How an Indian wrestler defied gender taboos to make his daughters Olympians

Haryana, the deeply conservative agrarian state of north India, has a unique contribution to world wrestling. Its pioneering women wrestlers have earned their spurs competing with boys.

Haryana is the state notorious for female foeticide. It ranks among the lowest in terms of sex ratio, and has poor female literacy rate. But a single man from the backwaters of Haryana has brought about a minor revolution in gender equations in the state.

The man is Mahavir Singh Phogat. The heavyset Jat from Balali, an obscure little village in Bhiwani district, has become a role model for aspirational India. Mahavir, a champion wrestler in his heyday, trained his daughters to be wrestlers.

In Haryana, the girl child is usually an unwelcome addition to the family. Pregnant women are often forced to undergo sex-selective abortions. It is commonplace for women's education and work opportunities to be cut short by arranged marriages, mostly at a young age.

Till a few years ago, a career in sports was a rare choice for Haryana girls. What Mahavir dared to dream of - and subsequently achieved - in rural Haryana was akin to asking for the moon and getting it.

Mahavir has five children - four daughters and a son. He trained his elder daughters, Geeta and Babita, right from their childhood in pehelwani - the Hindi term for wrestling.

This so shocked his village that Mahavir was jeered at not just by his village but the adjacent villages too. He stood his ground. His daughters would be international wrestling stars.

For Balali, already scandalised by Mahavir's decision to make his daughters pehelwaans (wrestlers), worse was to come.

It was early 2000, and there were no female wrestlers that Mahavir's eldest daughter Geeta could compete with.

Mahavir was not perturbed. Nothing would come in the way of sports glory that awaited his daughters. He told Geeta to compete with boys. And the village, already angry with his ludicrous decision to make his daughters wrestlers, ostracised him.

People told Mahavir that he should be ashamed of letting his daughters wrestle. And to top the indignity, for telling them to wrestle with boys.

The indignant villagers said Mahavir was bringing shame to the entire Balali, and no one would want to marry his daughters.

Mahavir was undaunted. He shielded his little champions from the jeering, and told them to focus on practice. All criticism would stop after they were successful, he assured his daughters.

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Mahavir could not buy expensive wrestling training mats for his daughters. What he could give them was training in pehelwani (wrestling), teach them the most difficult moves, and devise exercises to maximise their stamina.

So on a mud floor in an enclosure next to a cattle shed, little Geeta trained. When she and Babita were in their teens, Mahavir took them to the popular local dangals (wrestling contests) to compete. The girls were not allowed to fight because the organisers said dangals were the fiefdom of boys.

Steadfast in his focus, Mahavir continued training the girls on his own. Later, he took them to the Sonipat complex of the Sports Authority of India (SAI). Sonipat is a city in Haryana.

The coaches at SAI could make out that Geeta and Babita were star wrestlers in the making. They had physical strength, mental agility, and the fire within to excel internationally.

The girls soon scripted wrestling glory for India. Geeta won India's first ever gold medal in women's wrestling in the 55 kg freestyle category at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

In 2012, Geeta won a bronze medal at the World Wrestling Championships held in Canada. She won various other international medals, and became the first-ever Indian woman wrestler to have qualified for the Olympics (London 2012).

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Mahavir's younger daughter Babita won a silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. She also won a bronze at the 2012 World Wrestling Championships, and the gold medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The third woman wrestler from the family is Vinesh Phogat, daughter of Mahavir's younger brother Rajpal.

Vinesh has won multiple medals at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in the last few years. She represented India in the women's freestyle 48 kg category at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and won the gold medal.

In the 2015 Asian Wrestling Championships, held in Qatar, Vinesh won the silver medal in the women's freestyle 48 kg category.

Babita and Vinesh are competing at the Rio Olympics.

Mahavir is enjoying the adulation that has followed. The villagers, who had once boycotted him, have made him the sarpanch (headman).

Mahavir's younger children are training in wrestling too. Ritu Phogat is an upcoming star. Sangita and Dushyant are under the tutelage of their father's hawk's eye.

Courtesy this doughty man, a wave of female liberation is blowing through rural Haryana. Inspired by Geeta, Babita and Vinesh, more and more strong, athletic village girls have taken to sports in the last few years.

Come December, Dangal, the biopic on Mahavir Singh Phogat, will release in India and internationally.

Indian superstar Aamir Khan will play Mahavir Phogat in the film. Mahavir is fairly well-known in his home state and in the sporting circles of the country. After Dangal releases, expect his popularity to soar.

The man who gave his daughters the wings to fly high deserves this honour.