Opinion Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant’s behaviour towards Temba Bavuma should worry us as a cricket-loving nation
Many feel that the comments made by Bumrah and Pant were in the same spirit as the sledging Australians players take part in. Sledging is meant to distract a player; abuse and body shaming are products of legitimised disdain
South Africa wrapped up the low-scoring thriller inside three days, winning a Test in India after 14 years; and India’s pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant were caught on the stump mic body-shaming the South African captain, Temba Bavuma(FILE photo) The first Test match between India and South Africa, played at Kolkata from November 14-18, will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. South Africa wrapped up the low-scoring thriller inside three days, winning a Test in India after 14 years; and India’s pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant were caught on the stump mic body-shaming the South African captain, Temba Bavuma. They called him bauna, a dwarf.
Defeats and victories are part of the game and the heartbreak of the loss shouldn’t be anything more than that. But what should really worry us as a cricket-loving nation is how Bumrah and Pant behaved. It comes on a backdrop where the legitimisation of abuse in Indian society is near complete. Unfortunately, it appears that from the highest office of political power in the country to the common man on the street, abuse is the new language of India. The new India loves to abuse. How can we explain the behaviour of an elected Member of Parliament using the cheapest abuse for a fellow (Opposition) colleague — BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri’s comments on Danish Ali of the BSP — on the floor of the House in 2023? Verbal abuse is part of a cycle of hate in which the violence of language becomes the preliminary tool for the legitimised use of physical violence. Abuse is the first alphabet in the language of violence.
Many feel that the comments made by Bumrah and Pant were in the same spirit as the sledging Australian players take part in. Sledging is meant to distract a player; abuse and body shaming are products of legitimised disdain. Though both are wrong, sledging is used as a tactic, and abuse is a tool of hate. It has an immorality of sorts attached to it.
We are a hero-hungry nation. My father’s generation wasn’t so unfortunate. They had a Gandhi, a Nehru and the whole freedom struggle to etch out their stars. The youngsters of India hardly have a choice. Their heroes and anti-heroes come from the film industry and cricket — the perennial suppliers of icons for young men and women. Thus, the responsibility of these stars is compounded many times in setting the right moral parameters worth looking up to. In a country that has caste, religion and class seamlessly stitched on its soul, such talk by so-called youth icons sets a horrendous example.
In India, we have a crisis of compassion, compounded by majoritarianism, casteism, religious intolerance and a staggering economic divide. Wherever we look — on the street, in workplaces, in schools, in hospitals — this crisis is visible. Unfortunately, actions like granting parole to rapists, hate-mongers and serial offenders only deepen this crisis of compassion. With every incident of road rage and with every lynching in the name of religion, what we are propagating is a social order which takes pride in violence in language and behaviour, manifesting itself with brazen audacity. This automatically lends immunity to actions like calling someone a dwarf.
On November 26, South Africa comprehensively defeated India and won the Test series for the first time in 25 years. As a lover of Indian cricket, I was sad but as a lover of sports and sportsmanship, I was happy. No other result would have sluiced off the arrogance and abuse by one of the best Indian Test cricketers.
In one of the most beautiful sports books, Football in Sun and Shadow, Eduardo Galeano writes, “Sometimes the idol does not fall all at once. And sometimes when he breaks, people devour the pieces.” Not only Bumrah and the rest of the Indian cricket team, but the Indian political class too, should realise the worth of this valuable advice.
The writer is professor, Department of Orthopaedics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. Views are personal
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