Extraordinary scenes played out in Dubai on Sunday where the Indian T20 cricket team kneeled for…yes, Black Lives Matter (BLM). Those moments drew sharp attention to the series of injustices and social ills within India that our much-loved sporting stars just do not speak about.
When US footballer Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the US national anthem, it was in spite of all the trouble he may have got into and the potential risk to his professional career. It was an act of courage and conviction. Indian cricketers on their knees given the complete silence they maintain on social issues that matter is equivalent to US sport stars refusing to talk about BLM protests and talking of inequities in Iran instead.
Sportspersons Upholding Democracy is Not New
Martina Navratilova, with 18 grand slam titles under her belt, did not stop the serves and volleys after exiting the high-profile court tournaments she played and won in. Navratilova, a vocal commentator on human rights and injustice the world over has made sharp comments issues over the Indian government’s distance from democracy, and twice so, just in October.
She asked if PM Modi would speak out against violent public speeches of the Sri Ram Sene, seen as part of the larger Sangh parivar, urging violence against Muslims. She concluded “Quite the democracy, eh? Trying to catch up to trump, I see. But then Modi and trump were pretty chummy from what I could see… will Modi speak up against this man and his rhetoric? I doubt it…”
Navratilova has made it clear that she has an evolved relationship with sport. She has said that Tennis “is the purest form of democracy. There was a symbiotic, chicken and egg relationship for me between democracy and tennis.”
But sportspersons standing up is not a recent or a fringe phenomenon. The real stars always have. West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding electrified a desolate rain-affected session in 2020 on Sky News by speaking up on racism in the bluntest way possible. That won Sky News the BAFTA, by the way.
Boxer Mohammad Ali, for his articulation and stand on the US-Vietnam war, on racism and prejudice, fired a generation. During the South African apartheid, the sports boycott changed the common sense on what was acceptable and what was not.
Sportspersons' Incredible Power Over People
Artists and film stars too have often held their own and joined the marching public to stand against war, to push for equality, to make common cause with the most oppressed in defiance of the state or the most dominant narrative of their times.
But there is something different when it comes to the power of sportspersons, and the influence they wield. There is the intrinsic gold that shows up regimes as Jesse Owens effortlessly did when he won under Hitler’s nose in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Sheer excellence trumps propaganda and prejudice by performing.
Sport as pursuit, sport as all that can be bettered about the human race, the endeavour and the ability to strive, not necessarily against others but even your own record, gives it a magical quality that holds sway over people’s minds and hearts.
You could say that large football crowds chanting loudly is gladiatorial, but beneath the narrow ‘sports as war’ rhetoric, what really takes the podium is that fans are inspired by sportspersons pushing themselves to be better, the struggle it takes to get there and the possibility that even you can break limits.
Why Indian Sport Celebrities Rarely Speak Up Against Bigotry
Stardom achieved via sports connects fans deeply to their stars so what these stars say can have wide ramifications. Whether it is Ali refusing to fight the war, Mike Brearley’s ruminations, Navratilova’s take on injustice or Kumar Sangakkara’s candid thoughts, they have the power to shift the discourse and draw the line on what is acceptable and what is not. Good performance on sporting fields gets bestowed by iconic status only when sport stars go that extra mile.
Indian sport stars, who enjoy widespread adulation due to their own efforts but also because Indians shower their love on them, are conscious of their messaging abilities. The oil, cars, tyres and other products they help sell and the ‘influencing’ they do makes it clear that they are aware of their power and happy to monetise it.
So why do we not see so many eloquent A-listers come out and speak up against social ills, the bigotry and messaging that is so rampant today and is costing lives? There is not even banal messaging on amity and preserving India’s social fabric and trying to equate it with team-spirit or the essence of sport that has made them the stars that they are.
'India Together' Against Rihanna, Silence on Govt Excesses
Other than Bishan Singh Bedi who continues to speak on social issues and some honourable exceptions like Anil Kumble, who spoke up when Waseem Jaffer was controversially accused by the Uttarakhand cricket association of “breaking the team through religious activities”, real big sporting stars have shied away from addressing domestic strife so rampant that it cannot be ignored. Even when Olympic gold-medallist Neeraj Chopra threw the javelin at hate-mongers making insinuations against his Pakistani fellow thrower Arshad Nadeem, it was good to hear but it was about Pakistan, not hate being whipped up against fellow-Indians.
It would be in the spirit of sports, if powerful sporting icons with so much street cred could now speak for amity and fellowship amongst Indians in the same way they parrot advertisement lines for products. It is a damning indictment of the government of the day if sportspersons think calling for peace and fraternity flies in the face of the politics of the government that holds office and would get them in trouble.
After all, we saw synchronised and somewhat mindless posts tagged with #IndiaTogether when pop star Rihanna displayed solidarity with farmer protests. It was clear that prodding and nudging by the government had resulted in multi-millionaire sport stars ‘speaking up’ then.
Time for Sport Stars to Stand Up for 'Team India'
There are institutions expected to do their job and stand up for basic rights of all Indians to be treated as equal. But above the fray of formal institutions, icons who have become icons because of the compelling hold of sports over the imagination have their task cut out. As Michael Holding’s statement on his recent book Why we kneel, how we rise goes; “If you don’t kneel, I know where you stand.”
The people of India have turned sport performers into stars. It is time for all sporting icons and superstars to answer the question if they are in a position to really stand up for the real ‘Team India’ of all its 1.3 billion people. Can they now fearlessly deploy their star power to cheer for the spirit of India and have the gumption to say so loudly?
(Seema Chishti is a writer and journalist based in Delhi. Over her decades-long career, she’s been associated with organisations like BBC and The Indian Express. She tweets @seemay. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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