New weight of expectation for Vinesh, but it's 'an election, not wrestling match'

JULANA : Vinesh Phogat ’s kaafila is running three hours late. What should have been a 3 pm Sunday afternoon election rally at village Gatauli is taking place hurriedly at dusk. Fine specimens of buffaloes make their way back home in twos, unperturbed by the organised cacophony that has engulfed them — tractors and SUVs parked at odd angles, pamphlets hauled out and passed around, hundreds of bright orange laddoos in huge wicker baskets being carried in as a village’s offering to their guest. Everyone seems to be coming in everyone else’s way, but no one seems to mind.

Elections in Haryana are a public affair and like most things in the state, mostly a male exercise. The women, heads covered, look on, bunched together from terrace tops or at the threshold of their homes.

Bahu and beti

Despite the humidity and the wait, the elders’ pagris are still in place and there’s always a proud, stiff community hookah gurgling away close by. It adds to the sense of pride they are feeling on Vinesh being picked by the Congress to contest from Julana in the Haryana assembly elections, which by extension is a representation of village Bakhta Khera, her in laws’ home. The symbolism is significant. “Notice how she had her head covered with her dupatta here,” says Sewa Singh in Julana, a Jatmajority agricultural belt.

“Ab bahu hai, toh naata toh hai, lekin vote ka agley mahineyhi dekhenge (she’s a daughter-in-law of the village, so there’s that connection, but we’ll think about voting next month),” says Sewa, 52, smiling enigmatically, referring to the October 5 polling day.

“Arrey, abhi toh aayi hai chhori (she has finally come here),” is the common refrain here on Vinesh’s much-awaited arrival after her Paris Olympics saga. Ensuring her win is being seen as a moral duty for Julana. It is a matter of the pagri.

“Woh Julana ki bahu hai, yahan sey chunav ladh rahi hai. (Charkhi) Dadri uska ghar hai, wahan sey bhi umeedwar bann sakti thi, lekin usney Julana chuna (she’s Julana’s daughter-in-law and chose to contest from here though she could’ve chosen Charkhi Dadri, which is her home),” says a Bakhta Khera local, one of the many accompanying Vinesh on the campaign trail.He has all the numbers at his fingertips, calling Gatauli a “6,000-vote village, 50% Jat, 50% others, all farmers”. He is confident the village will vote overwhelmingly for her. “She’ll also get the Pandit and Yadav vote,” he says.

In Gatauli, someone starts a generator and bright yellow lights come on, focussing on the diminutive centre of everybody’s attention. The light bounces off Vinesh’s face as she addresses the gathering.

Soon, it is dark. There are a handful of villages still to visit but Vinesh, wiping away the sweat with her dupatta, cannot resist a quip. “Godde hi toot gaye, bhai-saab (it’s like the knees have given way),” she says of her back-breaking new routine. Her earthy self-deprecation draws uproarious laughter, and she adds after a Vajpayee-like dramatic pause, “Lekin mujhe aana toh tha (but I had to come)…”

A fresh fight

In this, the second coming of Vinesh, she may well be talking of her new calling in life, or maybe a new round in her continuing fight. Because Vinesh is all about the fight — right from secretly defying patriarch Mahavir Phogat’s diktat and maintaining a Facebook account as a 17-yearold in her native Balali in 2012 to shaking the world’s sensibilities as a much-abused, vilified and isolated social outcast who stormed into the wrestling final at Paris just a month ago. Paris would have immediately become India’s greatest, most oddsdefying sporting achievement, our very own version of the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, probably even bigger given what she had been fighting against — the might of the state. Of course, it didn’t happen that way. What happened was Jantar Mantar — broken godde, but unbroken spirit.

Jantar Mantar defines the Vinesh fight. Maybe, somewhere she transcends her narrow definition of Olympic wrestler to a stubborn, unwavering warrior of women’s rights and safety. Indeed, Vinesh in a wrestler’s singlet is a very brief, almost fading image on the flexi boards and car windshields. It has now made way for the image of a dupatta-donning Jat girl, head bowed, seeking haq for her community.

Remind her here of her promise to talk in Paris — “Final ke baad baat karenge, sir ji. Abhi weight pakadna hai (let’s talk after the final, have to sort my weight now)” — and she speaks her mind. “Maaf kar do bhaisaab, election chal raha hai, kushti nahin hai ki khatam ho gayi (forgive me, this is an election; not a wrestling match )…”

Maybe the kushti is really over. It is a different battle now. She may remember Paris, she hasn’t forgotten Jantar Mantar. Looks like the people of Julana too haven’t.

