Indo-Pak ties: No sporting matter
Business Daily
G. Parthasarathy / September 30, 2010

India's television channels went gaga on September 9, on the news that the India-Pakistan duo of Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi staged an upset victory to enter the finals of the US Open. Professional bleeding hearts across the country were ecstatic in proclaiming that the young tennis stars were ushering in a new era of friendship between India and Pakistan.

Not to be outdone, our very own Sports Minister, Mr M. S Gill, said: “If Bopanna and Qureshi can play together, why not India and Pakistan?”

The Minister was perhaps ignorant of the fact that the cricket boards of the two countries had got together and, using Indian financial clout, had effectively shifted the centre of cricketing power from the Anglo-Saxon world to the sub-continent.

While Mr Gill was waxing eloquent on how sportsmen had set an example for others to follow, came the chilling news that three Indian soldiers had been killed by jihadis from across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Those talking about a new era in India-Pakistan relations seem to forget the realities of the present era, where terrorism sponsored by State agencies from across our border is taking lives from Kashmir to Kerala.

One wonders if the families of the three soldiers or their compatriots would have been very pleased with the media hype over the US Open.

This is not to suggest that we should underestimate the contributions that sportsmen, civil society groups, business houses and academic contacts play in promoting a better understanding between countries. What we need to avoid is hyping individual events.

CRICKET AS JIHAD

In 1982, as India's Consul General in Karachi, I was asked by the then Chairman of the BCCI, Mr N. K. P Salve, to look after the Indian cricket team visiting Pakistan. It was a series in which Imran Khan devastated the Indian batting line-up.

I then asked a Pakistani commentator what he thought of Imran's bowling. He replied that Imran had told him that when he played against India he thought of Kashmir and treated the encounter not as a cricket match but as a jihad. It is not surprising that when Imran took to politics and formed the Tehriq-e-Insaf Party, he was joined by worthies like the former ISI Chief Lieutenant General Hamid Gul and the viscerally anti-Indian former Foreign Minister and High Commissioner to India, Mr Abdul Sattar.

There were some interesting things one then noted about cricket in Pakistan. The Pakistan Cricket Control Board, like its hockey and squash administrations, was run by its 1965 war hero, the former Air Force Chief Air Marshal, Nur Khan — a formidable individual who even General Zia ul Haq did not dare take on.

Air Marshal Khan did a remarkable job in changing the sociological composition of sport in Pakistan. He looked away from the traditional Karachi and Lahore elites and encouraged interest in sports in poorer neighbourhoods, the small towns and in rural Pakistan. It was this approach that led Pakistan to turn out a stream of world-class fast bowlers and unorthodox, but gutsy batsmen.

It was impossible to ignore the underlying tensions that gripped any match Pakistan played against India, despite all the brouhaha about love and goodwill.

I once asked the founder and first Editor of the Jang Group of newspapers, Mir Khalilur Rahman, why his countrymen were so fired up when playing cricket against India. He wryly responded: “Our problem is that we treat the cricket field as a battlefield and think the battlefield is a cricket field!”

Sadly, Air Marshal Khan, now over 90 years old, is one of the few national heroes in Pakistan who speaks passionately of the futility of animosity and conflict with India.

POLITICS AND SPORT

It is ridiculous to claim that sport can be totally divorced from international politics. The Moscow Olympics was boycotted by the US and its allies and the Soviet Union returned the favour by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics. No Government could have defied public opinion and invited Pakistani cricketers when wounds of the 26/11 terrorist attack were still raw.

But Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi is an exceptional Pakistani sportsman. At a time when the Pakistani cricket team is afflicted with excessive religiosity — a legacy of its former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq — he has challenged conventional wisdom in his country by partnering an Israeli player in the international circuit. He won his first international tournament in 2008 partnering Prakash Amritraj, before winning the South African open with Rohan Bopanna earlier this year.

By his actions, Qureshi has implicitly defied the view of the likes of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and his influential backers in Pakistan's military establishment who aver that “Hindus, Jews and Christians are enemies of Islam”.

Rather than expend energy on the complexities of India-Pakistan ties, the Sports Minister would do well to ask his Cabinet colleague, the Home Minister, to ease some of the draconian rules now imposed on visas for Pakistani nationals, including their distinguished sportsmen like the young Qureshi.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)