India is put to the test
The Guardian, December 21, 2001
If any of the England cricketers currently struggling with the spin bowlers in Bangalore have had a chance to see Lagaan, the Bollywood crossover hit about a Raj-era grudge match between heroic Gujerati villagers and dastardly Anglo-imperialists, they’ll know that they are merely bit players in a long-running national psychodrama. And if they’ve been keeping an eye on the local media, they’ll also know that this psychodrama has become exceptionally inflamed by recent events.
Lagaan is a colourful confection of cricket, romance and nationalism. The only surprise is that it has taken the film industry so long to package the winning combination. Cricket is unrivalled as the national sport. It’s glamorous, big business and a honey pot for politicians. It’s also an arena bristling with pent-up frustrations. India’s status in global sport is lowly and many look to cricket to salvage national pride. Any failure to dispatch the poorly rated English on home wickets will hurt, especially at the end of a year that has seen Indian cricketers perform unimpressively abroad.
Shekhar Gupta, editor of the Indian Express, says that Indians “emotionalise and even politicise” the game as no other nation does. Over the last decade, the rightwing Hindu nationalists who now dominate the Delhi government have sought to exploit this. It is widely argued that Indian cricket has failed to achieve global glory because – unlike their Pakistani counterparts – Indian players lack national pride and the killer instinct. This chimes with the view, propagated by advocates of Hindutva (the ideology of “Hinduness”), that Hindus are the historic victims not only of belligerent outsiders (principally Muslims), but also of their own meekness. In cricket, Hindu self-assertion has taken the form of subjecting Indian Muslims to a Tebbit-style cricket test, and refusing to play against Pakistan. It has been routine for some years for any lull in play at an international match in India to be punctuated by mass chants of “Pakistan – Hai! Hai!” (down with Pakistan).
The underside of the nationalist mood is illustrated by the only film to outstrip Lagaan at the Indian box office this year, Gadar. This is the story of a Sikh who marries a Muslim before partition and then heroically rescues her from bloodthirsty Pakistanis, bringing her to safety in India where she converts to his religion. Though criticised as anti-Islamic by Muslims and secularists, the film seems to be on its way to being one of Bollywood’s most profitable ever. Meanwhile, school history texts are being rewritten to conform to Hindutva assumptions, and there is renewed agitation to build a temple on the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya – violently demolished nine years ago by a mob that included prominent members of the current government.
There has probably been more public zeal in India for the war against terrorism than anywhere outside the US. After September 11, it was hoped that the US would at last see the wisdom of backing India’s strategic struggle against “Islamic terror”. Frustratingly, the US priority turned out to be securing Pakistani support. Nonetheless, US-Indian military interchange was stepped up, while the Indian government promulgated new restrictions on civil liberties and Indian Muslims came under increased pressure. Following the December 13 attack on parliament, the Indian government has adopted the anti-terrorist template created by the US action in Afghanistan – and effectively demanded US support for a military strike into Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. The competition for global status was invoked in parliament by home minister LK Advani, who denounced Pakistan for being “unable to reconcile itself with the reality” of a “self-confident” India.
The Indian government is nonetheless constrained, for the moment, by international realities. The Indian cricket board faced a similar dilemma when it confronted the International Cricket Council over the decision of match referee Mike Denness to penalise five Indian players during a recent tour. The British media made much of the histrionics of the Indian board president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, but in the current climate almost anyone in his position would have struck a defiant posture. Dalmiya’s climbdown was inevitable. Isolation is not an option for Indian cricket. India’s urban, television-watching classes have been reared on strident nationalism laced with the heady promises of a globalised economy. What they seek in cricket can only be obtained on an international stage.
