In January this year, a team of researchers from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge released their study of 7,249 adults, which concluded that passive sports engagement (attending or viewing sports events) significantly increased overall happiness, reduced anxiety and loneliness and gave a sense of meaning and purpose to those surveyed. For the millions of Indian cricket fans, this should come as no surprise, with the noise and colour they bring to every stadium on the planet, letting us know exactly how they feel when the Women and Men in Blue take the field. These aficionados are lost in the battle between willow and leather for a precious few hours, escaping from the travails of the desk, the hearth, the counter and the streets. When they cheer a boundary or a wicket, they do so without a callous disregard for their compatriots who lay down their lives at our borders or by lacking empathy for our armed forces.
Pakistan suffers from terror too
Yet, one was surprised to find in these columns last week, a piece stitching together a militant attack in Kashmir, the welcome to the Pakistan cricket team in Hyderabad and the sense of loss suffered by parents who lose a child (‘I won’t watch India play Pak’, IE, September 30). The author sought to take these disparate threads and weave a justification for why India should not have allowed Pakistan to play cricket on our soil.
“Why the lifting of this cricket embargo at this time”, the author queries, suggesting that India rolled out the red carpet immediately after four (wrongly-stated as three) of its sons were lost to militant fire. The simple response would be to remind the author that this is a World Cup. And India is the host. And the 10 invitees were determined months ago after 32 teams clashed for the coveted spots. To bar Pakistan would not only be unprofessional, but it would also invite serious sanctions on the host nation of an ICC event. But this straightforward response may not satisfy one who wishes to conflate a terrorist act with an unconnected cricket competition.
Consider then the fact that as per the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), India has lost 4,919 civilians and 3,578 security personnel because of insurgency in Kashmir during the period from 2001 to 2023. During the same span, as many as 21,301 Pakistani civilians and 8,308 security personnel have been killed by terrorist attacks. Clearly, Pakistan has been as much a victim of barbaric groups as India has, though the blame for fostering them lies squarely with the government of that state.
Pakistan’s people are not its government
In such a tragic situation, where families (and yes, parents) on both sides of the border grieve their losses, to portray one as the perpetrator and the other as the victim borders on inhumane. Innocents on both sides of the Radcliffe Line unite in allowing cricket to afford them some succour, and it is to India’s credit that we welcome the Men in Green with the warmth and grace reserved for professional athletes at the highest level. To behave otherwise would once again lead to the slippery slope of banning Pakistani musicians, artistes, writers, scientists and thinkers from visiting India only because terror has reared its ugly head. In doing so, we allow these vile perpetrators to triumph, we permit them to succeed in their misdirection, and we do great disservice to the martyrdoms of the patriots who resisted their efforts to disturb our normal lives.
After the first edition of the IPL, cricketers from Pakistan remain banned from participation in the wake of the attacks of 26/11. It is unclear whether this embargo has either strengthened our borders or deterred terrorists, but it has definitely impacted the game of cricket as some of its finest exponents have had to pay the price of belonging to a territory where terror is fomented. A fortnight ago, the Sports Minister reiterated the boycott of bilateral matches, drawing the same invisible link between Pakistan cricket and the Pakistan government that the author does. In a republic like ours, this leap to identify subjects with their governments is a disturbing one – all cultural appropriations by American professors apart, it is this trend that is vilomah (against the natural order of things).
What we should tell our children
As a parent myself, I counsel the author to teach her child that the response to violence (or any injustice) is to exercise caution, to enquire, to ascertain and only then, to react. The belligerent clamouring of our evening talk shows does not a great education make, and we should abjure their hawkish approach. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”.
Sport as a form of celebration of the human spirit is as old as civilisation. To the west of the Peloponnese in ancient Greece is where citizens convened in 776 BC to witness amazing feats of skill and strength from the kingdoms of Elis, Pisa and Sparta. The venue lent its name to the quadrennial event which continued for more than 1,000 years until its resurrection in 1896. What was significant about these Olympic Games of Antiquity was the tradition of the “Olympic Truce”, which provided that the athletes and spectators were given safe passage in the duration of the Games, thereby leading to a complete cessation of hostilities. Even the ancients, therefore, recognised the merits of civilised sporting competition in the midst of war.
In India, in 2023, we demand much less – ranged against a handful of fanatics are the billions united for peace – a peace punctuated only by the sound of bat on ball.
The writer is the Supreme Court’s Amicus Curiae on football reform and the right to play
