The on-again, off-again story of the next possible India-Pakistan cricket series is one of those vexing questions for which there seem to be only bad answers.
No sooner had the news of a possible ODI series this December in the UAE been floated than the objections arose. BJP MP RK Singh, a former Home Secretary, rose in the Lok Sabha to ask how India could play cricket with a country that was supporting terrorism against us. The irony was that two rows away in the same House of Parliament sat his party colleague Anurag Thakur, the Secretary of the very BCCI that had embraced the proposal.
If the ruling party is divided, the Government appears no less so. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, a BCCI bigwig for years, has been quoted as being in favour of the possible encounter, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj as negative on the idea. Cricket fans have had to wait seven years to see India and Pakistan in a bilateral series, though the two teams have continued to meet in international competitions. They may now have to be reconciled to a longer wait.
The emotional argument against Pakistan is easy enough to make: here is a country that has supported, armed, financed and deployed terrorists to kill and maim Indians, and has now even released the principal perpetrator, Zakhiur Rahman Lakhvi, from his risible imprisonment; how can we play cricket with it?
Oddly enough, this argument was never heard as we were gearing up to play cricket with the very same Pakistan in the World Cup. Nor were objections raised when the wildly popular “Mauka Mauka” series of ads took the mickey out of our subcontinental neighbours’ sporting prowess, but did not, even by implication, question the appropriateness of us playing them.
Ah, say the chauvinists, that’s an international tournament. We have no choice but to play them there. A bilateral series is different!
Is it really? Does the moral calculus against a game with Pakistan change merely because the framework within which it is played is multilateral rather than bilateral? If the objection is based on the idea that there can be no normal sporting relations with a team representing such a heinous state, can the state suddenly become less heinous in a tournament rather than a bilateral series?
Surely, if the Pakistanis are so much beyond the pale that we shouldn’t play a cricket series against them, we shouldn’t be playing them in the World Cup, or in the FIH Champions Trophy at hockey either?
On the other hand, if Pakistan is such a reprehensible country, should our objections stop at the cricket pitch? Shouldn’t we refuse to trade with them, import their movie stars and singers, even station Ambassadors there? If we are so suffused with moral outrage at the thought of playing a cricket series with them, how do we host their fashion brands at Pragati Maidan, screen their TV serials and attend their Hugh Commissioner’s parties?
The problem is that sport, particularly cricket, is selectively being made to bear the burden of Indian anger against Pakistan. We have not imposed sanctions on that country in any of these areas, and indeed we are exploring the possibilities of expanded diplomatic dialogue with them. But the one activity being singled out for opprobrium is the playing of cricket.
Sanctions are a legitimate tool of pressure in world affairs. Our moral outrage over South African apartheid, for instance, led us to impose a whole range of sanctions against it – we did not conduct diplomatic relations with Pretoria, we did not trade with it, Indian passports were stamped “not valid for travel to South Africa,” and of course, we did not play cricket with the Springboks either. In fact, we chose to forfeit an international sporting tournament we were favourites to win – the Davis Cup tennis final of 1975 -- rather than play South Africa in the decider. And that was an international tournament, mind you, not a bilateral series.
But apartheid-imposing South Africa isn’t militancy-mongering Pakistan. We have neither imposed any sanctions on Pakistan nor suspended any routine contacts. We haven’t even refused to play them on the sporting field. We have just stopped bilateral cricket series.
To me, this reeks of hypocrisy, and not just because I am a cricket fan. I happen to agree with the view that we need to engage Pakistan across a variety of fronts, and I am personally strongly in favour of people-to-people contacts with regular Pakistanis to balance the malign influence of the military and the mullahs.
Cricket affords one of the best ways of getting the two countries to engage with each other constructively, and the two peoples to think about each other’s talents and not their prejudices. In the wake of the Kargil War and the attack on our Parliament, it was the 2003-04 Indian cricket tour of Pakistan that did more than anything else to restore an atmosphere of normalcy to our relationship. The bonhomie lasted five years and was on the verge of making major breakthroughs when 26/11 happened.
So the choice is clear. Either treat Pakistan as a pariah state and suspend all contacts with it, writing off any possibility of normal relations; or pursue normalcy across the board, with no selective restrictions. We have already rejected the first option; no one outside the Shiv Sena seriously advocates it. That leaves the second. Let the cricket series begin.
(The writer is a Congress MP and an author.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)