In India, Women Wrestlers Grapple With Sexual Harassment

DELHI, India — Two teenage girls in red and blue wrestling singlets circle each other on the mat at the Yudhvir Akhada wrestling academy in Sonipat, near Delhi. Their movements are quick and measured as they practice for a bout. For them, wrestling is a possible route to a better future. But as they move into a hold, the recent acquittal of the former head of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) looms over the hall — and what that means for girls and women who speak out against misconduct in powerful sporting institutions.

Several of India’s top women wrestlers publicly accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh of sexual harassment in 2023. On Aug. 3 this year, a Delhi court acquitted Singh, also a parliamentarian with the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, of charges of sexual harassment, assault and criminal intimidation. The women plan to appeal, and they told the press that “the entire administration, the government and the system have been engaged in protecting” Singh.

The case comes as women’s participation in the sport is increasing and becoming more visible. “Ten years ago, a girl in Haryana who wanted to wrestle had few places to go,” Seema Kulbir, a coach at Yudhvir Akhada, tells Truthdig.

Wrestling academies, or akhadas, existed, she says, but most were for boys and men. Girls entering the sport often had to train alongside them, in a sporting culture that had long treated wrestling as men’s domain.

Today, at Yudhvir Akhada, around 50 girls and young women train exclusively with other female wrestlers. They run drills, grapple and practice takedowns, preparing for competitions that could determine the next stage of their careers.

These young athletes say they owe their access to wrestling to the generation of women before them. Sisters Geeta and Babita Phogat, followed by their cousin, Vinesh Phogat, became household names over the past 15 years. Geeta Phogat won India’s first Commonwealth Games gold medal in women’s wrestling in 2010 and became the country’s first female wrestler to qualify for the Olympics. The sisters inspired the 2016 Bollywood film “Dangal.” Vinesh Phogat went on to compete at three Olympics and win gold at the Commonwealth and Asian games.

Their success helped take women’s wrestling from the margins of Indian sport into the national spotlight. 

But becoming celebrated athletes did not give these women power within the institutions that governed their sport, and in January 2023, Vinesh Phogat — along with Sakshi Malik and other prominent wrestlers — took their fights from the wrestling arena to the streets with a sit-down protest in New Delhi. They accused Singh, then president of the Wrestling Federation of India, of sexual harassment. 

What followed was a three-year struggle. On April 25, 2023, after months of waiting for a government oversight panel’s report, the wrestlers resumed their sit-in and went to the Supreme Court of India, which forced the police to finally register a first information report (FIR) — which they had previously refused to do. An FIR is the first formal police document for a serious crime. 

In June that year, Delhi police filed the multipage investigative chargesheet before the trial court (Rouse Avenue Court), indicating there was sufficient evidence to proceed. That court then summoned Singh on July 18, 2023, and active trial proceedings began.  As the legal process advanced, the newest generation of women wrestlers watched what happens to women who speak up about institutional sexism and harassment. 

Women’s safety in sport

At Yudhvir, 23-year-old Khushi Jhangda is preparing for the next stage of her wrestling career, five years after taking up the sport. Originally from Chandigarh, she wanted to train in nearby Haryana, which she saw as the heartland of Indian wrestling. She spends about eight hours a day training and has won silver at Khelo India — a national and public sports program — and the Senior Federation Cup, as well as gold at this year’s national championships.

When Vinesh Phogat’s name comes up, Jhangda’s face brightens. “I met Vinesh didi in a [wrestling] trial,” she tells Truthdig. (“Didi” is a term of respect for an elder.)

She says she is happy that Phogat returned to wrestling after the events of 2023 and the Paris Olympics — where Phogat made it to the final but missed out on competing for gold because she weighed in 100 grams over the limit for her category. 

Phogat and Malik are not just the faces of the protests, Jhangda says, but also an inspiration as athletes. 

Despite the acquittal, Jhangda does not describe herself as afraid. She says she trusts her coaches, and believes that if she reaches the national team and needs help with anything related to her career, she will be able to ask for it. 

That confidence is an important counterpoint to the experience of the wrestlers who came before her. The generation entering wrestling today has female-only training spaces and visible role models competing at the highest levels. But what is less clear is if India’s wrestling institutions have changed enough to justify such confidence.

A fight beyond the mat

“I decided to speak publicly after receiving calls from younger wrestlers who were worried about an unsafe environment at a national camp in Lucknow,” Vinesh Phogat tells Truthdig in a phone interview, adding that the decision to protest publicly was not a first resort — it followed unsuccessful attempts to complain within the WFI. According to a physiotherapist at the Lucknow wrestling camp, women wrestlers there were harassed by Singh and allegedly taken from the camp to his house in exchange for being declared fit.

Phogat and Malik described a pattern of harassment by Singh. They alleged multiple incidents of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching, including during tournaments, warm-up events and at the WFI office in New Delhi. 

In court, senior advocate Rebecca John, who led the team representing the wrestlers, said Singh used the pretext of checking wrestlers’ breathing patterns to fondle all six women complainants. The FIR also included sexual harassment, stalking and intimidation dating back to 2012, as well as allegations Singh sought sexual favors in exchange for professional support. 

After the court acquitted Singh and former WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar in August, it cited contradictions in the complainants’ accounts and the fact that some had continued to maintain cordial relations with Singh after the alleged incidents. It also noted that two complainants did not support the prosecution’s case during the trial.

