Olympic medal-winning wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt's trendsetting decision to accept only Re 1 as dowry, ahead of his wedding to Sheetal Sharma, will hopefully inspire many other Indians to follow his lead
Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt deserves gold medal for refusing to accept dowry
Yogeshwar Dutt
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Star India wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt may have won the silver medal at the the 2012 London Olympics, but he deserves the gold for his recent act of bravery.
The Olympic medallist got married to Sheetal Sharma, who is the daughter of local Haryana politician Jai Bhagwan Sharma, on Monday.
Ahead of his wedding, the grappler, who is a two-time Asian Games medallist, decided to take a token Re 1 as dowry from his bride’s family.
Star wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt during a ceremony ahead of his marriage with Sheetal daughter of Jai Bhagwan Sharma, a Congress leader in Sonepat on Saturday. Pic/PTI
And the reason behind Dutt taking this bold decision will leave you teary-eyed. He has revealed that his family had to suffer as they had to shell out a huge amount as dowry for his sisters' marriage. Moved by the woes that beset his parent in trying to get the dowry, Dutt had taken a vow when young that he would not let his bride’s family suffer.
“I saw my family struggle to collect dowry for the girls of the family,” the 34-year-old wrestler was quoted as saying. “As a result, I decided on two things while growing up — I will excel in wrestling and I will not accept dowry. I have realised my first dream and now it’s time to keep my second promise.”
That the wrestler is a stand up guy was clear when he revealed that he wasn't keen to collect the silver medal from 2012 London Olympics on humanitarian grounds given that the original second place finisher's positive dope test came after his death.
The four-time world champion and two-time Olympic medallist Kudukhov, who had died in a car crash in 2013 in southern Russia, failed a World Anti-Doping Agency dope test conducted on his sample from 2012 before the Rio Games. As a result, Yogeshwar, who had bagged a bronze medal in men's 60kg freestyle category in London Games, joined Sushil Kumar as the other silver-medallist wrestler from the 2012 London Games.
He has time and again taken to Twitter to speak out on issues, be it questioning the move to appoint Bollywood superstar Salman Khan as goodwill ambassador of the Indian Olympic contingent for the 2016 Games or paying compensation to slain terrorist Burhan Wani's family for the death of his brother Khalid in a shootout.
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