Symbol of defiance

Many see a reflection of their own identities in that version of Vinesh, such as Madhubala, the fiery vice president of the Haryana Students’ Federation of India. The 22-year-old law student from Kurukshetra and other SFI karyakartas have been accompanying Vinesh on her campaign. “It is often difficult to meet her. But if we don’t stand with her now, then when?” she asks, adding that her team had regularly dropped in at the protest at Jantar Mantar and even taken out morchas in Kurukshetra during that time.

Earlier last week, at the launch of her election office at the old bus stand in Julana, party workers had organised a havan to kickstart her election campaign. It was attended by thousands of farmers and supporters from all over Haryana. She would effortlessly blend into the crowd, head bent to seek their blessings, sit among them, exchange serious talk, crack a joke that would leave many seniors with wide missing-teeth guffaws. It was hard to tell who was seeking out whom. Was it the vote-seeking “opportunistic” former wrestler, as the haters claimed she was, or was it the local in this male-dominated agricultural belt?

“This is a one-sided fight. It’ll be an anti-BJP, anti-Centre vote,” said Balbir, 75, from village Etala Kalan in Hisar district. He is accompanied by half-a-dozen senior farmers from the Bharatiya Kisan Union, their green badges sitting proudly on their spotless white kurtas.

“Pehle humare kisanon ko maraa, phir humare pehalwanon ko, humari bachchiyon ko. Vinesh ki ladai hum sab ki ladai hai (first they attacked the farmers, then our wrestlers and daughters; Vinesh’s fight is our fight),” says Om Prakash, 75.

Ground realities

But not all are happy. Congress may not have won here since 2005, but the party’s old guard was taken aback by the election ticket to Vinesh. Parminder Singh Dhull, a two-time former MLA with Indian National Lok Dal, was largely expected to get the ticket. His phone was switched off in the early days of Vinesh’s campaign.

Others like Dharampal Kataria are more pragmatic. “Yes, it is often a setback when a new person is put on a seat that we have been working for, but if the party wants it that way, we will obey and guide her,” he says. The Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee secretary is the backbone of the campaign, the silent presence in an otherwise noisy trail. “Our target is to win by at least 50,000 votes,” he says.

“Main toh sirf ek zariya hoon, sirf ek chehraa. Asli kaam toh aap ko karna hai (I’m just a face, the real job you’ll have to do),” Vinesh extols the residents of Jai Jaiwanti in everyday Urdu, but soon local rustic Haryanvi takes over. “Bahut pyar diya laadli ko. Yahan ki bahu hoon, lekin beti sey zyadaa pyaar diya hai (I’m a daughter-in-law here, but have got more love than a daughter),” she says.

It resonates with the women, cutting across caste lines. “Humare liye toh ab Vinesh Phogat hi sab kuch hai (We are all rooting for Vinesh now),” 30-year-old Seema Devi has no doubt where her allegiance lies. “Dilli-waali sarkar ne hamari naukriyaan khaa li. Vinesh ney iss sarkar ke khilaaf morcha nikala (jobs have disappeared under the central govt. Vinesh sat in protest against this govt),” says the law graduate who belongs to the Prajapati (Kumhar) community.

Not far, in a covered trailer, a group of women of varying ages wait for their driver. Hesitant to speak first, the oldest of them, 80-year-old Ramoorti Daadi declares, “Vinesh ko hi vote devengey (it’s Vinesh that we’ll vote for).”

This sense of independent choicemaking is in contrast to a group of pilgrims headed for Khatu near Sikar in Rajasthan. “It’s not going to be that easy for Vinesh. There are four Jat candidates here and BJP is also strong,” says the leader of the group. Another pipes in, “The women will vote for whoever the family elders ask us to.”

The women in the group are silent, but one chips in. “I’ll vote for whoever can get our sewers cleaned up.” It is an obtuse offer of defiance.

At the intersection of Garhwali and Jai Jaiwanti villages, it is possible that Vinesh’s caravan met with that of Captain Yogesh Bairagi. A former serviceman, Bairagi is the BJP candidate, a late announcement that caught many in the region by surprise. Many local BJP supporters admit that it is a 50-50 battle, pointing out that Bairagi had done good work in neighbouring Safidoh, organising employment camps.

When one of them hears that the correspondent is from the Capital, he discreetly inquires if there are any jobs available.