Phogat clarifies that speaking out was never only about her own experience. She felt a responsibility toward younger wrestlers who looked up to her as both an athlete and a woman who had reached the highest levels of the sport.

The protests forced her and others to pause training and competition and spend months in the streets, she said, just to have their complaints formally registered.

“It was always a one-sided fight against power,” she says. But her hope was that speaking out would create a ripple effect and give other wrestlers facing similar problems the courage to speak.

When due process becomes a burden

Inside the courtroom, the women wrestlers also paid a high price. John, the senior advocate, describes to Truthdig how the women had to recount painful experiences while testifying in the presence of the man they had accused.

“It takes a lot out of you,” she says, stressing that this all came after the women had fought just to enter the criminal justice system. 

“They had to be on the streets, literally, just to get the FIR registered,” she says. “They hoped that would lead to some kind of closure and justice.”

John disagrees with the weight the court gave to inconsistencies in the women’s accounts, particularly discrepancies over the country or year in which some incidents allegedly occurred. Some allegations dated back to 2017 and 2018, she notes.

“If you miss a day here or there, or if you confuse one country with another country, it is not something which should have determined the outcome,” she says.

There was nothing in the evidence “to justify a verdict of this kind. So not only them, but even I was taken aback by the verdict.”

During the proceedings, the complainants faced extensive cross-examination by the defense. Questions addressed inconsistencies in their accounts, their interactions and relationships with Singh and others, the timing of their complaints and the circumstances under which they were made. For John, that focus risked moving beyond whether the alleged offenses had occurred to whether the women themselves could be trusted.

“At what point does due process stop being a pathway to justice and start becoming another burden placed on the person seeking justice?” she asks.

John was careful to distinguish this concern from being opposed to proper due process. Criminal cases, she says, must be tested through established legal principles, and the accused have a right to defend themselves. But, she stresses the difference between testing the evidence and making the person who has complained the subject of the trial.

Putting “the victim on trial is something which is not contemplated by the statute,” John says. “It shows how skewed due process has become.”

The process is part of a broader problem, where there is suspicion towards women who report sex crimes, she says. “I think it comes from an inherent distrust of women and this canard which is spread that women don’t speak the truth.”

The consequences of that go beyond the complainants. Such treatment can shape whether other women believe the criminal justice system is a place where they can safely seek redress.

“When you invest in a process, a process that other women have difficulty investing in, because it’s not an easy process, and then you keep telling women to come and file complaints, what is the use of it if, it is going to end up like this?” she says.

“The criminal justice system time and time again has shown how brutal it can be when it deals with women who complain of sexual crimes, and particularly when the men whom they are accusing are powerful men,” John says.

“It is a very, very difficult struggle,” she says, often even harder when the accused has a lot of power.

That difficulty often doesn’t end in the courtroom. Truthdig reached out to Malik several times for an interview and also approached people close to her, including her husband and colleagues. She did not respond to the requests. Eventually, one of her colleagues, who requested anonymity, mentioned that Malik could not comment because she now holds a position with Indian Railways and is working on government initiatives. According to the colleague, speaking publicly about the case could create problems for her.

Malik’s silence does not establish that the government directed her not to speak. Rather, it illuminates another hidden cost for women who challenge institutions when  their professional lives remain tied to those institutions.

A global pattern

The situation for sportswomen is not unique to India. In the United States, 156 women gymnasts who reported sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, found guilty in 2018, spent years confronting not only the perpetrator, but institutions that had failed to act on earlier allegations. 

A U.S. Justice Department investigation in 2021 later found that FBI officials had failed to respond with the urgency the allegations required and had made fundamental errors in handling the case. Hundreds of survivors subsequently pursued legal action against USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

Britain’s gymnastics sector has faced a similar reckoning. In 2020, an independent review was commissioned after allegations from athletes led to findings of systemic physical and emotional abuse within the sport, while former gymnasts pursued legal action against British Gymnastics, the sports governing body. In 2022, gymnast Eloise Jotischky became the first athlete to win a civil case against the body, which admitted liability.

While the details differ, the underlying issue is the same: Institutions meant to protect athletes are often part of the problem.

Choosing the mat again

For Phogat, the acquittal has not ended the fight. She has said she will challenge the verdict, and that she did not enter this struggle expecting to win or gain anything personally. 

She compares her decision to speak out to Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle for independence: If he had waited for a guarantee that his campaign would succeed, he may never have begun. She rejects the court’s description of the complaint as politically motivated, telling Truthdig it was one of the “most hurtful” accusations.

Nevertheless, Phogat has chosen to return to wrestling. In May 2026, after a legal and administrative dispute over her eligibility and weight category, she competed in the Asian Games selection trials. She reached the 53-kilogram semifinals before losing 6-4 to Meenakshi Goyat, ending her bid for an Asian Games berth.

Too often, she says, women have to rebuild their careers from scratch after time away, and so now, her “fight has gone beyond the [harassment] court case, because I want female wrestlers to have support and a way to come back to wrestling when they marry, become mothers, or challenge powerful men,” she says. 

On Sept. 1, she took that argument to the Delhi High Court, seeking a structured framework for women athletes returning to competitive sport after pregnancy and maternity leave. The court has sought responses from the government, the Wrestling Federation of India and the Indian Olympic Association.

Her fight has grown beyond defending the women who challenged Singh, to supporting the generation after them.