Dear Signers, 

The visuals from yesterday, I’m sure, have shocked the conscience of our nation. The Prime Minister of India, along with a bunch of male priests, inaugurated the new Parliament while turning a deaf ear to Vinesh Phogat and Sakshee Malikhh, two of India’s most decorated Olympians, being trampled upon by police officers at Jantar Mantar. “Naya desh mubarak ho,” said Phogat from the police van after she and others had been detained. 

Click here to share this petition on WhatsApp. Help this petition get to 20,000 signatures so that no other Indian athlete has to suffer sexual harassment in the workplace. Click here to share this petition on Twitter. 

Nearly a month after they had resumed their protest, the wrestlers wanted to march to the new Parliament building and hold a women’s mahapanchayat. Instead, they were stopped, detained, and slapped with an FIR under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. The Delhi Police showed an alarming swiftness in registering an FIR against Indian wrestlers protesting against sexual harassment. A few kilometres away, their alleged perpetrator, Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, posed gleefully for the cameras. He’s been charged with non-bailable offences, but has still not been arrested. 

We should all remember this moment because it has completely shattered any semblance of women's empowerment that our politicians have espoused for so long. It reminds me of the coronation of the czar -- celebration and atrocities going on side by side. After removing the protestors from Jantar Mantar, the police removed their makeshift tents and other personal belongings to clean up that stretch of road. 

Can you imagine Delhi Police grabbing our most celebrated cricketers by the scruff of their neck and detaining them if they were ever to protest? Or is the thought of our cricketers speaking up for injustice itself so alien? It seems so to me. Barring a few athletes who’d spoken up when the wrestlers’ protest had first started in January, including track and field athlete Neeraj Chopra and now Indian football captain Sunil Chhetri, most have stayed mum. 

Instead of India stepping towards women empowerment and maximum participation in all fields, we are seeing our country moving towards fiefdom,  oppression, and suppression of the people's voices. This is the total collapse and degeneration of our democracy.

Ultimately, it comes down to people like you and me who must keep speaking up and doing our bit to let the authorities know that this is not okay; we can’t have history sheeters and serial abusers as MPs and chiefs of sports federations. So keep sharing this petition as widely as possible and tagging those who you think should be held responsible for things having to come to such a pass. 

Click here to share this petition on WhatsApp. Help this petition get to 20,000 signatures so that no other Indian athlete has to suffer sexual harassment in the workplace. Click here to share this petition on Twitter