Pad up for the Pentangular

The Indian government may have hesitated over the revival of India-Pakistan cricket on security or political grounds but there was no mistaking the public enthusiasm for it. The US must now regret that it boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of a misjudgment about Soviet intentions in Afghanistan. Sporting contacts not only disregard but overcome prevailing political hesitation. No one can be completely sanguine about the course of the political dialogue now starting between India and Pakistan but if one can sense the people’s verdict, sporting ties should almost never be severed. Both sides of the frontier seem to be declaring that batting and bowling along a 22-yard pitch is better than war or hostile propaganda.

It was more than a coincidence that the accord between Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and General Pervez Musharraf came during the SAARC meeting. We have agreed to free trade through SAFTA, linked tourism, facilitating energy pipelines and even talked of a Customs union and a common currency. These go beyond what even the cognoscenti had anticipated just three months ago. At the same time, if we had abrogated the Indus Treaty, the January Spring would not have been possible. The lesson is that even in anger we should never depart from the distant star in our diplomatic navigation.

Why don’t we then, with appropriate modification, resurrect the pre-independence Pentangular? Why not as a supplement to national cricketing rivalries, reinforce the idea of regional solidarity? Every three years, there could be a Pentangular series with the following national and transnational groupings — West: Maharashtra including Baroda, Gujarat, Sind and Baluchistan; North: Punjab (East and West), North West Frontier, Kashmir and Haryana; Centre: Delhi, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Andhra, Nepal and the Railways (belonging to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka railways); East: Bangladesh, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal, Sikkim and Bhutan; South: Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Each group, it will be noticed, includes at least two independent neighbours in the SAARC. For the benefit of those born after 1947, I might mention that Baroda and the Railways always had special slots in the old five-sided fixtures. The history of cricket in India is a fascinating story where at one time Hindus, Europeans, Muslims and Parsis happily played the game without provoking racist or sectarian loyalties. Cricket could again become a symbol of healthy national rivalry and a catalyst to accelerate South Asian (SAARC) solidarity, reaffirming provincial affinities, linguistic linkages and regional interdependence. The present proposal will highlight a unique feature of South Asia, which has had a tradition of religious, language and provincial sub-cultures. For example, all Bengalis across the present frontiers continue to assert a special pride in their language and literature;

Tamil Nadu has connection across the Palk Straits and not just with the Jaffna Tamils but the whole of Sri Lanka. (It is interesting that the Sri Lanka government opened its first trade centre in Chennai not in Mumbai or Delhi).

Only recently Chief Minister Amarindar Singh, with a large delegation, attended a conference on ‘Panjabiyat’ in Lahore. Even the most suspicious anti-India Nepalese have connections in UP and Bihar and want to worship and die in Varanasi.

Obvious difficulties will arise in choosing teams for the proposed Pentangular series. Every country should have the right to nominate the best cricketers for the ‘trials’ on the basis of their performance in the respective national systems, but the final team, chosen by representative SAARC selectors, should objectively put together the best balanced side, disregarding whether one country or province was over or under-represented. I must hasten to acknowledge that there are many reasons why the idea of such a SAARC Pentangular should be considered ‘corny’, unrealistic or at least wildly premature. But then not many anticipated that after 57 years of hostility, statesmanship in India and Pakistan could rise above the memories of past hostilities and set in motion the process of rediscovering the possibility of beneficial bilateralism, functional regional co-operation, geographical complementarities and the heritage of cultural plurality.

We are all keeping our fingers crossed against manifold hazards in the current cricket series, but there is no doubt that the people in India and the people in Pakistan go beyond the hesitations of babus like me in the military or the bureaucratic hierarchies. South Asians are weary of terror and want desperately to get over decades of self-destruction. For too long have we been conditioned by borrowed judgments and our diplomacy become opaque to the sensitivities of our neighbours. As in all things pertaining to South Asia, India has a central position — geographical and political. If the idea of a SAARC Pentangular is to eventually take off, India must take the lead role. Success should capitalise and reinforce the shared love of cricket. We only have to agree not to shout ‘Howzzat!’ out of turn! All these nations have come to respect the rules of the game and must reject, literally and figuratively, bodyline bowling.