Time for India to reset wrestling governance

Wrestling is one of India’s traditional sports — one where our rich akhada culture has led to continued success at the international level against all odds.

Aman Sehrawat’s bronze medal at Paris 2024 extended Indian wrestling’s medal-winning streak at the Olympics to a fifth straight Games. Factor in Vinesh Phogat’s heartbreaking disqualification on the cusp of another medal, and one would think that the country is in the middle of a wrestling boom. But that is only partly true, because the sport’s administrators seem determined to undo all the good that the athletes have worked so hard to achieve over the years.

Paris: Bronze medalist India's Aman Sehrawat poses for photos during the victory ceremony for the men's 57kg free-style wrestling (PTI)

On Friday, the Delhi high court again put an ad hoc body in charge of wrestling in the country. This decision came close on the heels of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Sanjay Singh blaming the 2023 wrestlers’ street protests against former president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for the poor show at the Olympics. The high court’s decision and the WFI president’s statement are not related, but they together paint a sad picture of the way the sport is administrated in the country.

Wrestling is one of India’s traditional sports — one where our rich akhada culture has led to continued success at the international level against all odds. But the country’s top stars sitting on the streets demanding action against autocratic and allegedly unlawful bosses is a poor reflection of the state of affairs. An administration that has no empathy for the athletes — some of whom had made grave charges against Brij Bhushan — is one that doesn’t understand sport. WFI, whose current establishment is just another avatar of the previous one, needs to be professionalised urgently to keep the larger interest of the sport and athletes in mind. Now that an ad hoc panel is in place again, the time to act is here. Clean up the sport by taking along its main stakeholders who put in blood, sweat and tears even when no one is looking. Wrestlers, wrestling, and Indian sport, deserve better.