Larry Nassar analogies might come to be deemed inappropriate if attempted in the context of the Jantar Mantar protests, given that Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has not been brought to trial yet, therefore not indicted or let off. There is a functioning anarchy here. The sit-in continues in an intensely bitter, combative setting with verbal salvos being traded but the first information reports have not been followed up with an arrest by the Delhi Police.

The variously stationed authorities that tell us what to do and what is to be refrained from will do India a favour if the wrestlers, especially the girls, do not find themselves set upon by purported law-enforcers, not just because they are medal-winners but also because India claims to be a civilised country.

The police reportedly went berserk when dry folding-beds were brought in by the athletes to avoid sleeping on sodden pavements. The bull-in-a-chinashop charge, physical confrontations with some of the girls and rough tackles on citizen journalists persuaded a lot of people that those in power would do their best to make sure that the Wrestling Federation of India chief, facing extremely serious charges of sexual harassment from Olympic and World championships winners, did not find himself on the mat.

The whole shebang might have also set them wondering why a man who has protested his innocence and whom the party considered good enough to nominate to the Indian Parliament as many as six times called for the heavy-handed defending in coping with peaceful athletes. Mr Average Man finds in a BBC Hindi interview Vinesh Phogat saying that she had made complaints about Singh’s ways and when Anurag Thakur was spoken to about it for action, “Singh’s loyalists got to know everything within hours.”

Not for nothing does he stay a step ahead of those chasing him, quite apart from the wrestlers. The Delhi Police are said to have soft-pedalled crucial elements in the wrestlers’ allegations so the Supreme Court’s FIR order is not overtly violated but Singh is not obliged to grovel even if it comes to the crunch. Phogat has reportedly said that the tide is unlikely to turn until the country’s senior politicians with administrative power do something about it, with Singh too having been heard as saying that he would put in his papers if the men at the top told him to do so.

The pitch will have been queered further if the sport’s international federation, whether influenced by Singh or not, calls for early WFI polls which could lead up to dynastic rule as his own term ends very soon but several of his close relatives hold important positions in the sport in India. Singh holds a decisive edge in this, having long been known to the global notables. He appears insuperable at the moment.

The tangled skein could take years to unravel, during which wrestling, and its exponents at all levels in the land, will suffer incalculable damage if everything is in stasis.