kg class at the Paris Olympics represented a slap on Brij Bhushan’s face.

Babita, however, has been rather reticent in expressing support for her cousin Vinesh and the wrestling sisterhood, and quite mum on her party colleague Brij Bhushan; she went so far as to suggest that the protesting wrestlers were misled by the “Opposition parties”.

With Vinesh now contesting the Haryana Assembly elections to become an MLA, Babita has stated Vinesh is ungrateful — because, she says, Vinesh did not name Mahavir in a thank-you note she shared on social media after she was disqualified at the Paris Olympics.

“When my uncle died, Vinesh and both of her siblings suddenly quit wrestling,” Babita said. “My father went to their house and fought with their mother to get them back to wrestling. Imagine how much he has worked to make Vinesh. But she thanked everyone except for that guru.”

Indeed, Vinesh did not thank Mahavir in an exhaustive note, penned in English; the focus was her mother, whom she eulogised in lofty terms, before turning to ‘my team’ that helped her over the past two years, after she suffered a traumatic defeat, followed by a more traumatic aftermath, at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mahavir, indeed, does not figure in the note, the bulk of which is focused on Tokyo and thereafter.

Mahavir, rightly lionised as a pioneer of women’s wrestling, likes to hail himself as a font of “beti’s emancipation”. “PM Narendra Modi launched Beti Bachao Beti Padhao in Panipat last year. Yeh kaam toh mere se sikho. Mein hun beti bachao beti padhao (I embody Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao),” he said. “Humne beti padhai bhi aur khilai bhi. People were initially against me but I would tell them wrestling is their padhai.”

To a child, Mahavir may not have been perfectly endearing as a coach and mentor. He comes across as rather dictatorial — the curse of power — and some of his methods may now be termed excessive, even abusive.

Six years back, Vinesh told an interviewer that the Aamir Khan version of Mahavir in the movie ‘Dangal’ was a pale copy of his real autocratic self. “How they showed Tauji wasn’t even 5 per cent of the real deal,” Vinesh recalled. “Wrestling to me at that age was Tauji ka danda. You couldn’t die, couldn’t live, couldn’t run away. I would tell my mother, ‘I won’t go from tomorrow. I’m good at studies and will make my name that way.’ But she knew how to coax me.”

Possibly, like many sportspersons forced to excel by their parents or coaches — the most memorable example is Andre Agassi, and his wife Steffi Graf to a lesser extent — Vinesh harbours resentment against Mahavir. Mahavir, on his part, seems unaware of the fact that even a child should have agency — and that a woman of 30, a decorated wrestler, absolutely must. He must let go — he must let Vinesh be.

Mahavir may have raised champion daughters — which can be interpreted as an act of self-aggrandisement, for his own defeated ambitions — but the toxin of patriarchy may still be informing his actions and utterances.