Daily Times

Reports that authorities in various parts of India are very unhappy with anybody who dared to support the Pakistani team or celebrate its victory after the drubbing in the T20 world cup are troubling. They are also looking to slap sedition charges on people, especially Muslims, who cheered on the Pakistani team in what is after all a sport; meant to be enjoyed. This should be enough to shock the international community, not the least because sedition carries punishments up to life sentence. Needless to say, of course, that such a serious reaction to how people react to sports and games simply beggars belief and ought to be unacceptable for the entire world.

Yet it is very unlikely that too much fuss would be made about it in international circles. India is used to getting away with everything, including murder, simply because its large market blinds everybody who is in a position to take note of its excesses and do something about them. In the world of cricket, especially, ICC (International Cricket Council) would have to go seriously off script to call India to account, since it literally drowns the international body in marketing and ticket money whenever there is something big on the cricket calender.

Yet these things have now clearly gone well beyond cricket. When the state exploits the law to clamp down on personal freedoms of citizens, it begins to lose legitimacy very quickly. And once that cycle starts, it tends to use yet more force to keep everybody in line. We’re already at a point where Delhi uses intimidation to have its way with its own people. These, unfortunately yet foreseeably, are the fruits of anointing patrons of the Hindutva brigade to the seats of power. Incidents like the one when Indian cricket Mohammad Shami was ridiculed and harassed just for being a Muslim, to the point that he fears for the safety of his family, typify the new trend in India. One and a half electoral cycle of Narendra Modi at the helm has effectively taken the life out of India’s once vibrant civil society. Now, unless you are a Hundutva fanatic, there’s no real position for you in the world’s largest democracy. And as much as the BJP’s extremist leaders are to blame for this, part of the problem is also the easy acceptance they enjoy in the world’s most significant capitals simply because of the money India’s market can make for them.

Still, to take cricket, and how people celebrate the sport, so such an unprecedented low calls for serious action from the international community and global sports bodies. The Indians are just proving to be very sorer losers. *