Opinion That one has gone over the rope
Indias jingoistic drum-beating at the World Cup ignores form,competition and the weight of history.
V.S. Naipauls million mutinies play out ever so often on the India stage,exposing its much vaunted democracy as a work in painful progress and,as he put it,a maelstrom of disruptive lesser loyalties. We are seemingly headed there now,as lesser loyalties create political,social and economic disruptions across the country. It is the kind of moment when the question of what really unifies this country acquires prominence in conversation and thought. Well,heres a thought: it is cricket. There is no other adhesive that compacts the Indian identity into some semblance of uniformity; not language,religion,customs,food,dress or economic and social equality. Cricket not sport,mind you is the only common denominator,the one single issue that the man from Kanyakumari and his counterpart from Kashmir will have in common. Whatever the cultural differences,cricket fans have their own code of communication that transcends language.
Even Bollywood doesnt rate as a common cultural touchstone. Down south,cinema occupies another dimension and has a different cultural underpinning. Classical music and dance could come closest to a common cultural identity but it does not arouse any fierce passion or sense of patriotism. They also lack the necessary commercial accompaniment,so vital in an age when success and money are conjoined twins. Cricket has become a repository of the national ego,our place on the world stage celebrated with greater national pride than the possession of a nuclear arsenal,A.R. Rahman at the Oscars or 9 per cent GDP growth. Sport everywhere is undoubtedly a major carrier of national identity but in India,our embrace of cricket is much more; it transcends into a national obsession that often crosses the boundary into jingoism when an international tournament gets under way.
Thats understandable if it is an India-Pakistan encounter. The intensity of that sporting rivalry devolves as much from the common cricket culture that unites the two countries as from the history that divides them. However,the hype and hysteria surrounding the
Indian team and the ongoing World Cup has an aggressive intent that is almost akin to going to war,or war minus the shooting,as George Orwell once put it in reference to sport at the international level. In his essay,The Sporting Spirit,he blamed it on the attitude of the spectators and even countries who seriously believe,for that moment,that sporting contests like the
Olympics or football World Cup,are a test of national virtue. In our case,the war is led by TV channels and World Cup-related advertising that have raised the anticipation of an Indian victory to such a pitch that anything less will count as much of a failure as UPAs second innings. Heres how historian-novelist Mukul Kesavan views our obsession with the game. The terrifying thought is that if cricket loses its credibility people will still watch it not the sport but the spectacle. The one-day game may have revived cricket but the result is that we live with cretinous spectators who demand constant thrills.
More serious,support for Team India in the World Cup is almost being equated with patriotism which,unlike the Tebbit test suggested for Englands immigrants,puts huge and unfair pressure on not just the Indian team but anyone who doesnt paint their face in Tricolour,wear the India blues and gyrate like Prabhu Deva each time an Indian player scores a boundary. It was never like this. Earlier World Cups carried the hope of a nation but minus the hype. In his book The States of Indian Cricket,Ramachandra Guha brings back fond recollections of an era when cricket was a peripheral pastime and not the 24/7 soap opera it has become,a national obsession and a hyper-aggressive,sexed-up arm of the TV industry. He writes of a time when cricketers were rarely seen or heard outside the cricket field,and even rarer to find them displayed on the front pages of newspapers and in prime-time headlines. Another cricket authority Mike Marqusee had this to say about Indian cricket: I saw cricket installed at the heart of a burgeoning popular culture,subjected to all the pressures that come with that status. And over the years Ive seen cricket unfold its wonderfully pointless essence in the myriad forms that only a society as vast and diverse as India can generate.
Today,nothing brings us together with as much passion as cricket. There is also so much money riding on the game and its practitioners that its commercial value only adds to the hoopla. There is also the fact that India now rightly claims to be crickets global epicentre,boasting its largest commercial potential and widest social base. Yet,as Marqusee once commented: For years,Indian crickets brain has been befuddled by an indigestible cocktail of parochial pettiness and delusions of global grandeur. That has,unfortunately,given it an exaggerated status that is out of sync with its potential as a symbol of national unity. That,sadly,is ultimately a reflection of the limited issues that really unite us as a country. The increasing divisiveness of todays politics is merely a reflection of the growing divide in Indian society in general. The assertion of an Indian identity,cultural nationalism and emotional commonality are all rooted in cricket,to the exclusion of anything else.
Heres another thought. The jingoistic drum-beating we are currently witness to would not exist if it wasnt for that surprise World Cup win in 1983. Everyone knew it was a victory gained against all odds but that is conveniently forgotten in the rush for TRPs and sponsors and advertisers seeking to tap into the perceived national mood by endless repeats of that historic feat. The result is that the macho aggressiveness on display has taken Indias chances of winning the 2011 World Cup to unreal heights,ignoring form and competition and the weight of history.
dilip.bobb@expressindia.com
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