Ducking the bouncer

On the face of it, the suggestion that cricketer Virender Sehwag retreat from his reported promise to canvass support for Sahib Singh Verma, a fellow Jat and BJP candidate from Outer Delhi, is unexceptionable. It is a valid argument that national institutions such as the cricket team should be out of bounds for politics. There is, of course, the question of personal freedom. Sehwag, any citizen for that matter, is at liberty to back or oppose any political candidate he chooses. Yet, given his public standing, he would be better advised to stick to his core competency and indulge himself in political life only when his playing days are over.

That can, of course, only be counsel, not injunction. A far stronger cautionary note needs to be issued to politicians attempting to deploy those presently playing cricket for the country for their partisan purposes. This is playing with fire. The consequences of a team half full of Congress supporters, a third packed with BJP votaries, with a DMK-leaning junior cricketer accusing a Jayalithaa-friendly captain of prejudice are potentially devastating.

Yet there is something of a contradiction here. The very politicians who have asked Sehwag to stay in the pavilion are veteran cricketer administrators. From Manohar Joshi to Sharad Pawar, Rajeev Shukla to Laloo Yadav, Prafulla Mahanta to Narhari Amin, state cricket associations are bastions of political patronage. Madhavrao Scindia and N.K.P. Salve may have been genuine cricket lovers but their presidencies at the BCCI coincided with tenures as ministers in Congress governments. Likewise Arun Jaitley’s candidature for the top job at the Board was not seriously discussed before he became a Union minister. It’s a bit rich, asking cricketers to stay away from politics even while the BCCI itself is a hotbed of political intrigue, with voting taking place along party and — in some cases — factional lines. The unfortunate truth is just so many bodies in India are politicised that, sooner of later, it was bound to strike some smart-alec politico that the cricket team too was fair game. Asking Sehwag to sit out this match is good medicine — but it tackles the symptom, not the disease.