Unsporting behavior

Refusing to play Pakistan is an immature response

The xenophobia that is churning the national discourse following the Pulwama tragedy has touched absurd heights. Boycotting Kashmiri students, shops and products is one unsavoury element of it. But when the response takes the form of boycotting sporting events and sportspeople, it is easy to detect the political engineering of national outrage. The recent decision by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its Supreme Court-controlled Committee of Administrators asking the International Cricket Council (ICC) to “sever ties with countries from which terrorism emanates” (read Pakistan) from the upcoming World Cup is a case in point. This decision follows supposedly popular calls for India to boycott its World Cup match against Pakistan, scheduled for June 16.

Several issues highlight the ludicrous nature of this proposal. First, the BCCI appears to have over-reached its mandate. Why should it be meddling in political issues? The BCCI is, formally at least, an autonomous body, despite the highly debatable presence of Supreme Court-mandated officials in its administration. Its mandate is to promote a sport, not dabble in politics. And in calling on a global body — the ICC — to intervene in a bilateral issue, it can be accused of rank dereliction of duty. India has always beaten Pakistan in the World Cup; by not playing our neighbours, we will end up forfeiting two points and shooting ourselves in the foot by lowering our chances of winning the tournament.

Besides, in other multinational sports arena, too, it is India that will suffer. Already, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended all Indian applications to host future events for denying two Pakistani athletes the visa to compete in New Delhi. The IOC has also urged other international sports federations not to stage any competition in India. The Olympic committee also revoked the Olympic qualification status for the men's 25m rapid fire event from the New Delhi World Cup on grounds that the refusal of visas for competitors went against the principles of the Olympic charter relating to discrimination and political interference from the host country.

 

The BCCI’s proactive enthusiasm raises the second and larger issue of the Indian government's decision suspending all Pakistani bilateral sporting ties, as has been done since 2012. Sports is not on the same plane as, say, a meeting between Pakistani and Indian nuclear scientists or top generals. There are no security risks involved in playing cricket, hockey, football or any sport against Pakistan (including banning them from the Indian Premier League). The argument that allowing Pakistani sportspeople to play in India could provoke a law and order problem is a circular one. The history of communal riots in India has demonstrated the well-established precedent quelling political incitement by the law and order machinery of the state.

It is worth recalling that until the two states, bereft of solutions to this political impasse, chose to ratchet up the tensions among their people, Indians never had a problem hosting Pakistani artistes, sportspeople and private citizens. Engaging with Pakistan on a non-political plane provides India a unique chance to demonstrate its liberal democratic values in contrast to Pakistan’s fundamentalism. And history offers ample examples of how such subaltern impulses can be embedded in political solutions. It was people-to-people contacts between East and West Germany that created the impulse for the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the centuries-long violence between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (to which, incidentally, the Kashmir conflict has often been equated). The line between nationalism and patriotism is always a fine one, but neither should preclude the practicalities of a sober and responsible response to another nation's delinquencies. The BCCI should not add fuel to the political fire.