Crick__Cricket and Indian National Consensus (Www.ipcs.Org)

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J U N E

2007

IPCS Research Papers

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2007, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS)

The Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies is notresponsible for the facts, views or opinion expressedby the author.

The Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS),established in August 1996, is an independent thinktank devoted to research on peace and security from aSouth Asian perspective.

Its aim is to develop a comprehensive andalternative framework for peace and security in theregion catering to the changing demands ofnational, regional and global security.

Address:B 7/3 Lower Ground FloorSafdarjung EnclaveNew Delhi 110029INDIA

Tel: 91-11-4100 1900, 4165 2556, 4165 2557,4165 2558, 4165 2559

Fax:(91-11) 4165 2560Email: [email protected]

Web: www.ipcs.org


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CONTENTS

Introduction..........................................................................................................................1History of Cricket in India .................................................................................................. 2Post-colonial Cricket in India ............................................................................................. 4Cricket and the Media ......................................................................................................... 7Cricket as a Unifying Factor in India.................................................................................. 9Conclusion..........................................................................................................................12


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1

Introduction

It is recognised that there are close linksbetween sport and politics,1and in particularbetween sport and national consciousness.

The Olympic Games and the football, rugbyand cricket World Cups have often beenused as platforms for the expression ofnationalistic sentiments. The OlympicGames, revived at a time of expandinginternational trade, was a manifestation ofglobal capitalism.2However, they have alsobeen used to express political statements the Munich Olympics of 1936 were used byHitler to highlight his belief in Germanracial superiority3and during the MexicoOlympics of 1968, two African-Americansraised their fists in the Black Power saluteand were consequently banned fromrepresenting the USA again.4

The political consciousness most affected bysport is nationalism, and vice versa. Sportcan reflect and shape national consciousness

just as national consciousness can reflectsporting character.5 Sporting nationalismpeaks when a nation feels insecure orthreatened.6 Competitive sports can reflector maintain a collective psychology; themythic structures within sport can help giverise to collective identities; sport can also beused to achieve political motivation.7

1A Guttmann, Sport, Politics and the EngagedHistorian, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.38, No. 3, 2003, p. 383.2 J Sengupta, Globalizing Patriotism? SomeLessons from the Cricket World Cup of 2003,The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol.21, Nos. 3 and 4, June 2004, p. 586.3Ibid., p. 585 and Guttmann, n. 1, p. 364.4Sengupta, n. 2, p. 585.5Ibid., p. 586.6R Guha, A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian

History of a British Sport (London: Picador, 2002),p. 350.7Ibid., p. 339 and Sengupta, n. 2, p. 586.

There is a strong link between cricket andIndian national consciousness whichrequires detailed analysis. Coming to aclearer understanding of the relationshipbetween the two can demonstrate andprovide insights on how these elements ofIndian identity can become more relevant.


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2

History of Cricket in India

The history of cricket in India shows that ithas fostered both nationalism andcommunalism; therefore it is relevant tooutline a short history of the developmentof cricket in some regions of India. It isimportant to note that the sport developeddifferently at different times in and indifferent parts of the Indian subcontinent.

The links between cricket and independentIndian consciousness can first be seen inthe late 19thcentury.

Many social historians of Indian cricket haveconcentrated on the Quadrangular andPentangular tournaments in Bombay whichstarted in the early 20thcentury.8 Parsimerchants were the first to take up cricketin the late 19th century with Hindus andMuslims participating soon after the turn ofthe century. The Quadrangulartournaments in Bombay consisted ofEnglish, Hindu, Parsi, and Muslim teams.

