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Journalism of Courage
The politicisation of the iftar party is complete, it seems, with the unholy ruckus over the presence of banned former cricket captain M. Azharuddin at Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu8217;s iftar feast last Friday. With his allies breathing down his neck, Naidu allowed himself to be caught on the backfoot. He denied that his government had officially invited the controversial cricketer for the do and added that he was caught in an embarrassing position, not being able to turn out a guest. These observations, in turn, forced Azhar to produce the relevant invitation card before the media. The cricketer had every right to be angry and upset over this shabby treatment and particularly at the imputation that he had gatecrashed this event, as well as others recently held in Hyderabad, just in order to inveigle his way into the good books of the Andhra chief minister.
Some months ago, when Azharuddin was beginning to feel the heat of the matchfixing scandal, he had claimed that he was being targetted because he belonged to the minority community and that people could not countenance the fact that a Muslim had guided Indian cricket for well nigh 16 years. At that time, his statement was generally perceived as being grossly unfair and unwarranted and many, including this newspaper, had advised the Hyderabad batsman to get real. It had been argued then that the matchfixing controversy had to be addressed as an issue concerning cricket and cricket alone, a game which had historically brought together Indians from variegated religious and regional backgrounds, to play as a team for the nation; a game that had united, not divided the country. It followed from this that the punishment for sullying the game and bringing it to disrepute 8212; as players like Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar are alleged to have done 8212; should be dictated by the law, and the law alone.
