Need to Shun Cricketing Ties with Pakistan

Hosting of Champions Trophy 2025 by Pakistan is in the news these days. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has stated that the Indian team would not be travelling to Pakistan and would prefer a neutral venue for its matches. Pakistan is protesting vociferously.

During a visit to Abu Dhabi, while awaiting their turn to enter the Grand Mosque, some Indian tourists got talking to a group of Pakistani youth. After the exchange of pleasantries, the conversation veered off to the cricketing relations. It was like touching a raw nerve. Without mincing words, all of them blamed India for the current pitiable standing of Pakistan in the cricketing world. According to them, India’s refusal to have bilateral series with Pakistan was the trigger that started showing Pakistan in poor light as an unsafe playing destination.

They rued the fact that foreign teams decline to visit Pakistan and they are forced to host them in the gulf countries. “It is like inviting your guests for meals to a friend’s house because they decline to come to your house. We feel insulted and it hurts the whole nation immensely,” alleged a jean-clad man. Another Pakistani was quick to add, “We have been craving to see cricket matches on our grounds. TV commentary is no substitute for the real ground experience. We cannot come to the gulf to watch matches. We are being shunned due to India. Your country has been very unfair to us.” It was an emotional outburst. Fortunately, the ushers asked the group to enter the mosque and the conversation ended abruptly.

It was an instructive experience. It is a well-known fact that cricket is an obsession with Pakistan but it was a revelation to realise the severity of the impact of the refusal of foreign teams to play in Pakistan. It has dented Pakistan’s self-respect and affected its national psyche. The bilateral cricketing ties between India and Pakistan were suspended in 2012 and the two teams last played a full series way back in 2007.

In the wake of the loathsome Pulwama massacre, the issue of boycotting cricketing ties with Pakistan was being hotly debated in the media. Whereas most countrymen wanted India to decline to play cricket with Pakistan even in the World Cup, two sets of people were opposing the boycott – biryani eating apologists for Pakistan and the mercenaries who can sell their soul (and even the country) for easy money.

Biryani-Gorging Pak Lap Dogs

Pakistan has been able to cultivate many influential Indians through what is commonly referred to as ‘biryani diplomacy’. The assortment consists of political leaders, intelligentsia, media personnel, participants of the so-called Track-II diplomacy and motley discussion groups. They are frequently taken on fully-paid trips to exotic locales the world over, ostensibly for seminars and group discussions. Lavish hospitality generates bonhomie, providing an ideal setting for Pak operatives to establish personal rapport with the Indian guests. Soon, such ‘Indian friends of Pakistan’ start singing Pak tunes and have no qualms in echoing Pak stance to mislead the Indian public. Worse, they take pride in being Pak’s lap dogs. They are a highly insidious and dangerous lot.

These apologists tell us that the Pakistani public loves Indians and only a handful of misguided elements are creating all the problems. It is an outrageous lie. Anti-India feelings are so pervasive that even a casual visitor to Pak websites and blogs gets shocked to see the venality of comments against India. There is hardly a sane voice that advocates need to promote amity. Therefore, it will be naïve to expect Pakistan to have a change of heart.

Self-Seeking Champions of Sporting Ties

The second set of people who want to continue cricketing ties with Pakistan are those who are more concerned with their commercial interests than the national feelings These apologists of Pakistan are often heard delivering sermons that Indo-Pak cultural/sports ties should not be held hostage to politics. It is a perverse argument. They deliberately ignore the fact that it is the ongoing war, and not the quiescent politics, which has been the overriding feature of the relations between the two neighbours. India has lost more lives due to the Pak-sponsored terrorist activities than all the armed conflicts fought after Independence. If it is not war, pray what is it? Yes, Pakistan is at war with India. Would they have claimed that sports have no boundaries if their own son had been subjected to inhuman torture like Kalia? How selfish can one get?

A legendary cricketer has expressed his support for Indo-Pak matches. Apparently, he wants to earn money as a commentator even if Pakistan keeps killing Indian soldiers and citizens. It amounts to asserting that the sportsmen are least concerned about the loss of Indian lives due to Pak hostilities, and that they should be allowed to continue to make money under the euphemism of sporting ties. Do they know the pain of losing a dear one in terrorist acts? Would he have been equally keen, had his own son become a casualty in a terrorist strike? Has shamelessness no limit?

To claim that sporting ties can improve relations between the two countries is all baloney and hogwash. One wonders how people of such low calibre and anti-national outlook get to become opinion makers in India and occupy influential positions.

Finally

Let us all be clear about one fact. Pakistan was born on an anti-India plank and it is its only identity. Therefore, Pakistan cannot afford to shed its antagonism. Kashmir is merely a manifestation of Pakistan’s infinite hostility towards India. Rogue countries like Pakistan do not believe in international conventions and shamelessly flout them.

Affable statements made by a few retired Pak politicians, cricketers and singers are of no import. It is a smokescreen to hide their true intent. It will be naïve to expect Pakistan to shed its ‘cloak and dagger’ strategy. It continues to train hundreds of terrorists and infiltrate them into India without any let-up, to kill and maim Indian soldiers and citizens. General Musharraf’s TV interview should have opened the eyes of all Pak-supporters.

Finally, it must be acknowledged by all that Pakistan is an enemy state. Playing cricket with a country whose avowed aim is to destroy India can never be justified. Not only is it an insult to the memory of the thousands of Indians killed by Pakistan, but it is an anti-national act of serious proportions. In fact, it amounts to treason.

Following the example of the successful boycott of apartheid South Africa, India should leverage its enormous clout with the world cricket body to have Pakistan expelled from the cricketing world for its sponsorship of terrorism the world over. It will hit Pakistan hard.

In case the above is not possible, the least India can do is to continue to refuse to play cricket with Pakistan. If India cannot cut off the cricketing ties with Pakistan, it cannot expect other countries to shun Pakistan. Cricket is Pakistan’s Achilles’ heel and the boycott is the most painful blow to its psyche. What better way to demonstrate solidarity with the martyrs’ families and to express national anger at the brutal killing of Indian citizens?