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Playing ball with the enemy

I am not a politician as yet and perhaps shall never be. I still see myself as a journalist and that is why hypocrisy in public life continues to amaze me.

For years we have said the nastiest things about Pakistan. We have called them a theocratic state, which they have indeed become. We have described them as sponsors of terrorism, which they are and even their great benefactors, the Americans, now openly concede this. We have held them responsible for driving the arms race on this subcontinent, which has trapped us both in a futile and wasteful scramble for buying and developing extremely expensive weapons of war. With money which could have been infinitely better spent on fighting poverty.

In other words, Pakistan has kept us, over the past 52 years, enslaved to our past. A past we could have easily left behind and moved on, as most nations of the world have.

Yet suddenly the BJP, a vociferously nationalistic party, an uncompromising and belligerent promoter of Hindutva, which sees patriotism as the flip side of our national identity as Hindus and demolished the Babri Masjid to prove this point, which built the bomb and turned a Nelson's eye to the attack on Christians in Gujarat and attracted the ire of the entire Western world, is ready to break its alliance with the Shiv Sena just to show how secular it is when it comes to playing cricket with Pakistan!

I love cricket. I think it is an inalienable part of our popular culture and transcends all narrow divisive forces. It is Maharashtra's national game and has become, for all practical purposes, a symbol of its world class sporting aspirations. I also love the fact that India today has an outstanding and secular team led by a Muslim and playing a Mumbai boy who is the world's greatest batsman. Every match India plays, whether it wins or not, makes me feel proud.

Yet I find it odd that we should draw such a simple, hypocritical line between politics and sport. Every newspaper has described the Sena's position vis a vis the Indo-Pak cricket series as intolerant, indefensible and vandal but just pause for a moment and think of how the people of Kashmir (no, not just the Hindus but the thousands of Muslims who are bearing the brunt of terrorism, fear and poverty) feel about this. The fact that we are ready to play ball with a nation which terrorises our people, makes them refugees in their own land, murders their families, and then (with amazing sangfroid) is ready to challenge us in cricket on our own home ground.

I know the Pakistan cricket team is not the same as the Pakistan Government. I realise that sport is above war. Friendship is more important than hate. I know every cliché in the book by now. Every newspaper, every BJP leader has sounded off against Balasaheb. But I also see the other point of view. Is this cricket series so crucial for India that we can turn a blind eye to what Pakistan is doing on our borders?

Is it so unreasonable to use this series to zero in on the plight of thousands of refugees who have fled the valley and are now living for three generations in tents in Jammu, who have no hope of ever returning to their homes? Is it so unreasonable to use this series to draw attention to the fact that all the fake bon homie that is generated between our two nations when it comes to cricket turns to dust and ashes whenever the real issues crop up, when India urges Pakistan to shut down their training camps and stop sending in ISI-sponsored militants to disrupt our lives? Is it so unreasonable to use this series to knock the hypocrisy and try to find a genuine solution to our problems instead of shaking hands on the cricket field and building up huge nuclear arsenals on the side?

Forget the Shiv Sena for a while. Keep aside the digging up of pitches. These are not the real issues. The real issue is: Will you shake hands with someone who kills your father, rapes your sister, sets fire to your village and, at the same time, smiles and tells you that cricket is above politics? Can you afford to ignore what Pakistan is doing in Kashmir and reach out your hand of friendship to their cricket team in the hope that this will, one day, change the mindset of their rulers? Has it made a difference in the past fifty years when we have played them on the cricket field and fought them in every other arena?

We desperately need solutions in this war of nerves. Yes, we need friends on our borders, not enemies. We need to cut down our defence budgets and invest more in welfare for the poor and the deprived. Irrespective of caste, community, gender. We need to build India into a strong, modern nation and not build trenches around our borders. We need to open up commerce, trade, political negotiations with Pakistan and create, in fact, a healthy, strong relationship with all our neighbours.

But this will not come from hypocrisy. It will come from hard political bargaining. Not by playing cricket with the enemy and hoping that the nightmare will simply go away. The murder of innocent men, women and children cannot be explained away as minor aberrations in an otherwise wonderful sporting relationship. We cannot keep pretending that everything is ticketyboo between India and Pakistan and, if we keep playing cricket, the rest will fall in place. They will not. They cannot. Years of hate and anger and mistrust have brought us to a position where truth must be faced. Where statesmanship and political wisdom can alone restore our confidence in each other.

Let Pakistan take the first step. Or let India take the first step. It does not matter who does what as long as we know that the two nations are ready to look at the real issues between them and try to find serious, long term solutions instead of brushing everything under the carpet and pretending as if nothing is the matter. That this one cricket series can make or mar our relationship. That the Shiv Sena is stubborn, contumacious, unreasonable when it says that there will no cricket unless there is, first, a resolution of our conflict. Till Pakistan stops sending in its mercenaries, suborning our secularism.

I know this is an unfashionable view. But there is a silent majority which believes that this is the right time to say goodbye to hypocrisy in politics and stand by the real issues that matter to India. If there is no peace, there will be no cricket, no music, no golf. Pakistan must not think we are a bunch of sentimental fools who can be easily manipulated.

Let us sort out our political problems first. Or, at least, make a beginning. The fun and games can come later.

Pritish Nandy

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