Vinesh Phogat to Return Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award
Sports Desk : Even after the Sports Ministry suspended the wrestling association, the anger of the players has not subsided. After wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, now Vinesh Phogat has also made a big announcement. Vinesh has written an open letter to PM Modi and announced to return the Arjuna Award and Khel Ratna.
Phogat shared a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that read, “I am returning my Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjun Award. Many thanks to the Almighty for bringing us to this condition.”
In this letter she said, “Honorable Prime Minister, Sakshi Malik has given up wrestling and Bajrang Punia has returned his Padma Shri. Why were the players who won Olympic medals for the country forced to do all this? The whole country knows everything and I am writing this letter to you to tell you that you are the head of the country.
In this letter, Vinesh further wrote, I remember the year 2016, when Sakshi Malik won a medal in the Olympics, your government made her the brand ambassador of “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao”. When this was announced, all the women players of the country were happy and were sending congratulatory messages to each other. Today, ever since Sakshi had to leave wrestling, I am remembering that year 2016 again and again.
Are we female players made only to appear on government advertisements? We have no objection to those advertisements being published, because from the slogans written in them, it seems that your government wants to work seriously for the upliftment of daughters. I had dreamed of winning a medal in the Olympics, but now this dream is also fading. I would just pray that this dream of the upcoming women players is definitely fulfilled. But our lives are not at all like those fancy advertisements.
Whatever the women wrestlers have gone through in the last few years, you must have understood how suffocated we are living. Those fancy flex boards of your advertisements may also have become old and now Sakshi has also retired. The exploiter has also declared his dominance, and has also raised slogans in a very crude manner. Just spare 5 minutes of your life and listen to the statements given by that man in the media, you will know what all he has done.
He has called women wrestlers ‘Manthra’, has openly admitted on TV that he has made women wrestlers uncomfortable and has not left even a single opportunity to humiliate us women players. What is more serious is that it has forced many female wrestlers to step back. This is very scary, wrote Phogat in the letter.
I’ve tried to forget this incident many times, but it is not so easy. Sir, when I met you, I had told you about this too. We have been dragging ourselves on the streets for the last one year for justice. No one is taking care of us.
Sir, our medals and awards are being said to be worth Rs 15, but these medals are dearer to us than our lives. When we won medals for the country, the whole country was proud. Now, when we raise our voice for justice, we are being called traitors. Prime Minister, I want to ask you, are we traitors?
I don’t know under what condition Bajrang would have decided to return his Padma Shri. But I am suffocating inside after seeing that photo of his. After that now I too have started feeling disgusted with my awards. When I received these awards, my mother distributed sweets in the neighborhood and told my aunts that I was on TV and they should watch it. She told them that her daughter looked beautiful receiving the award.
Many times I get scared thinking that when my aunts see our condition on TV, what will she say to my mother? No mother in India would want her daughter to be in this condition. Now I want to get rid of the image of Vinesh receiving the award, because that was a dream and what is happening with us now is the reality.
I was given the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjuna award, which have no meaning in my life now. Every woman wants to live life with respect.
Therefore Prime Minister sir, I want to return my Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna and Arjun Award to you so that these awards do not become a burden to us in our path to live with dignity.
A daughter of your house,
Vinesh Phogat”