Two diplomats, from India and Pakistan respectively, observe the state of their countries’ ties through, what else, but cricket
Fantasies and realities
Shashi Tharoor
The two countries’ shared history has imparted a complicated edge to their rivalry. For many Indians, Pakistanis are merely estranged siblings, ‘basically like us’... For other Indians, Pakistan can never be free of the taint of the original sin of its creation — the vivisection of the motherland in the name of religious separatism — and so their attitude as cricket fans is not just to support India against anyone, but also to support anyone against Pakistan.
Part of the complication is that for some Indians the very existence of Pakistan is an affront to the pluralist ideals of their nation. It is, after all, a state founded on the very communalism that, if practiced in independent India, would be rejected as unacceptable in civilised society... It is not easy for a secular Indian to have anything but contempt for a state ideology based on religious intolerance. When Pakistan’s captain, Shoaib Malik, publicly thanked “Muslims all over the world” for their presumed support to his team in the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup... It was a reminder that, for all their superficial similarities, Pakistanis are not Indians: an Indian captain who thanked “Hindus all over the world” would be sacked on the spot...
For all of these reasons, to most Indian cricket fans, Pakistan must not be allowed to prevail — as a country, as an idea, as a cricket team. Victory over Pakistan, therefore, means far more than victory over anyone else, whereas a defeat by Pakistan stings far more than a drubbing at the hands of another team….
Taking stock
For Indians like myself, perhaps the most disquieting development... has been the rise of religious intolerance on both sides of the border. I am reconciled to it in Pakistan: after all, a state founded as a homeland for Muslims can hardly be surprised if some of its adherents take Islamism to an extreme. But I find it... impossible to accept on my own side. The whole point about India is that it is a pluralist republic... the thought that some Hindu chauvinists want to reduce my India to a mirror image of Pakistan, a state of and for its religious majority, fills me with horror. I am proud of the 30 Muslim cricketers who have played Tests for India, and of the three Muslims who have captained it; that is what sets us apart from others, especially... Pakistan.
Cricket in independent India has always been exempt from the contagion of communalism. Despite the religious basis of Partition, Indian cricket teams always featured players of every religious persuasion. Three of the country’s most distinguished and successful captains — Ghulam Ahmed, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Mohammad Azharuddin — were Muslims, as was our best-ever wicketkeeper, Syed Kirmani… Who can forget the excitement stirred by Abbas Ali Baig’s dream debut in England in 1959...? Or that magical moment, when, as Baig walked back to the pavilion in Bombay after a brilliant 50 against Australia, an anonymous sari-clad lovely ran out and spontaneously greeted him with an admiring (and scandalously public) kiss? The episode... has been immortalised in Salman Rushdie’s novel The Moor’s Last Sigh. Who cared then, in those innocent 1960s, that Baig was Muslim and his admirer Hindu? ... I do not believe there have been two more beloved Indian cricketers in the last fifty years than Baig and Durrani — and theer religion had nothing to do with it.
Rivalry and diplomacy
Shaharyar Khan
Cricket deeply affects national political and social attitudes. Perhaps because cricket more than any other team sport, like football, hockey or rugby, is played over longer periods in which the character and attitudes of the teams and its players are scrutinised minutely by the media and the public. In cricket, the national and social attitudes of a team are played out on a larger canvas, leaving a deeper imprint on the psyche of a people. Cricket... has the capacity to build or damage bridges between nations… had the capacity to soften or aggravate the public hostility…
The social divide between several layers of Indian society — the princes, the educated middle class and the common man — was an important element of Indian cricket… The basic social divide was symbolised by caste differences... where lower caste Hindus were not initially included in the Hindu gymkhana teams…
Independence and tension
The birth of India and Pakistan as sovereign, independent countries was deeply traumatic… Against this hostile backdrop, cricket in Pakistan was hardly a national preoccupation. As Independence approached, most of the Muslim cricketers who had been playing in the Pentangular and for regional teams in the Ranji Trophy had to make the anguished decision of whether to stay in India or to move to a new country.
…The obvious first step into the international cricketing arena for Pakistan would have been to play some form of representative cricket against India but the tension-ridden political atmosphere between the two states prevented any bilateral sporting fixtures being scheduled.
Pakistan in India 2005 and its sequel
Another diplomatic issue arose when the Indian press announced that the Dalai Lama would personally ‘bless’ the teams when they played their side match in Dharamshala... I immediately sent off a message to Dalmiya that the Dalai Lama’s presence at the match would be viewed askance by our Chinese friends and that the Pakistani team would refuse to be blessed by the Buddhist figurehead. BCCI had obviously not considered the diplomatic repercussions of the Dalai Lama’s presence... and I was soon assured that he would not attend the fixture...
As a result of the Mumbai attack, the Indian cricket team’s tour of Pakistan in January 2009 was cancelled. This was not because of security concerns... but because of the political tension that had erupted between th two countries. This undulating relationship has in the past seen suspension of cricket and sporting contests between the two countries for varying periods. The 1965 and 1971 wars led to a long barren period until the peace process began to establish itself. Other incidents like Kargil, the Babri Masjid demolition, the attack on India’s parliament and the Gujarat riots led to shorter suspensions. It has often been a case of two steps forward and one (or two) step back in the peace process. The Mumbai terrorist attack must be seen as part of the same syndrome.
Shadows across the playing field: 60 years of India-Pakistan Cricket
Author: Shashi Tharoor, Shaharyar Khan; Series Editor: David Page
Publisher: Roli Books
pages: 189
Price: Rs 295
