‘Wrestlers deserve justice like all citizens’: Tovino Thomas, Anjali Menon show support

While many big cricket and film stars are silent on the ongoing wrestlers’ protest against sexual harassment accused WFI chief Brij Bhushan, a few actors have expressed their solidarity.
Wrestlers being manhandled
Wrestlers being manhandled
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With three very telling photos of the recent attack on the wrestlers protesting in Delhi, Malayalam actor Tovino Thomas expressed solidarity with them, saying they deserve justice like any other citizen of the country, regardless of their achievements. He stated that the wrestlers’ demands for action against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over alleged sexual harassment of female wrestlers must be heard. In doing so, he became one of the few members of the Malayalam film industry to address the protest which has even garnered international attention in the past few days. A day earlier, filmmaker Anjali Menon also voiced her support for the wrestlers, saying it was heartbreaking to see them go through such humiliation. 

Tovino shared photos of the wrestlers, including Vinesh Phogat, Sangeeta Phogat and Sakshi Malik, being manhandled by Delhi police and wrote in an Instagram post: "They have brought us pride in international sports and fulfilled the expectations of a people. Even if you don't consider that, they should get the justice that they deserve like any other citizen in this country. They should not be neglected because the people in the opposition are too powerful.”

A day earlier on Tuesday, Anjali Menon too wrote a social media post that began with the quote: “The measure of a society lies in how it treats its women." She wrote that each of the protesting women wrestlers “have attained glory after great struggle and deserve the justice they seek." Anjali also quoted shooter and Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, who has expressed his support for the wrestlers, with the hope that it would inspire more sports stars to come forward and demand justice for them. 

Others from the south Indian film industries who have spoken out on behalf of the protesting wrestlers are actors Kamal Haasan and Kishore (who shot to fame with the 2022 Kannada film Kantara), and director Pa Ranjith. However, most other big names in the film industry, including Bollywood stars, have been conspicuously silent about the issue, even when angry social media users questioned them about it. At the same time, many of them had commented positively on the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 28, even as the protesting wrestlers were manhandled by the police on their way to protest at the new Parliament House. The organisers of the protest, including wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, and Bajrang Punia who have been at its forefront, were booked by the police on various charges including ‘rioting’. 

Hindi actors Aamir Khan and Priyanka Chopra, who have acted in biopics about wrestlers and boxers (Dangal based on wrestlers Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari, and Mary Kom on Manipuri boxer Mary Kom), were particularly criticised for their silence.

Tovino too has acted in a movie about a female wrestler in Malayalam. He played the male lead in Godha, a film that told the story of a woman (played by Wamiqa Gabbi) who gets to fulfill her wrestling dreams on coming to Kerala.

Incidentally, Tovino is also one of the few actors to have spoken out about the controversial film The Kerala Story, which many politicians, journalists, and viewers have criticised for spreading propaganda and misrepresenting the number of women who had been radicalised from Kerala. During a promotional event for his film 2018, based on the Kerala floods of that year, Tovino said that based on the trailer of The Kerala Story, he did not think it told the story of the state he grew up in. On the other hand, the film 2018 showed what it was like when a whole state stood together to face the floods, he said at the time.

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