Let’s not play Pakistan

What a perfectly horrendous conclusion to a glorious cricketing encounter at the Centurion last Saturday. India’s win against Pakistan, powered by Sachin Tendulkar’s masterly innings, deserved to be greeted with mass celebration, certainly. Sport is one area of activity where a display of nationalism is perfectly legitimate and enhances the spirit of the encounter. But only if such a sentiment is anchored in common sense and guided by a sense of proportion. Certainly, the utterly contemptible display of jingoism that was on view on Saturday night, demeaned both cricket and India. The eruption of stone throwing and rioting in various pockets of the country, and even at the border, at the end of what is after all only a cricket match symbolises just how far done the road of irrational hate-mongering we have travelled in these polarised times.

What’s more, these emotions are now being displayed at foreign venues. As this newspaper reported, a section of the Indian fans at Centurion dressed up like sadhus, chanted religious and political slogans and shouted ugly abuse. At this rate, Indian fans will soon gain the same notoriety as British football lumpens who travel in packs and wreak havoc wherever they go through their drunken antics. India has always prided itself on its self-confident, syncretic nationalism. No longer, it seems, if somebody could have the effrontery to wave a saffron flag while the Tricolour was being displayed to indicate India’s moment of victory. Ganguly’s boys deserved better. They played as Team India, each man regardless of religious background, giving of their best. To greet that victory with a unseemly burst of sectarian passion is to demean that effort. In fact, on the field both the Pakistani and Indian cricketers conducted themselves with great maturity, the occasional flaring up of tempers notwithstanding. The Pakistanis made it a point to shake the hands of the Indian batsmen after the match and captain Waqar Younis was gracious enough to acknowledge the masterly Tendulkar innings.

This newspaper had long argued for the resumption of cricket matches between India and Pakistan because there is so much enjoyment in watching two great teams battling it out on the greens, because a few mad men who dig up cricket pitches and throw bottles on to pitches should not come between us and the game, because it is another way of easing tensions between the two sides. Today we are constrained to change our mind on the issue. Nothing is worth this unedifying display of communal passion and national aggression. Let’s not play Pakistan if it has the potential to destroy all that we stand for as a nation.