Commentary/Dilip D'Souza
There is nothing that justifies having to dispatch our cricket teams to Canada to play each other
There were reports in newspapers the other day about a 'heavy exchange of
fire' between Indian and Pakistani troops across something known as the
Siachen glacier in Kashmir. I don't know about Pakistan, but India has been
making noises for some time about this glacier, specifically the shooting
that goes on across it. This is the world's highest battlefield, at some
significant thousands of feet. We want to be recognised by the Guinness
Book of World Records for setting a world record in the height above sea
level at which battles are conducted.
Now I cannot see what's so remarkable about shooting across a vast quantity
of ice that it needs to be in the Guinness Book.Then again, I couldn't see
what was so remarkable about owning the world's longest fingernails either
-- and an Indian made it into the Guinness Book for just that a few years
ago. It's another matter that he has now decided to clip and sell them; if
you have $10,000 to spare, which is what he wants for them, those
fingernails might just be the centrepiece for your coffee-table you have
always dreamed of.
But to return to that glacier. The evening I sat down to write this,
Siachen came to mind, and for a curious reason. The first so-called
'Friendship' cricket match between India and Pakistan, to be played in
Toronto on September 14, was called off because of torrential rain. Think
of it: in our part of the world, our two countries are shooting at each
other over an expanse of frozen water. Given that, it's almost as if there's
some odd justice in the fact that on the other side of the globe, a deluge
of water, decidedly non-frozen, has come in the way of 'Friendship'.
The irony begins with the very venue of these matches: Toronto. We have
some of the world's most talented cricketers here on the subcontinent: men
like India's Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble, or Pakistan's Wasim Akram,
Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed, would make most people's all-world
cricket teams. The sad thing is that for the two nations's teams to play a
match, they must travel halfway around the planet. For us fans to see these
wizards of bat and ball matching their talents against each other, we have
to switch on our televisions in the middle of the night.
Again, I don't know about Pakistan, but here in India there are politicians
who harangue us into believing that Pakistan should not come here to play.
They are our enemies, so why should we tolerate their team on our soil?
Bal Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena here in Bombay, is the loudest proponent
of this particular piece of vile logic. So successful is he that columnists
and millions of others are thinking the same thing. And that makes me think
to myself sadly: Wasim Akram, possibly the world's finest bowler, is
getting on in years. I don't know if I will ever get to see him myself,
here in India, bowling to Sachin Tendulkar.
The last time Pakistan was supposed to play in Bombay was in October 1991.
Late one night, thugs from the Shiv Sena stole onto the ground where the
match was to be played, dug holes in it, poured oil into the holes and ran.
They were hailed by their boss for this heroic action: for him, it seemed to rank up
there with famous acts of defiance from our freedom struggle
against the British. In any case, that was the end of that match. That was
also the end of the entire series of matches planned for that month.
Actually, the two teams did square off recently: in India, earlier this
year. That match was in Bangalore, the quarter-final of the cricket World
Cup. When Pakistan lost, goons in that country threw stones at the players's
homes and made death threats against them. One was civilised enough to
forego such Neanderthal reactions: He only approached the courts with a case
pleading for the captain to be imprisoned for losing to India.
This is the stuff cricket on the subcontinent is made of. Toronto, here we
come! Except for the rain.
Back to the Siachen glacier still again. The nightly news carried a segment
on troops in Siachen some months ago. They had their big guns pointed
up at a steep angle. They were wrapped in layers of clothing but were still
shivering, as was the reporter. Behind them, the screen was a perfect white
from the ghostly terrain of the glacier. The soldiers shoved shells into
the guns and fired them, over and over again. I couldn't see who or what
they were firing at, or even why. I doubt the troops could either.
I was speechless with the sheer futility of it all. Why had we put these men in
this place where no man belongs? For what were they putting their lives on
the line, a line they cannot even see in the snow and ice? What on earth
were they firing at? There must be something at stake in Siachen, something
that makes all the shooting necessary. But I'm damned if I know what that
something is.
More and more, that seems to sum up the hostility between India and
Pakistan. There is simply nothing between our countries that justifies the
huge sums of money we spend on waging war, nothing that justifies the
steady loss of young lives to idiotic shooting. Nothing, too, that
justifies having to dispatch our cricket teams to Canada to play each
other.
Now I don't mean to imply that there are not thorny issues between us. I
don't mean to gloss over the real resentment that a lot of people on both
sides of the border feel. What I do mean to say is that there is nothing we
are doing to resolve these issues. If we point at Pakistan for fueling
terrorism in Kashmir, or bellow that Pakistan is holding land that belongs
to us there, Pakistan yells back that we are the occupying power in
Kashmir, that we have never let Kashmiris decide their own future. If we
think Pakistan is acquiring arms far in excess of its needs, Pakistan
thinks precisely the same of us.
On both sides, we listen avidly to leaders who think nothing of ratcheting
up the hostility and hatred: after all, neither they nor anyone in their
families have been or are likely to be dumped on the world's highest
battleground to shoot and die. The Thackerays and their kind thrive on
keeping us ready to swipe at Pakistan. Dialogue, discussion, negotiation,
even playing cricket -- these are forgotten words today. Worse, they are
even unpatriotic: Pakistan is our enemy, right?
And there we remain, each country rooted in the glutinous resin of its own
position, each blaming the other for being intransigent. There we remain,
nations that prefer to shoot at each other rather than feed, clothe and
educate their people. Perverse, rogue countries in the eyes of the rest of
the world.
So it's rather fitting that we hanker after an entry in the Guinness Book
for the perverse inanity of fighting higher than man has anywhere else.
After beating Pakistan in Bangalore, after crowing over the reaction of the
fans in Pakistan, India lost in the semifinal of the cricket World Cup to
the eventual champions, Sri Lanka. That match, in Calcutta, had to be
abandoned. The crowd, upset that India was losing, set fire to the stands,
threw garbage on the field and rioted.
There's no word yet on who's applying to the Guinness Book of World Records
for a world record in cricket fan stupidity, India or Pakistan. I suspect
it will be a dead heat.
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