On September 13, 2023, Colonel Manpreet Singh, Major Aashish Dhonchak of the Indian Army and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Humayun Bhat of the Jammu and Kashmir police were killed during an anti-militancy operation in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. The officers were part of a joint team of security personnel and the army, and had come under heavy fire from militants.
Singh, who was leading his force from the front, was amongst the first to be hit by a hail of bullets. At his funeral, in his native village near Mullanpur, Punjab, his wife stood with their two children, a two-and-half-year-old daughter and six-year-old son, watching the flames engulf him. Dhonchak, from Haryana, is survived by his wife and a two-and-half-year-old daughter. Bhat is the son of retired Inspector General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Ghulam Hasan Bhat. Bhat is also survived by his young wife and two-month-old daughter.
The Resistance Front, a banned militant organisation, has claimed responsibility for the attack. In response to a question posed in the Rajya Sabha, the Home Ministry stated that the Resistance Front is an offshoot or front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, an internationally proscribed terror group, based in Pakistan. The Lashkar-e-Taiba’s stated objective is to merge Kashmir with Pakistan. Many of its terror training camps are reported to be based in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). Here, militants are trained to infiltrate Kashmir to attack Indian security personnel and prey on innocent civilians. The attack that led to the killings of Singh, Dhonchak and Bhat is perhaps only one such operation. Across different governments, India has consistently held the position that Pakistan funds, trains and supports terrorist groups that operate in Jammu and Kashmir.
Meanwhile — as if on another planet, away from this tragic loss and devastation — Pakistan’s cricket team landed in my hometown of Hyderabad. The city, known for its old-world charm and hospitality, gave the visitors a warm welcome. This is the first visit of a Pakistani cricket team to India in seven years. The team secured their visas only a few hours before departure. The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 runs from October 5 to November 19. For the next month and a half, 10 teams will play cricket in India, including the Pakistani team. A highly awaited match will be the one between India and Pakistan to be played in Ahmedabad.
The two teams have not played each other in their respective countries for a long time. The recently concluded Asia Cup was scheduled to be held initially only in Pakistan. When India refused to send its cricket team to play in Pakistan, the matches that the Indian team had to play were conducted in Sri Lanka. Hence, there is some precedent to multilateral tournaments accommodating Indian requests for not playing in Pakistan, due to both security and political concerns.
Meanwhile, travel between the two countries has also been restricted for the same reasons. For the last four years, direct flights between India and Pakistan have been suspended, since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution (which pertains to the special status of Jammu and Kashmir). So why the lifting of this cricket embargo at this time, especially after such a grievous loss to the families of our soldiers and to us as a people?
I don’t ask this question because of some misplaced sense of nationalism. The vacuous, jingoistic nationalism that permeates political-speak in contemporary India has done little for the country outside of hiding governance failures. I approach this situation with some thought, and I understand that the issues are nuanced. I have represented some petitioners in the recently concluded arguments heard by the Supreme Court who have challenged the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. And I have spent some time thinking through the views I express in this column.
I don’t believe that the people of any country including Pakistanis should be conflated with the policies of their government. However, here is the case of a country that has consistently funded and supported terrorist groups. If that is one side of the picture, then the other side is the consequence of the support of terror groups — more recently the loss of Colonel Singh, Major Dhonchak and DSP Bhat.
It is difficult not to imagine and feel the pain of DSP Bhat’s father, a retired Inspector General of Police of Jammu and Kashmir. As a parent myself, I was hit particularly hard by the video of a father placing a wreath on his fallen son’s body. While the English language has words for a child who loses their parent, or a husband or wife who loses their spouse, there is no word for a parent who has lost a child — that is how unimaginable this loss is. More recently, the word “vilomah” is being used to describe such a loss. The word, borrowed from Sanskrit, means “against the natural order” and was first popularised by an American professor at Duke University who lost a child.
Cricket in the subcontinent is a metaphor for so much. It is the millions who love this game, the days we spend with different generations of our families, together, cheering on the women and men in blue. It is the hope of so many young Indians — their way out of poverty and anonymity. The India and Pakistan game that will be held in Ahmedabad will be all of this, multiplied a hundred times over. I am a great lover of the game. Amongst its most breathtaking sights is Pakistan’s pacer Shaheen Afridi bowling full tilt to our own Virat Kohli. But this time around, I for one will be haunted by the image of a father bidding farewell to his son. So, I respectfully decline to look away from this loss and be entertained. We should not have invited Pakistan to play cricket in India. The wounds are too raw and the hurt is too new for some families within us.
The writer is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India
