The coronavirus pandemic has upended the gains made by the mud wrestling or indigenously known as dangal. If you follow the thump of the drumbeat and the cheer of the crowd in any village of Punjab, Haryana or Maharashtra, it will lead you to the game. The essence of the rural sport is easily fathomable from the huge crowd it attracts to the giant hoardings set up to publicise the muscular and bulky wrestlers posing in their langots (loin-cloth). It is a common sight in northern India, but with the outbreak, the sport faces an uncertain future.
Uttam Rao Patil, a retired Indian Army wrestling coach, now runs a centre in Maharashtra’s Sangli district. It is located in Kavalapur village and hundreds of wrestlers have trained there over three decades. Patil is part of many local committees which organise the game. He says the sport contributes significantly to the income of local wrestlers and additionally promotes the game. “Winning kushtis help these wrestlers get ghee, flour and money which helps them support their family. Sometimes, they even take home good prize money. Mud wrestling has grown exponentially in the past couple of years and has given the country some of the biggest names such as Sushil Kumar and Bajrang Punia. Every Indian wrestler has his/her roots in this crimson red mud,” he added.
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Mud wrestling is not an Olympic medal bout or a televised multimillion-rupee wrestling league. But whenever a wrestler steps into the pit at stake is something valued immensely in rural India: the respect that a village earns once its wrestler wins a dangal. “A wrestler is treated like a god in many parts of rural India. When a child is born, the family takes blessings from the wrestler as they believe it will bring good fortune,” Kripa Shankar, former wrestler turned coach says.
Patil explained that different kinds of dangals are held in India. It ranges from political ones to those held based on religious beliefs. While the former one is held in parts of Haryana and Maharashtra, the latter is the reason behind the introduction of wrestling in Punjab. The crowd is swayed by the power of the game in the end and emerges as the real reason to keep the sport going.
“You go to any corner of India and if there is a mud wrestling competition taking place, you will find a large crowd gathered to watch the main event. After the bout, as per tradition the wrestlers would perform a lap of honour and accept the prizes from the public. There have been occasions when the crowd has spurred money like anything on wrestlers because they loved the fight. Therefore, they hold a very important position in dangals,” Patil told WrestlingTV.
Generational loss
The first season of the dangal has been completely shaken as the pandemic ravages the country and spreads to the rural hinterlands. India has over 1.58 lakh Covid-19 cases. To rein in the outbreak, the government has stopped all sporting activities. Wrestlers have suffered a massive loss due to the cancellation of the big dangals in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra. Jaskanwar Gill aka Jassa Patti, one of the biggest names of mud wrestling, said: “I had around 34 dangals booked for the April and May season. But with the season suspended, I have suffered a loss of about Rs 25 lakh.”
The Punjab-based wrestler also voiced concern about the athletes who do not have a high income. “We are lucky that we have got to a level that we have something to fall back on. However, it is not the case for lower-rung wrestlers. Also, unlike Olympic wrestling, there is no support from the government to the mud wrestles. So, they will be going through a rough phase in these trying days ” he said.
The nature of the sport, with no scope of physical distancing, has also cast doubts for possible future events. Shankar believes organisers will face a dilemma on whether or not to host competitions in the upcoming months.
“The current season is almost over. Just the Kangra, Himachal Pradesh dangal is left which boasts prize money of Rs 1 crore. But I don’t think it will be held. The ‘Saawan’ (monsoon) season will begin from July and then there will be a season during Diwali. However, the biggest challenges organisers would be facing is how to host mitti-kushti (mud wrestling) competitions in the post-COVID era. We know that social distancing might be the new normal and in that case gathering of the large crowd would be impossible,” he says.
Patil echoed Shankar’s concerns, adding that without crowd the game cannot be played.
What is the way forward?
Shankar says that traditional wrestling is a very profitable business in which both the organisers and wrestlers earn well. He hoped for big broadcasting companies to telecast the game. “They make lakhs during dangal seasons. I feel in the coming days mud-wrestling would also go on air just like other sports,” he added.
Kushti has a long history in Indian culture and goes way back to the malla-yudh contests in the Mahabharat. “Mud wrestling is part of our tradition. Be it any religion, you will find a mention of wrestling in it. Angad Dev, the second of the 10 Sikh gurus always encouraged all the sections to engage in wrestling at the akhadas. It is a way of life for many and will not disappear just like that,” Patil concluded emotionally.
