SYED KAZIM traces the history of cricket in India and comments on the glamorisation as well as politicisation and communalisation of the sport.
In India, Cricket is not just a sport but has become a religion for many. Many a time we see a placard in the stadium which reads, “Cricket is my Religion and Sachin is my God.” The sport has gone on to become so popular that it has overshadowed our national game hockey. All thanks to politicians and the media.
When we see the history of cricket in India, it is very shocking, as a whole it is based on the existence and development of the British Raj via the East India Company. On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth-I granted a Royal Charter to the East India Company, often colloquially referred to as “John Company”. The East India Company was the means by which cricket was introduced into India. In 1639, the Company effectively founded the city of Madras (now Chennai), and in 1661 acquired Portuguese territory on the west coast of India that included Bombay. In 1690, an Anglo-Moghul treaty allowed English merchants to establish a trading settlement on the Hooghly River, which later emerged as Calcutta (now Kolkata). All of these places became major cricket centres as the popularity of the game grew among the native population.
After seeing the Englishmen playing cricket, the Parsees started playing the sport. Seeing them, the Hindus and the Muslims also started paying cricket. Then they all started playing cricket in their own ghettos. This suited the British as all the Indians were divided and facilitated communalisation in the country. By 1912 a quadrangular tournament was played between the Parsees, Muslims, Hindus and Europeans. On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi felt that the cricket matches between communities was sectarian, divisive and an obstacle to a new India.
Media has played a very significant role to communalise the Indian society through cricket. Sports channels and News channels have done it all to increase their TRP. When we analyse the media, we can get a number of examples in this regard.
The media makes the people feel that Muslims support Pakistan, which actually is not true. The match between India and Pakistan is presented as a War by the Media. In the recent 2011 World Cup, Aaj Tak created a news item stating that the Pakistani players are trying to injure the Indian batsmen by bowling bouncers. My question is, every fast bowler bowls bouncers then what’s wrong? When Indian players are bowling bouncers then it is good bowling and when a Pakistan player bowls a bouncer then they are trying to injure the Indian players! What sort of logic is this? Actually the match between India and England should have more tension and rivalry as they ruled over us but nothing of that sort is shown by the media. The media also used the word “Arch Rivals” when India is playing Pakistan. How did we come to the conclusion that they are our “Arch Rivals”? And why only Pakistan and not others?
NEO Sports and NEO Sports+ had come up with a couple of advertisements to promote the India Vs. Pakistan series. The first advertisement takes place in a typical Indian family household. The father busy on his business call, the children playing with their toy guns, the mother using cockroach killing spray all around the house, the maid preparing tea in the kitchen and the grandmother getting ready for her pooja. Just then the mother calls the maid to come help her clean around the house and unknowingly leaves the gas still on. Sitting on the side-lines is the grandfather on his wheelchair who happens to be paralysed. He is keenly observing what’s happening around the house. He realises that the maid has left the gas on and realises the potential danger it could pose. Unable to say or do anything, he just watches everyone being busy in their own world. To make things worse, the toy guns that the children are playing with are those which create sparks and are used during Diwali. On the other hand, the grandmother is about to light a matchstick for her pooja and the father is fidgeting with his pocket lighter. Unable to do or say anything the grandfather just watches everything and is the only one panicking. Repeatedly, the camera shifts from the children to the grandmother to the father and each time increasing the pressure and tension of the advertisement, and just before the toy gun finally sparks and the matchstick and the lighter is lit, everything goes blank. Then we are greeted with a message saying, “Get used to Tension, India Vs. Pakistan, 5th November onwards”.
The second advertisement takes place in what seems like a very shady room with broken tiles and furniture around. A girl still in her uniform is tied to a chair and is also gagged with a cloth to prevent her from screaming. In front of her is a man who has fallen asleep on his chair who is likely to have been her kidnapper. The girl manages to get rid of the rope which was used to tie her feet together but she was still tied to the chair. She notices a sharp metallic object beside her which she thinks she could use to break her free from the rope. She quietly gets up while lifting the chair with her and gets in front of the metallic object while constantly keeping an eye on her kidnapper. She frantically starts trying to cut the rope but then she realised that the movement is shaking an empty bottle of soft drink on a wooden crate which may just fall off from the edge and break which could possibly wake the kidnapper up. To add to her worries, she sees a rat nibbling on food near the kidnapper’s feet, which then starts to think about crawling up the kidnapper’s leg. The rope is yet to be cut off, just a few more moments, but the bottle is now shaking more violently and may fall off any second now, and the rat is just about to climb into the kidnapper’s pants. Then finally, the rope is almost cut off but the rat crawls into the man’s pant and then, yet another blank screen, and then the message, “Get used to Tension, India Vs. Pakistan, 5th November onwards”. These advertisements uploaded on YouTube are with the title ‘Funny Ads’. The question is what is funny about the ads?
As time has passed, the game is highly influenced by various factors, politics one of them. For example, in the inaugural edition of the IPL back in 2008, seven Pakistani players were sold to different franchises, with Shahid Afridi being the most expensive Pakistani bought by the Deccan Chargers. In the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks later that year and high political pressure, the doors of IPL were shut for the Pakistani players. I really do not understand the relationship between the Mumbai terror attack and not allowing Pakistani players to play in the IPL. In 2010, despite being included in the auction, no Pakistani players were sold. Thus, no stone is left unturned to communalise the country through cricket.
The inclusion of cheerleaders in the game was also a bad move in the history of Indian cricket. Cricket is just a sport but efforts were made to make it more glamorous, sexual and attractive during the IPL by making girls dance. Whenever a wicket falls or a batsman hits a boundary, the cheerleaders wearing tight tops and bare thighs leap upon stages at the edges of the field to gyrate for the cameras and the crowds. This sort of impromptu, shabby jigging was new to both cricket and the landscape of Indian sport. From the inception of the IPL, much of the opposition to cheerleading has come from conservative religious groups, who staged heated demonstrations in 2008 when the dancers first took to the IPL stage. A right-wing group in the coastal state of Orissa demanded that matches staged there should shun cheerleaders altogether. First, the film and advertisement industries were blamed to objectify women and present them as an object of lust. And now Indian cricket has also done the same by introducing cheerleaders and making them an integral part of the game itself. Just like the shameless foreign woman, the idea of the modest Indian woman is closer to fiction than to truth.
In order to communalise the society, some organisations exert pressure on the Government. There have been protests against the inclusion of Pakistani sportspersons in tournaments held in India by parties like the Shiv Sena. The Sena had objected to the series played against Pakistan. The World Cup matches that the Pakistani women’s cricket team was to have played in Mumbai were shifted to Cuttack following protests by the Shiv Sena.
No one would have thought that a game would be used to communalise people, that it would be highly influenced by politics and that immodestly dressed women would be used to make the sport glamorous. On one side the sport is becoming popular day by day; on the other hand people fail to realise the damage it is causing to the country at large.