Thread by @lav_narayanan

Wrestlers full statement. For those who can't read Hindi:
You all saw what happened with us on 28 May, you saw the way the police behaved with us. The urgency with which we were arrested when we were peacefully demonstrating. 1/n

#WrestlersProtest

The police also swiftly took away our place of protest and ended up swiftly filing FIRs against us under serious sections.

Have us women wrestlers committed a crime by asking for justice after experience sexual harassment? 2/n

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The police and authorities are treating us like criminals when the actual wrongdoer is walking free out in the open. Our lived experiences are becoming matters of laughter on tv. So much so that there's even talk of wanting to bring changes to the POCSO act, ever so casually. 3/n

We women wrestlers feel we have nothing left in this nation. We remember when we won medals at the Olympic and World level for this country. Now, we wonder why we bothered winning? 4/n

#WrestlersProtest

Did we win so that the authorities can behave so badly with us? So that they can manhandle us and then hold us up as the ones in the wrong? 5/n

#WrestlersProtest

The entire day yesterday, several women wrestlers were hiding out in the fields. The authorities and law enforcement forces should be bringing the actual wrongdoer to justice, but they're going after the victims to force us to end our protest. To break and intimidate us. 6/n

It now feels like these medals adorning our necks have no value. First, it used to feel unthinkable to even consider returning these medals but as things stand, how do we live compromising on our dignity and self respect? 7/n

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The next question was - who do we return these medals to? Do we return it to our president, who is herself a woman? But our minds said no, because she resides merely 2 km away from where we were protesting and did nothing but watch. She had nothing to say. 8/n

#WrestlersProtest

Do we return it to our Prime Minister, who once called us his daughters? Our minds said no, because he never came to speak to his daughters. 9/n

#WrestlersProtest

Instead, in the inauguration of the new Parliament building, he invited the wrongdoer (Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh) who turned up in a squeaky clean white garb and clicked photos everywhere. That whiteness stung us, like it was telling us he was the system. 10/n

#WrestlersProtest

Where do we have a place in this shiny system? Where do India's daughters have a place here? Are we only meant to become protest slogans or election agendas? 11/n

#WrestlersProtest

We don't want these medals because with these on, we've just becomes pawns in people's agendas for this so-called clean system. And then they still abuse us. And should we want to speak up about the abuse, then they come ready to throw us in jail.

12/n

#WrestlersProtest

We will let these medals go in Ganga. We hail her as a mother. Just as how we consider her to be divine and pure, our hardwork to win these medals was also as earnest. These are invaluable to the nation and perhaps the best place for these medals to be is in the pure Ganges. 13/n

These medals are our lives, our soul. After we let these medals go, the purpose of our lives will flow away with them. And so, we will sit on a hunger strike unto death at India Gate. 14/n

#WrestlersProtest

India Gate is a tribute to martyrs who laid their lives down for this country. We are not as great and pure as them but when we represented this country on the international stage, we shared their emotions. 15/n

#WrestlersProtest

This dirty system is doing its job. We will do ours. The world now must decide who it wants to side with - its daughters or the system that abuses them.

16/n

#WrestlersProtest

Today, at 6pm, we will let our medals flow into the river Ganga in Haridwar.

We will always be indebted to this great nation.

17/17 | FIN

#WrestlersProtest