Daily Times

It is said that sports is the unspoken language that can bring people together irrespective of race, colour and religion. They must not have had modern cricket in mind when they made that statement, especially when it consists of matches in which Pakistan and India face off against one another. In recent news reports, which seem to be bordering on the absurd, it is being told that the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University in Uttar Pradesh, India, has expelled some 67 — some say more than 100 — Kashmiri students for the ‘defiant’ act of cheering on the Pakistan team for its thrilling victory against India in the Asia Cricket Cup on Sunday. Apparently, their support for the green team really riled up fellow students who clashed with the Kashmiris and went on to trash their hostel rooms. The debacle ended in the expulsion of the Kashmiri students who had done nothing more than cheer on the Pakistan team. Talk about being a sore loser!

We have taken cricketing madness too far. Whenever a match between India and Pakistan is played, something happens to the rationality and reason of the citizens belonging to both countries. In this recent win over the Indians, Pakistanis went mad, especially on social media where minute by minute Facebook updates hooted on the winning team, and ridiculed the Indian team and its people. The media went wild — on Pakistan’s win on Tuesday over Bangladesh one paper went as far as saying that Pakistan had reconquered Dhaka! Pakistanis seemed to have lost their grip on reality when news of the win on Sunday resulted in random bouts of aerial firing, especially in Karachi and Peshawar. One need not explain the consequences of overzealously firing into the air. We have given up celebrating the spring festival of Basant just because of such enthusiastic threats to human life. Are we trying to hurt people and get the government to ban cricket also? The example of the university students being kicked out is extreme but it is relevant nonetheless. There is hyper nationalism on both sides of the border — it is best to rein it in and go back to enjoying the game for one reason only: the love of sport. *