Later, they developed into the Pentangular the fifth team being known as All the Rest,comprising Indian Christians, Buddhists and

Jews.9 By the 1920s and 1930s thetournaments had become very popular about 20,000 fans would attend a match.10Some academics suggest that this was in partbecause they were communal, no othertournament was as popular and theorganisers recognised their commercialpotential early on.11

The tournaments were halted in 1945, somesay, because it was decided that they weredeeply divisive.12However it has also beensuggested that the Board of Cricket Controlin India (BCCI) put pressure on the

8B Majumdar, Twenty Two Yards to Freedom(NewDelhi: Penguin Viking, 2004), p. 13.9Guha, n. 6, p. 123 and 248.10Majumdar, n. 8, p. 17.11

Ibid., p. 3.12R Bhattacharya, Pundits from Pakistan: On Tourwith India 2003-4, (London: Picador, 2005),p. 15.

government to stop them because they weremore popular than the Ranji Trophy whichit organized.13

It should be noted that whilst cricket inBombay was organized along communallines, elsewhere in the country it was not. InBengal, cricket was adopted by the middleclasses and the elites in conjunction in orderto beat their colonial rulers at their owngame; in the southern cities such as Chennai(Madras) cricket was also used as a way ofbeating the British.14It has been argued

that in Bengal, the middle classes took upcricket in part as a way of counteringcharges of effeminacy in the aftermath ofthe 1857 Sepoy Mutiny.15 It has beenargued that indigenous sports such as

wrestling did not bring acceptance in Britisheyes. Therefore, participation in Europeansports was encouraged by the elites ofBengal as a way of challenging the occupiersat their own games.16

The founding of the Indian NationalCongress (INC) party in 1885 came about atthe same time as the establishment ofcricket as a popular sport in Bombay thefirst Indian team to tour England was aParsi team in 1888. These developmentsoccurred at a time when in England writerssuch as John Ruskin were proposing newideas regarding socialism and nationalism Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi said thatRuskin had a huge influence on his life.

These English ideas were being publicizedwhile the English game of cricket was beingpromoted at the same time and some arguethat the growth of both is linked.17 Cricket

13Majumdar, n. 8, p. 5.14Ibid., p. 14 and Guha, n. 6, pp. 340-41.15Ibid., p. 147.16B Majumdar, The Politics of Leisure inColonial India Lagaan: Invocation of a Lost

History?Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36,No. 35, 1 September 2001, pp. 3399-404.17Interview with K N Daruwalla, 25 April 2007.


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was actively promoted by the British inIndia as a way of promulgating English

values.18

18Interview with Ashis Nandy, 26 April 2007.


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4

Post-colonial Cricket in India

Despite the emphasis on cricket instillingEnglish values in the Indian mind, many

who have written on the rise of cricket inIndia note the game is naturally suited to theIndian consciousness. Ashis Nandy goes sofar as to argue that Cricket is an Indiangame accidentally discovered by theEnglish.19 He also points out that it is apre-industrial game that acts as a critique ofurban industrial society.20 Many other

writers also suggest that the game of cricketsits well within Indian society. Others saythat the long form of the game can be moreappreciated by Hindus who are used tounderstanding the world through a cosmictimescale rather than clock time.21 It alsoreflects agrarian society: there are longperiods of the game when one must watchthe weather and wait for it to alter; one mustalso prepare for adversity; the boredom thatcan accompany a game, allows one to planahead.22Others have argued that the non-linear nature of the game appeals to theIndian mind.23Nandy also notes that in agame of cricket one is not only playingagainst the opposing team but also fightingyour own destiny and Indians love thistheme.24

Once India gained Test match status in1932, cricket became a way of settling scores

with their colonial rulers. When the Indianteam beat the British team, editorialsappeared in Indian vernacular newspapers

claiming that political equality should followsporting equality.25 While it would be toosimplistic to argue that cricket became

19 Ashis Nandy, The Tao of Cricket: On games ofDestiny and Destiny of Games (Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press India, 2000).20Interview with Nandy, n. 18.21Guha, n. 6, pp. 337-38.22Sengupta, n. 2, p. 586.23 Interview with T C A Srinivas-Raghavan, 20

