Pakistan’s victory in yesterday’s ODI vs. India, has Pakistani’s all over the world celebrating. Sambit Bal wrote a nice precursor to the match describing an epic India Pakistan rivalry as something far more profound than just another sporting competition. He says cricket in South Asia “has always been close to the national identity“. Quite astutely, he describes how it’s is then used in politics: “sometimes as a salve, sometimes a weapon; it has enabled bonding and it has divide; at times it has been a bridge, at others a vehicle for ugly chauvinism; and governments have used it as both a handshake as well as a show of fists“. And therein lies the dilemma.
India Pakistan matches are tremendously exciting, wrought with raw enthusiasm and incredible anticipation, but wind up raising stakes far higher than are normal or necessary. Bal says cricket is close to South Asian “national identity” among people, and in conversations I’ve heard matches described akin to “war” or “religion”. That’s just going too far.
To inextricably tie these matches to one’s identity or religious affiliation let alone actual combat is absurd but fortunately, a phenomenon that’s shrinking. Less and less are India Pakistan matches carrying the same weight for masses. Bal explains that because matches between the countries have increased since 2004, an “an overkill took away the anticipation and intensity. But from a larger perspective, it also took away the heat and emotional charge, and that was not a bad thing at all. Since they were always playing, wins and losses no longer felt like life and death. It felt somewhat dull, but it also felt sane”.
Ahhhh, it felt sane. Now that’s a great way to put it.
Cricket shouldn’t be a tool or driving force of nationality, politics let alone international relations. That’s a recipe for perpetual division, which is the last thing South Asia, or the world for that matter needs right now.
So even if India Pakistan matches are seeing diminished anticipation, at least it shifts our focus to cricket itself rather than political, social and religious issues which ought to be unrelated. Greater interaction between teams it seems equals less potent divide among masses of fans, which is a profound shift for South Asians socially. Save the Kargil conflict in the late 90’s, which never escalated to a war, my generation of Indian and Pakistani’s have thankfully not experienced trauma’s of full scale war between both states that our parents generations suffered. Consequently, future generations of South Asian’s might be less inclined to perpetuating potent divisiveness through cricket, and hopefully that can extend to greater social realms as well.
