In sometime from now, India will be playing Pakistan in the cricket match of ICC Champions Trophy 2017. I wish to share with you, why I feel that has India already lost this battle (if I am allowed to use that word), against their arch rivals. Before presenting my views, I wish to inform the readers that this blog is not about the cricket analysis or about any match-fixing sting operation. This is my simple, call it amateurish reasoning, about Indian cricket board’s decision to play against the terror state named – The Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
It is no secret that Pakistan remains the world’s epicenter of terrorism. The terror-players of Pakistan have been causing mayhem, not just in the ‘border’ states of India but also inside metropolitan cities like Mumbai. Even as I write this blog, the Pak terrorist continue to martyr our soldiers inside our state of Jammu & Kashmir. They have also resorted to the medieval norm of beheading our soldiers; the families of our martyrs have to go through the agony of cremating a headless body of their family member, who once stood in between terrorists and India.
Now, imagine the sight of a family losing their only breadwinner to a bomb, that was planted by these very terrorists. There are children, who have not even seen the faces of their dead fathers or mothers, who died in such bomb blasts; elders of these families must have thought that the sight of a dead parent with deep wounds would traumatise children for the rest of their lives.
So, today before anyone switches his or her T.V. to watch the match, please do remember (at least once) our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters, who have fallen due to Pakistan terrorism .
Every time, whenever our news channels buzz the breaking news of such incidents, most us promptly express our hatred for Pakistan’s terror policies in public. Our words of hatred is even backed by us sharing patriotic posts on the social media. Some us even write lengthy blogs, explaining the in depth brutality of Pakistan. That’s it? Today, when we are required to act on our beliefs, we are chickening out. Suddenly, the passion of a cricket game overrides our pride for our motherland? Today, the Indian cricket lovers are not expected to perform the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ like our soldier, they are only expected to stand on their belief of boycotting a terror state in every sphere of life. The belief that they love to share on social media.
Some of you must be thinking, the boycott of the current match is a mere jingoism, some must be pondering on the rationale of connecting a cricket bat with a Kalashnikov rifle, some must be eager to affix the probable Indian victory in today’s match with India’s domination of Pakistan, some bigots must be more than happy to give a religious colour to this match – Hinduism vs Islam. However, in this chaos of ‘passion of cricket’, I feel that we are missing a fundamental point – Isolation of Pakistan at an international stage.
By agreeing to play against Pakistan in Champions Trophy, India has lost a golden opportunity of isolating Pakistan at an international stage. Yes, I agree that we have stopped playing bilateral series with Pakistan, which is good but this is not enough for making a bold point at an international level. The audiences watching a multi-national tournament like Champions Trophy are more diverse than the one watching Indo-Pak bilateral series. Hence, Indian boycott of the cricket match would have reached epicentres of international political circles Also, there is one more pointer that require attention in the recent Indo-Pak clash. Today, Pakistan is hundred times more desperate to resume cricketing ties with India than India is; they have killed cricket in their homeland on the day the Srilankan cricket team was attacked in Pakistan by terrorists. On the other hand, India offers an ocean of opportunities to the world cricketers in the form of Indian Premier League.
Visualise the impact of unilaterally canceling the high profile tournament match by us on international polity. “A cricket tournament cannot propel a self respecting country like India to forget the wounds of terrorism inflicted by Pakistan on her!” – this very message would have been sent to the world, had we cancelled the game. Also, losing points of this game to Pakistan in event of pull out, would not have thrown us out of competition.
Hence, boycotting India vs Pakistan cricket match is not about deflating our passion for cricket or about implicating our patriotism as jingoism but is a straightforward diplomatic war that we needs to be fought and won.
Remember the immediate response of Israel, when its athletes were shot dead by the Palestinian terrorist in 1972-Munich Olympics – the entire Israeli delegation of sportpersons withdrew from Munich Olympics. One may argue that, I am stretching this argument too far; as such no Indian cricketer is killed by Pakistani terrorists anywhere. So, should we wait for the Pakistan sponsored terrorism to harm our bright, young cricketers? Further, wasn’t South Africa boycotted from cricket due to its apartheid policy. Did the game of cricket suffered in any way due to the ban on South African cricket team? What has a cash-rich B.C.C.I. done to ensure the isolation of a bankrupt country called Pakistan that promotes terror?
There comes a time for everyone, when one needs to put his or her foot down and take a stand. I feels this is the right time for Indian cricket lovers to say ‘no’ to India-Pakistan games because without we boycotting games, the greedy cricket authorities of India are not going to do anything concrete against the terror state called Pakistan.
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Rohan Bendre 