April 2007.24Interview with Nandy, n. 18.25Guha, n. 6, pp. 340-41.

popular in India purely because of itsassociations with some form of early Indiannationalism, there is no doubt that this wasan element that explained its appeal.26

After Independence, cricket was equatedwith patriotic virtue being a good cricketermeant that one was a good Indian,Pakistani or Sri Lankan.27 As cricket lostits associations with colonialism, it became ameans for developing national andmasculine identities.28 It has been argued

that early Indian players like the Nawab MPataudi (Sr) and K S Ranjitsinhji, forexample, were such key figures in Indiancricket that they could be described asnationalists even if not in the way thatnationalism is understood today.29 They

were seen as role models in a newlydeveloping national consciousness becausethey were able to stand on the internationalstage as Indians and compete equally withrepresentatives from more developed

nations.30 Ramachandra Guha notes thatIndia will never be a tiger [in terms ofeconomic power] to match the other Asiantigers [e.g. South Korea, Malaysia]. Indiaranks about 150 in the World DevelopmentReport, just below Namibia and above Haiti.It is the cricketers and they alone, who areasked to redeem these failures, to make oneforget, at least temporarily, the harshrealities of endemic poverty and corrupt andbrutal politicians.31

Many commentators on Indian cricket arguethat Indias cricket World Cup win in 1983

26Majumdar, n. 14.27Guha, n. 6, p. 341.28Sengupta, n. 2, p. 601.29Majumdar, n. 8, p. 14.30Ibid., p. 14 and interview with MAK Pataudi,11 April 2007.31R Guha, Batting for India, The Guardian,31

August 2002. In the recent 2006 UNDP HumanDevelopment Report, India ranks 126th out of177, just below Namibia and above Cambodia.


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had a big influence on the popularity of thegame.32However, this should be linked tothe decline of hockey as the national sportof India. By the 1970s Indias hockey team

was not doing as well as it had done in

previous decades. The change in rules andthe move to astroturf negatively impactedon Indias success in the game.33 With themove to astroturf, physical strength andstamina became more important than skilland individualism, attributes that hadpreviously benefited India in hockey.34Some people have argued that cricket suitsthe Indian physique more than othersports.35 Most nations have a strongassociation with one particular sport: in

Canada it is ice hockey, in Japan it is sumowrestling and in Germany it is football. InIndia, even though cricket was popular inthe first half of the 20thcentury, hockey wasthe sport that brought the most nationalpride. The last gold medal that India wonfor hockey in the Olympics was at theMoscow Games in 1980. The decline ofsporting success in hockey happened inparallel to Indias growing prominence incricket, which helped develop cricket as the

prime national sport in the country.

India is seen as a cricket crazy nation; crickethas become a way of expressing nationalpride and consciousness. Varun Sahniargues that cricket and Indian nationalconsciousness are inextricably linked.[Cricket is] tied to identity politics to beIndian is to like cricket.36 This linkage atthe time brought about some of the moreunpleasant aspects of sport and nationalism

such as Indian Muslims being accused ofsupporting Pakistan in India-Pakistanmatches and the association between hyper-nationalism, war and entertainment.37

32Interview with Pataudi, n. 30.33Ibid. and Ashis Nandy, 26thApril 2007.34Interview with Pataudi, n. 30.35Interview with Ajay Jadeja, 14 May 2007.36Interview with Varun Sahni, 18 April 2007.37K Bandopdhyay and B Majumdar, Cricket

as Everyday Life, Economic and Political Weekly,Vol. 39, Nos. 14 and 15, 3-10 April 2004, pp.1450-54.

Indians take accusations of cheating as a sluron the nation. In 2001, when match refereeMike Denness banned Indian cricket heroSachin Tendulkar for one match for balltampering, effigies of Denness were burnt in

the streets in response and the BCCIthreatened to withdraw from theInternational Cricket Council (ICC), an actthat could have split the cricketing world.38

Varun Sahni suggests that cricket, likeBollywood, is a form of affirmative action.

This is one reason that selection process isstill zonal [Cricket] also gives Muslims achance to participate.39 He compares it

with baseball in America where Afro-

Americans and Hispanics are given thechance to excel. He argues that cricket inIndia is connected to identity politics interms of what you may chose to call somesense of national identities, regionalidentities. Cricket again has played a verycritical role there It also speaks to acertain kind of threat in terms of relationsbetween Hindus and Muslims which is oneof those fundamental drivers of Indiansociety.40

Others also argue that cricket, likeBollywood, is able to transcend class andreligious boundaries throughout the Indiansubcontinent. Bollywood exploited thelinks between nationalism and cricket withthe movie Lagaan a story of a group ofplucky Indian villagers who beat theirBritish rulers at cricket to rid themselves ofthe cruel colonizers.41 While Bollywood hasmade a number of movies that focus on the

game of cricket, for example Iqbal, Hattrick,Say Salaam Indiato name but a few, Lagaanhas been by far the most commerciallysuccessful. It is possible that this is in partbecause it is the only movie that explicitlylinks cricket with anti-colonialism andIndian nationalism.

38Guha, n. 6, p. 354.39

Interview with Sahni, n. 36.40Ibid.41Guha, n. 6, p. 354.


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CRICKET AND INDIAN NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

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Boria Majumdar argues that Indian cricketmakes sense only when it is placed withinthe broader politico-economic context.42Inorder to analyse the link between cricket andIndian national consciousness further it is

important to look at the factors that havehelped develop this link.

One factor in the growing link betweencricket and national consciousness was thepolitical classes. Even before cricket tookover from hockey as the most popular sportin India, politicians had used it to broadentheir appeal. Indias first Prime Minister,

Jawaharlal Nehru, played cricket and hisdaughter Indira Gandhi used photos of him

striding out to bat, dressed in his cricketwhites, on political pamphlets during theEmergency of 1975.43The cricket boards ofMumbai and Bihar have been run by formerchief ministers44and one of them, SharadPawar, a former defence minister and nowagriculture minister, is presently head of theBCCI. Indian team selections are evendebated in parliament. Nandy argues thatcricket is an easy peg on which to hangyour nationalism.45 Others argue that the

relationship between sport and politics inIndia is mutually beneficial, sport needspoliticians in India to get money and cut redtape and politicians use cricket as a way togain popularity.46 It should be noted thatthe links between sport and leaders weredeveloped even before Independence. TheBCCI was formed by the Maharajahs of thePrincely States, and cricket boards havealways been supported by the mostpowerful people in the area.47

42Majumdar, n. 8, p. 3.43Guha, n. 6, p. 332.44Ibid.45

Interview with Nandy, n. 18.46Interview with Pataudi, n. 30.47Interview with Jadeja, n. 35.


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7

Cricket and the Media

Another crucial factor that has increased thelink between cricket and nationalconsciousness is the deregulation of thetelevision industry that took place in 1993.48

The success in the World Cup ten yearsearlier combined with the spread of newtelevision stations brought cricket to wholenew audiences throughout India. Australianmedia mogul Rupert Murdochs Star Sportsand ESPN channels have become themainstay for bringing cricket to an ever-

widening audience.49 Radio, and moreparticularly television, has made cricket themost popular game in India. Men,

women and children who had no interest inthe game earlier have now become ardentfans all because of its broadcast by radioand television50

Cricket on television is a boon foradvertisers because commercials can beshown every five minutes or so, after eachover, this combined with the need for thenew channels to fill their schedules meantmore and more matches being shown.51

Multinational corporations (MNCs) enteredIndia as the Indian economy opened up andthey needed brand ambassadors with whomthe population identified. Cricket playersprovided the perfect vehicle for this whichin turn boosted the popularity of the starplayers.52 MNCs have exploited thesubcontinents love of cricket, and also forBollywood. Using movie stars andcricketers to advertise their products, MNCs

gained an extraordinary reach in thesubcontinent in India, billboards withcricketers like Tendulkar or movie stars

48 Interview with G K Arora, 3 May 2007 andwith Nandy, n. 18.49 Amit Gupta, The Globalization of Cricket:

The Rise of the Non-West, The InternationalJournal of the History of Sport,Vol. 21, No. 2,March 2004, p. 264.50Supreme Court Case 161 in 1995, as quoted in

Majudmar, n. 8, p. 367.51Interview with Nandy, n. 18.52Interview with Sahni, n. 36.

Shah Rukh Khan holding a Pepsi or CocaCola are ubiquitous. This also allows thepoor to interact with global capitalism andforget their own situation for a while.53

It should also be noted that as the Indianeconomy was liberalized and big moneypoured in a proportion of the populationhad more money to spend. Thedevelopments also brought about a growingmiddle class who, Nandy argues, expandedthe scope and range of nationalconsciousnesses.54He points out that themiddle classes in India are the standardbearers of nationalism and encouraged thelinks between cricket and nationalconsciousness.55

The media has deepened this link betweencricket and nationalism,56and nowhere hasthis been more obvious than in the recent2007 ricket World Cup. The Hindustan Timesadvertised the World Cup as War in

WIndies; PepsiCo used the slogan BlueBillion to link Indians passion for cricket

with national consciousness and their brand.Varun Sahni argues that such links arepositive, If your national identity isexpressed predominantly through sport, thats actually a rather good thing. A lotof us were very relieved to see Germannationalism [for example] re-emerge duringthe football World Cup, in such a healthynon-xenophobic manner, [it was] felt thatthe Germans have come of age. I think themedia makes the most of it.57 This hyper-

nationalism comes to the fore particularlywhen India plays Pakistan in cricket. In therun-up to the India/Pakistan match in thequarter finals of the 2003 World Cup, themedia went into overdrive portraying this as

53Sengupta, n. 2, p. 603.54Interview with Nandy, n. 18.55Ibid.56

Interview with Daruwalla, n. 17 and withSahni, n. 36.57Ibid.


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mimic warfare:58a Bengali newspaperrepresented the match as war, with thecricket pitch as the battleground;59a Gujaratinewspaper used computer generatedimagery to turn the Indian and Pakistani

cricket teams into soldiers, complete withmilitary uniform and guns.60

58 George Orwell, The Sporting Spirit in(eds.) Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, The Collected

Essays: Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vols.1-4, (London: Penguin, 1994), p. 322.59 K Chatterjee, To Play or Not To Play:Fabricating Consent over the Indo-Pak CricketSeries, The International Journal of the History ofSport,Vol. 21, Nos 3 and 4, June 2004, p. 625.60J Dasgupta, Manufacturing Unison: Muslims,

Hindus and Indians during the India-PakistanMatch, The International Journal of the History ofSport, Vol. 21, Nos 3 and 4, 2004, p. 577.


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Cricket as a Unifying Factor in India

Another important question to be addressedrelating to the theme of cricket and Indiannational consciousness, is whether the gamehas a unifying effect on the populace. Thereseems to be a divergence of opinion here.Some suggest that in victory cricket is aunifying factor61although that does notmean they are unified on other things.62Ramachandra Guha argues that Theinstitutions that keep us together are thosebequests of the British: the civil service, thearmy, the railways, and cricket.63

Whilst most people agree that cricket doesbring the country together, this is only partof the story. Muslims in India are oftensuspected as supporters of Pakistan. Untilthe 2003 cricket World Cup, during eachIndia/Pakistan cricket match, there wasevidence that some Indian Muslims wouldsupport Pakistan.64 There is also evidencethat this support was disapproved of.65

When Muslims did try to celebrate an Indianwin over Pakistan, they were activelyprevented from doing so, sometimes endingin violence.66 This phenomenon has beenexplained as, Cheering for Pakistan incricket is the way to express a differentidentity.67 Using cricket as a way to expressan alternative identity is not an exclusivelyIndian preserve. In Sri Lanka, there isplenty of documentary evidence of Tamilssupporting teams other than their nationalside, whether it be the Australians in therecent World Cup final68or India.69Similarly, non resident Indians (NRIs)throughout the West Indies, UK and South

61Interview with Sahni, n. 36.62Interview with Nandy, n. 18.63R Guha, The Miracle that is India, Outlook,7 May 2007.64Dasgupta, n. 60, p. 576.65Ibid., p. 579.66Ibid., pp. 581-82.67Interview with Nandy, n. 18.68 Cricket buys peace in times of war,

Hindustan Times, 27 April 2007.69 Interview with N Manoharan, Senior Fellow,IPCS, 9 May 2007.

Africa often support the Indian team againsttheir national side.

In 1990, Norman Tebbit, a BritishConservative minister, argued that South

Asian immigrants in the UK should supportthe English cricket team rather than theIndian or Pakistani teams as proof of theircommitment to the UK.70 During the1990s, Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Senasupremo, devised his version of the Tebbit

Test. He claimed that Indian Muslims mustprove that they were not Pakistanisympathisers or anti-national by supportingIndia in cricket rather than Pakistan: I wantthem with tears in their eyes every timeIndia loses to Pakistan.71 Thecontradictory demands placed on IndianMuslims point to a contradiction in thenational consciousness about the role ofMuslims in the country.

This dichotomy in Indian consciousness canbe understood as the good Muslim/badMuslim representation. Bal Thackeray and

L K Advani of the Bharatya Janata Party(BJP) have praised good Muslims such asformer Indian cricket captain Mohammed

Azharuddin or the music composer A RRahman as role models for the Muslimpopulation of India.72 For Azharuddin, this

view was reversed when he was banned forlife from cricket for his part in the matchfixing scandals of the 1990s; some went asfar as suggesting that this proved he was abad Muslim and a traitor.73

Some historians have linked the rise ofcricket nationalism in the 1990s to a changein the political climate.74 The rise of the BJP

70BBC News, Can British Asians be Englandcricket fans? 31 August 2006,http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/5296056.stm.71Dasgupta, n. 60, p. 576 and Guha, n. 6, p.410.72

Dasgupta, n. 60, pp. 576-80.73Ibid., p. 580.74Guha, n. 6, p. 352 and Sengupta, n. 2, p. 605.


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brought communalism back to the fore. Ithas been argued that due to its place incivil society and as a significant element ofpopular culture, international one-day and

Test cricket offers fertile terrain for the

articulation of Hindu chauvinism andcommunalist ideologies.75This rise ofHindu chauvinism was shaped in part by theHindutva consciousness proposed by theBJP,76which was connected in part tosupport for the reconstruction of the Ramtemple the remains of which were said tolie under the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya and was actively promoted by the BJPs

Advani. The mosques eventual destructioncaused much communal bloodshed and

unrest. India was founded as a secularnation, in contrast to Pakistans religiousbasis; by the 1990s, however, the Hinduself saw itself as directly opposed to thePakistani theocratic religious other.77 Thisopposition helped strengthen Hinduconsciousness and in turn threatened thesecurity of Muslims in the so-called secularrepublic. As the communal riots of Mumbaiin 1992 and the Godhra riots of 2002 show,this tension has never completely dissipated.

The emotive issues of Partition and the roleof Muslims within the secular state of Indiaare often brought to the fore during India-Pakistan cricket matches when nationalisticsentiments are at their highest.

The World Cup of 2003 is an interestingcase study, because, unlike previousoccasions, there was little or no publicsupport for Pakistan from Indian Muslims.78In Calcutta, a discussion was held within the

75 Ian McDonald, Between Saleem and Shiva:The Politics of Cricket Nationalism inGlobalising India, in Sport in Divided Societies(eds.), J Sugden and A Bairner (Aachen: Meyerand Meyer, 1999).76Hindutva was defined by the BJP as a way tobridge our present to our glorious past andpave the way for an equally glorious future: it

will guide the transition from swarajyato surajya,BJP Manifesto 1998. See also Chatterjee, n. 59,

p. 623.77Ibid, pp. 623-25.78Dasgupta, n. 60, p. 575.

police force, which decided that Muslimsshould be prevented from supportingPakistan during the match. While thisproposal was not carried out, it suggests thatthe authorities were sufficiently concerned

that some Muslims would support Pakistanand that this support was against thenational interest.79 India went on to winthe match and there were wide-scalecelebrations throughout the country. IndianMuslims joined in these celebrations, but

were, in some areas, actively prevented fromdoing so. In Ahmedabad this causedrioting.80Violence had similarly occurredduring the India-Pakistan encounter in the1996 World Cup.81

After the 2003 quarter-final match was won,the Indian Prime Minister and DeputyPrime Minister phoned the Indian cricketteam to congratulate them; this was unusualas normally such phone calls would only bemade if the team won the tournament.82

The Indian Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh,took the extraordinary move of announcingthat the Indian team would not have to payincome tax on their earnings from the

match, in stark contrast to the Pakistan teamwho had their tournament fees slashed by50 percent for losing to India.83 The BJPused the win to assert their communalistHindu ideology and highlight Indiashegemonic aspirations.84

In exploring the reasons why there was littleoutward support for Pakistan from IndianMuslims during the 2003 World Cup variousreasons have been put forward. Many

scholars argued that the support wasprobably still there but was kept hidden85owing to a variety of factors. Sahni suggeststhat since the World Trade Centrebombings of 11 September 2001, being a

79Ibid, p. 579.80Ibid, pp. 581-82.81Ibid, p. 582.82Chatterjee, n. 59, p. 626.83Dasgupta, n. 60, p. 577.84

Sengupta, n. 2, p. 606.85Interview with Sahni, n. 36, with Nandy, n. 18and with Boria Majumdar, 5 May 2007.


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Muslim was not necessarily the mostcomfortable identity to have.86 Anotherpertinent point is the fact that the 2003

World Cup match between India andPakistan was held almost exactly a year after

the riots in Gujarat in which an estimated2000 people were murdered. All thesepossibly made the Muslim community feeluncomfortable with expressing a differentidentity.

Indias failure in the recent 2007 cricketWorld Cup was greeted with outrage fromall communities throughout India. Theheartbreak the country went through wasonly a little alleviated by the fact that Indias

greatest rival, Pakistan, was also ejected in asimilarly traumatic way.87 It seems thatduring the two most recent World Cupssupport for Team India has been almostuniversal in the country Cricket hadfinally achieved for the nation, that level ofunity that (s)he had dreamt of for so long.88

This can be explained in a number of ways.In 2003, India made it through to the finalsand Sahni argues that one of the reasons is

that India [was] doing well. He alsosuggests that you privilege the identity thatyou think will do well.89Another importantargument for why Indian Muslims areoutwardly supporting the Indian team moreis that there have been more Muslims in theteam since 2002 than at any time sinceIndependence.90 There are, in fact, two orthree players from Gujarat in the team,Zaheer Khan, for example, is a Muslimfrom Vadodara, one of the areas worst

affected by the communal riots in Gujarat.91It has been suggested that this has helped

86Interview with Sahni, n. 36.87 Daily Times, Editorial: Shame on Inzi andhis men, 19 March 2007,http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\19\story_19-3-2007_pg3_1.88Dasgupta, n. 60, p. 575.89Interview with Sahni, n. 36.90From 2002-2007 there have been up to four

Muslims in the Indian cricket squad which ismore than at any other time since 1932.91Dasgupta, n. 60, p. 576.

encourage Indian Muslims to support theIndian team.92 There have been a numberof studies on sport as a means to assertcontested identities which back this view;sport can give ethnic or religious minorities

the chance to participate in society whilstmaintaining their individual identity.93

It must be emphasised that while this studyhas paid particular attention to therelationship between Muslims and supportfor the Indian cricket team, India has manyother identities, apart from religious ones.

The selection of the Indian cricket team hasalways been based on a regional selectionpolicy; some have argued that this has

helped create a pan-Indian team whichgives a kind of equal opportunity toevery region94. The BCCIs philosophyis not unique, the United Cricket Board ofSouth Africa (CBSA) and the ZimbabweanCricket Union (ZCU) have race selectionpolicies.95 Whether this has been good forcricket in these countries might be debated,it could be argued that society has gained

what the game has lost.96 After Indiasdisastrous showing in the recent World Cup

however, the BCCI has decided to abandonthe regional selection policy.97 There is alsono real evidence that these affirmativeaction policies actually change the way asupporter feels about their national team,irrespective of presence of a player from hisor her region.98.

92Interview with Ashis Nandy, 26April 2007.93Guttmann, n. 1, p. 369.94 Interview with Daruwalla, n. 17 and withSahni, n. 36.95Ibid96Interview with Nandy, n. 18.97

Interview with Pataudi, n. 30.98 Interview with Pataudi, n. 30 and withSrinivas-Raghavan, n. 23.


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Conclusion

It has been argued in this paper that severalelements have contributed to the close linksbetween cricket and Indian nationalconsciousness. From a historicalperspective, it was a major factor both as a

way of fitting in with the British as theParsis and the local rulers desired, and as aform of non-violent dissent against thecolonisers. These two paradoxical reasonsfor taking up the game in pre-IndependentIndia in the late 19thand early 20thcenturiesillustrate the complex role that cricket hasplayed in the country. In India, cricketrepresents different things for differentpeople.

The connections between cricket and SouthAsian national identities are not however theonly links that have firmly establishedcricket on the subcontinent. Once thecolonisers left, the game continued toflourish which suggests that the roots aredeeper than mere anti-colonial or pro-colonial expression. As argued in this paper,cricket suits the mind of those on the Indiansubcontinent its non-linear format fits

with the regional consciousness in SouthAsia as do the pre-industrial elements of thegame.

Once the game was established, the mediaand politicians used cricket as a way ofboosting their ratings and popularity. As

cricket rose in the national consciousness ofIndia, MNCs latched onto it as a way ofenhancing their sales figures. Bollywood alsocapitalised on the links between anti-colonialfeeling and national consciousness, with themovie Lagaanproviding the most successfulexample of this..

Finally, cricket has been used by differentpolities to consolidate a shared Indianidentity and also as a way of expressingalternative identities. This dichotomyreflects the contradictory reasons operating

when the game was initially established inIndia.

In conclusion it can be argued that cricketboth unites and divides the people of India,and which of these happens depends on a

variety of factors including the teamssuccess, the relationship minorities have

with the centre and the who the Indian teamis playing. These inconsistencies are notseen only in India they are present in SriLanka and England as well. Such

contradictions are not surprising, however,because the Indian national consciousness isnot a homogenous identity; it meansdifferent things to different people in acountry where everyone has a regional andreligious identity, as well as a nationalidentity. Support for the Indian teamencompasses all these identities and more.


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About the AuthorEmily Crick has a Masters degree in Development and Security (International Relations) atBristol University. The topic of her dissertation was Cricket as a form of multi-track diplomacybetween India and Pakistan. Her areas of special interest areas are Indo-Pak relations andKashmir, with particular interest in confidence-buildin measures. This paper was written during

her internship at IPCS in March-June 2007.

Documents

Crick__Cricket and Indian National Consensus (Www.ipcs.Org)