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India says ‘Yes’ to cricket with Pakistan

Clearly, timing of the decision on ‘cricket diplomacy’ could not have been worse. It may be that the Manmohan Singh government’s decision was taken before two developments—admission of ISI link to an Illinois court, and the arrest of Abdul Rauf - took place. That explanation will not satisfy many.

Media reports say India government has agreed ‘in principle’ to resume cricketing ties with Pakistan and the possibilities of a short Indo-Pak one day international series are being explored. Indian team has a tight schedule that is already making the players complain of cricket fatigue. So, to squeeze in a ‘bilateral’ of a three or five- match series will be a tough proposition till March next year. But the important thing is that India is willing to shed its earlier reservations about rebuilding its cricket ties with an un-repentant, terror-driven Pakistan.

The latest surge in India’s ‘cricket diplomacy’ comes hot on the heels of reports suggesting direct links between Pakistan army’s ISI and the terrorists who attacked Mumbai and killed over 160 civilians in November 2008. Two men of Pakistani origin, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, and his accomplice, David Headley (aka Daood Gilani), have told an American court that they had participated in the conspiracy to attack Mumbai ‘at the behest of Pakistan government and the ISI’.

While Rana is a naturalised Canadian citizen with relatives in Northern India, Headley holds American card. Rana’s stand echoes l’affaire Raymond Davis in a manner of speaking. Because, like the American, this Pakistani Canadian also claimed ‘diplomatic immunity’, and, demanded therefore withdrawal of the case filed against him in a US court.

The Indian push for ‘cricket diplomacy’ has coincided with another arrest. It is reported from the far away Southern American nation of Chile. The arrested Pakistani, Abdul Rauf, is suspected to be brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, the terrorist, who had earned his freedom from an Indian jail in exchange for the 158 hostages of Indian Airlines plane IC-814 hijacked to Kandahar in December 1999.  The ‘news’ has opened the wounds inflicted by the ISI-backed operation against India because Masood went home to a ‘hero’s welcome and as the head of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) he has made a mockery of the American ban on terrorist outfits

Clearly, therefore, timing of the decision on ‘cricket diplomacy’ could not have been worse. It may be that the Manmohan Singh government’s decision was taken before the two developments—admission of ISI link to an Illinois court, and the arrest of Abdul Rauf. But that explanation will not satisfy many.

There is a large constituency of Indians who want to see improved relations with Pakistan. Not all of them are impressed by the wisdom of the route or the methods chosen by the government to achieve that goal. For them the recourse to the amorphous ‘cricket diplomacy’ appears akin to the ‘third umpire’ who gives a ruling from his perch in the pavilion to set at rest doubts of the two field umpires. Cricket is not the Third Empire

The grotesqueness of that approach was evident at the time India outclassed Pakistan in the World Cup cricket match in Mohali and some subsequent events. There would have been nothing wrong in inviting the Pakistani prime minister to the Mohali match had those who took that decision remembered a very obvious fact. Three countries in the sub-continent, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, were the co-hosts of the World Cup matches and though Pakistan was among the original hosts it was denied the honour in view of the precarious security situation in the country.

While Pakistan, which was no longer among the hosts, had its prime minister invited to India, nobody in India had thought of extending the same honour to Bangladesh where the 2011 World Cup One Day International (ODI) series was inaugurated. The Sri Lankan president was a guest at the finals staged in Mumbai, though one of his ministers did his bit of India-bashing by making the preposterous allegation that he had to buy the ticket to the match in the black-market!

Who in India will doubt that the present government in Bangladesh is a friend of India in sharp contrast to the one in Pakistan? More than the Pakistani or even the Sri Lankan leaders, Sheikh Hasina Wajed had a better claim to an Indian invitation even if her country was out of the competition.  

The defeat of their team in Mohali did not go down well with the people and leaders of Pakistan as also the cricketers themselves. From Indian Cricket commentators to players and computers used by the Third Empire for replaying doubtful shots were not spared in the post-defeat enthusiasm for zeroing in on scapegoats.

For instance, a  former Air Marshal of the Pakistani air force,(no, not the father of another naturalised American Faisal Shahzad who wanted to bomb Americans), said that Sachin Tendulkar survived a confident appeal against him in the Mohali match because “Indians have doctored the computer that showed the replay of the shot he had played against a Pakistani bowler”.

And, unlike in the past, the government and the cricketing authorities in Pakistan treated the vanquished team as national heroes. The Pakistanis were psyched into believing that their unbeatable team was defeated by a bunch of wily infidels who resorted to unfair means and as a result of the combined pressure against the hapless Pakistani cricketers by a partisan Indian crowd and its ‘jingoist’ media.

So much so, doubts refuse to take back seat – doubts whether playing Pakistan in Pakistan will really lead to improved bilateral relations? And what about the safety and security of Indian players in Pakistan? If Pakistani fanatics can attack with guns a visiting cricket team from a ‘friendly country (Sri Lanka) in Lahore, it is not difficult to foresee a bigger threat to the Indians.More so in these days, when terrorists are not sparing the leader of a politico-religious party, who is known to be close to them for years.

By upbringing and training the average Pakistani learns to see Indians, Hindus in particular, as hateful figures and thinks that killing them guarantees a passage to ‘Jannat’ (paradise). It is also important to ask what good can be expected from ‘cricket diplomacy’ when the peace initiative in that country actually rests with the fanatics and their trainers and masters in the ‘establishment’, especially the men in Khaki?  

Yet, if there is hope for success of cricket diplomacy it stems from two decisions Islamabad has taken since Mohali happened – amnesty for Indian national Gopal Das, who was languishing in a prison for 27 years, and freedom to 89 Indian fishermen who were arrested on the charge of entering into violating Pakistan’s waters over the last two years.


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