JOIN USA mockery of the rule of law
The important question about the reported agreement between the agitating wrestlers demanding action against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Saran Singh and the government is why the negotiations had to be held at all. The wrestlers, including a minor, had made allegations of sexual harassment against the WFI chief. In such a case, involving even the POCSO Act, the accused should have been arrested immediately and an investigation conducted. Did the fact that the accused is a BJP MP prevent the law from taking its normal course? Even these talks were held 45 days after the wrestlers resumed their agitation seeking action against Singh. Some of them met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and then Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday. And even then, it was a marathon six-hour meeting before Thakur assured them that a chargesheet would be filed against Singh by June 15. The wrestlers have paused their agitation till then.
When seven women, including a minor, raise charges of sexual harassment against a man, the right response in a society that respects the rights of women and functions as per the rule of law, is to initiate legal action against the man immediately. Instead, the women had to sit in protest in public for many weeks, were dragged on the streets and abused and humiliated by the very police force that should have investigated the accused. It is clear therefore that the government was on the side of the accused all this while. Its credibility in the matter is still in doubt and there are questions about what forced it to negotiate with the wrestlers. Was it the ultimatum by the farmers’ organisations who have taken up the wrestlers’ cause? Was it pressure from the Haryana and Rajasthan units of the BJP? Was it the feeling that public support for the wrestlers is steadily increasing and the matter is gaining international attention? Or is it an attempt to buy time, slowdown the momentum of the agitation and create divisions among the agitators? The minor’s complaint – which would have been the most damaging for the accused – has been withdrawn by her father. Why? That it coincided with the government starting talks with the protesting wrestlers raises questions.
The government and its ministers actually should have had no role in the matter. The police should have filed cases against Singh as soon as the charges were made and arrested him. But Delhi Police, which functions under the Union Home Minister, had to be told by the Supreme Court to file an FIR. It is a telling comment on the system of justice that the law did not take its normal course in this case.