Not Just Cricket

For me, the most abiding moment of the recently concluded Cricket World Cup in South Africa occurred on the15th of March, when Zimbabwe played its last match against Sri Lanka. Henry Olonga, Zimbabwe's twelfth man,quietly played his role, but surely, his mind was preoccupied with the violent reaction in Zimbabwe to his(and Andy Flower's) decision to wear black armbands throughout the tournament to protest the "death ofdemocracy" and "abuse of human rights" in "our beloved Zimbabwe". Strangely enough,the official reaction to (white) Flower had been far more muted. Instead, Robert Mugabe's government hadchosen to focus its ire on Olonga, one of four black men in the fifteen-man squad. His house in Zimbabwe hadbeen attacked by mobs, and the rumors were strong that upon return to Zimbabwe, he would be tried for treason,a capital offense.

In India, the cricket fever was cooking up a dangerously potent stew as well. The attacks on the houses ofMohammed Kaif and Rahul Dravid when the Indian team lost to the vastly favored Australian side in apreliminary round were puzzling, as were reports that in a display of deranged anger, a group of 'fans' hadorganized an elaborate shraadh for the entire Indian team. Of course, the same crowd organized frenziedpujas for good fortunes the Indian team when it qualified for the final! Their respectable showingultimately redeemed the Indian side in the eyes of their fans, but such a reception was not in store for thePakistani side, nine of them being sacked immediately, and the team being docked half their salary by thecricket board. However, the Pakistanis could take small comfort in the fact that the reaction this time roundwas less severe than had been received in 1996, when, after the loss to India at Bangalore, a maulvi hadexplained their poor showing as God's punishment for electing a woman as their Prime Minister!

Why do cricket matches inspire such displays of egregious passion among fans? One way to answer that is tounderstand cricket as a major role-player in the emergent national identity of the erstwhile colonies. Whileit is not a breathtakingly counter-intuitive realization that sport and nationalism form a particularly potentmixture, the situation of cricket is arguably unique. Introduced into the colonies by Britain, it has beenappropriated and rendered indigenous by the black and brown hordes, reducing England to a minor player on thestage. It is the quintessential example of the deployment of mimicry as resistance.

Moreover, it is the weapon of the weak within the national context as well. In the subcontinent, thecommoners have snatched the game away from the Maharajas and the Nawabs. Just as it was stolen from thegenteel British nobility of W.G. Grace by the black elegance of Frank Worrell, it was equally emphaticallyyanked from the feudal artistry of Ranjitsinghji by the working-class brilliance of CK Nayudu. And it hasincreasingly become a place where battles have been fought against international racism. Who can forget themanner in which Indian fans supported BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya when he took on Mike Denness and theentire ICC in November 2001 over the allegations of ball tampering? Similarly, did we not cheer when SunilGavaskar, once barred from entering the Lord's cricket grounds in England by a steward, responded by rejectinga subsequent offer of life-membership of the 'prestigious' Marlyebone Cricket Club? The cricket field hasoften mirrored the resurgent emergence of people of color in a remarkable display of assertiveness followingthe inequities of the colonial encounter.

"What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" This provocative aphoristic question, posedby the Trinidadian revolutionary CLR James in 1963 spoke to the irresistible role played by cricket in thepolitical history of the Caribbean, which was being cobbled together under the rubric of the "WestIndies". In moments of political transition when issues of national identity are being debated, sportplays a huge role. Among the erstwhile colonies too, cricket has been the ground for a variety of liberatingencounters. When Bangladesh defeated Pakistan in the first ever match between the two nations in the World Cupof 1999, one recalled Faiz's poignant call to Bangladesh, 'Khoon ke dhabbe dhulenge kitni barsaaton ke baad'(How many rainfalls will it take before the bloodstains are washed away), and wondered if yet another powerfulrainstorm had not taken place.

One of the first pleasures the children of Afghanistan indulged in after the Taliban departed was torecommence playing street cricket, which the mullahs had banned. And indeed, watching players like Alok Kapali(Hindu from Bangladesh), Yousuf Youhanna (Christian from Pakistan), Muttiah Muralitharan (Tamilian from SriLanka), Zaheer Khan (Muslim from India) or Ravindu Shah (Kenyan of Indian origin) offers us a fleeting hope ofthe survival of inter-ethnic coexistence on an equal footing in nations where anti- minority sentimentominously acquires an institutional and mainstream flavor.

In all fairness, the World Cup was much more than a crass display of conservative nationalism. Greatcricket was played, the atmosphere in several matches was electric, and it was a ratings bonanza. Thepossibilities of political optimism were also high. When lowly regarded Kenya reached the semifinal this year,or when Waqar Younis shook hands with Saurav Ganguly, it was hard not to imagine glorious possibilities of afuture where cricket contributed to an incipient equality among nations, or a peaceful coexistence between thenuclear-rivals.

Yet, as the World Cup concluded with an Australian victory on the 23rd of March, my satisfaction at havingvicariously experienced another round of good contests between the bat and the ball were tempered withthoughts of Henry Olonga. As a friend remarked, his climactic escape was reminiscent of the flight of the VonTrapp family in The Sound of Music! In his final message, Olonga declared,

"I was never under the illusion that my stand would have no consequences, but I believe that oneshould have the courage of one's convictions in life and do all one can to uphold them. I believe that if Iwere to continue to play for Zimbabwe in the midst of the prevailing crisis, I would only be neglecting thevoice of my conscience. I would be condoning the grotesque human rights violations that have been perpetratedagainst my fellow countrymen."

Yet again, cricket became the theater to enact a complex moral position vis-a-vis nationalism.

CLR James anticipated this when he wrote four decades ago about the complicated relationship betweencricket and the nation in the West Indies, in words that remain prescient even today:

"The values of cricket, like much that is now in eclipse, will go into the foundations of new moraland educational structures. But that they can be legislated to what they used to be is a vain hope which canonly sour on the tongue and blear the eye. The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk. And it cannot get muchdarker without becoming night impenetrable."

James was making an ironic comment about the notion that wisdom comes to the nation only after a period ofhistoric maturity. The owl of Minerva, the Goddess of Wisdom is said to spread its wings only in twilight.Perhaps, he seems to say, our attitudes to cricket will show us how far we have progressed as a people. It isan extraordinary burden to place on a game, to make it a touchstone of a nation's emergence into maturity. Butevery time we exult in an act of sportsmanship such as Courtney Walsh's sparing of Abdul Qadir in 1987, andevery time we despair at an act of boorishness such as when a churlish crowd attempted to set the Eden Gardensablaze in 1996 to protest a poor Indian showing, aren't we doing exactly that?

Cricket will continue to enthrall those nations where it stands appropriated from the colonial project. Incities ranging from Kabul to Kandy, from Mumbai to Mombasa, from Dhaka to Durban, and from Peshawar to Port ofSpain, it will remain a national pastime. But like the project of nationalism before it, cricket is not immuneto appropriation by ultra- conservative and often violent elements, as this World Cup has confirmed again.Just as the victory of India over Pakistan this March was used as an excuse by Hindutva groups to wreak freshviolence on the terrorized minorities of Gujarat, cricket matches will unfortunately function as valves tounleash the repressed energies of fascism from the pressure-cooker of the national project.

(Mir Ali Raza helps edit SAMAR, the South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection)