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India plays cricket, and other
dirty games too
WSN Network
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In Tamil
Nadu, a school kabaddi match had once led
to 24 dead because the headmaster in his wisdom divided the two
teams on the basis of Marawar vs. Pallav, Tavar vs. Dalit. The
Dalits won the match and that was it. A spiral of violence was
unleashed leading to oneway killings. And this certainly is not
an isolated incident. Probably every little town in India has
separate sporting teams— those representing the upper castes or
the upwardly mobile the those having only Dalits. The two never
play together or against each other. The caste-based divide in
the sporting arena has ensured that the winning Team India never
materializes. The one we have in the game of cricket is nothing
but a manifestation of the Brahaminical hegemony. |
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 Legendary
broadcaster John Arlott had once said sport reflected its society.
It truly does. So as he 1983 Indian cricket team celebrates the
silver jubilee of its supremacy in the gentleman’s game at the Lord’s
on this day at the same venue, one could imagine the significance of
the moment - of being kings in a game actually meant for the kings.
It was certainly a great moment considering that the country’s
sporting history has nothing much to boast about, and will probably
have not much to cheer about in the future too if it continues to be
shackled in the age-old vices of brahaminical dominance that thrives
on inequality and exploitation.
A
country of billion people cannot win even a single medal in the
Olympics because any sporting activity probably needs teamwork and
the caste-fractured
India
had hardly been a team. Though, cricket can be considered an
exception because the social divide did not come to play here as the
game was open only for the dominating class. That cricket is
considered a religion in India does not take away its elitist
nature, not to mistake it for yet another emancipatory movement to
rid the country from the clutches of brahaminical feudalism. It is,
undoubtedly, today the game of the masses but still not for the
masses. While the British used it as yet another tool to maintain
their imperialistic stranglehold, today it is being very well used
by the capitalists (still the same old
ruling/trading class) to maintain the great divide.
And that’s why a small-town guy making it big in cricket is big
news. It’s difficult to break into the exclusivity of the gifted
class, and those who do are the chosen ones to add to the rich men’s
‘legacy’. But the small-town guy is hardly ever a Dalit, because the
varna system governs not just social status and occupation of an
individual in this country but also sports. Ancient sports were a
modification of the battlefield, which in the Indian Vedic context
was occupied by Kshatriyas alone, of course with help from the
Brahamins, and that probably explains why the lowcaste
Eklavaya had to bear the loss of his thumb when he asked for a place
alongside Arjuna in the game of archery. Even today, a certain Linba
Ram could not become a Yashowardhan Rathore because the politics
behind the Indian sports is still very non-egalitarian as people
running these sports are still an alter-ego of Dronacharya, who has
made his presence felt in cricket more than in any other game. In
Cricket and Race, Jack Williams had once written: “While at
first sight it may seem that a national Indian cricket team, usually
called All-India when playing against England, may have strengthened
Indian national consciousness and demand for an end to English rule
in India, cricket tended to have the opposite effect and helped to
uphold the Raj and white authority…”It remains the same till today,
the only difference being that the British have been replaced by the
Indian ruling class. Now consider this. Soccer and cricket were
introduced in
India around the same time by the British. But while India is now a
commercial superpower in cricket, it languishes at No. 153 in world
football and the region for decay of football, more of a working
class’ game even in the European context, in India has to do more
with the country's Brahaminical past than its failure to package
itself.
 The British introduced football and cricket to
India in the 19th century.While the elite were quick to adopt the
willow game, football was more a commoner's pursuit and remains so
even today. Of the two games, India enjoyed more initial successin
football. Before India had notched up its first Test win in 1952, it
had already qualified for the 1950 Brazil World Cup though it
couldn't play. The following year, it claimed the Asian Games gold.
And in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, India finished fourth. And that
was when the game was hijacked by the ruling class to be used as a
tool for dominance in yet another field.
It
is no hidden fact that Cricket has always been a rich man's game for
those who could manage 11 men around them. The early Britishers used
their cultivated Indian elites well enough to do the running around
for them all the while making them feel a sense of pride being in
company of the Englishmen. The feudal landlords, who now considered
themselves very much part of the game, made it appear a lavish
affair, just like the British, and in fact spent huge amount of
money on maintaining their dominance and presence felt in the game.
No
wonder most of the pre-independence teams in
India were led by maharajas and princes and the so called all-India
teams that visited other nations too had a couple of them by
default. Historian Ramchander Guha has very aptly summed up their
role in India cricket in the book Picador book of Cricket.
“Despite their often manifest lack of ability, the Maharajas helped
nourish Indian cricket in its formative years, keeping talented
players on their payroll and running Ranji Trophy teams more-or-less
on their own.” Aristocrats like maharajas of
Baroda,
Holkar, Pataudis, Scindia of Gwalior, Ranjitshinji and Dulipshinji
from Gujarat and Rajinder Singh of Patiala dominated the sport for a
long time. The rest of the players too came from the upper crust.
The clubs never made an effort to hunt talent all over the country
without prejudice and disregarding class, hence the Indian
performance remained below par till it pulled a surprise in 1983
never to match it again. Of course there have been a brave few who
managed to get into the playing elevenby virtue of their sheer
talent.
The most prominent among them being Pune's Balu Palwankar, the first
Dalit to be chosen as a member of the Indian team which played in
England in 1911. He was in fact the first Dalit in any Indian team.
Later his brothers also became cricketers. In the formative years of
cricket, no player
could afford to cleanbold a ‘maharaja’ in the game, similarly even
today no Dalit team can think of
challenging an upper caste team. Those who do, get beaten up and
even run the risk of being killed. In Tamil Nadu, a school kabaddi
match had once led to 24 dead because the headmaster in his wisdom
divided the twoteams on the basis of Marawar vs. Pallav, Tavar vs.
Dalit. The Dalits won the match and that was it. A spiral of
violence was unleashed leading to one-way killings. And this
certainly is not an isolated incident. Probably every little town in
India has separate sporting teams — those representing the upper
castes or the upwardly mobile the those having only Dalits. The two
never play together or against each other. A Dalit defeating a
Brahamin in a sport also defeats the hierarchical varna system and
therefore even in the present context it is not acceptable to a
society run by swaranas. The increasing gap between the haves and
have-nots is yet another assertion on the part of the elites that a
Dalit, who cannot even afford to attend a school, has no right to
think of a game that can only be played under the watchful eyes of
an expensive coach and with a sporting gear only the privileged
class can afford.
That’s probably why in
India, those who take to athletics, hockey, football or other
physically intensive sports tend to come from less privileged
backgrounds. It’s another matter that while the rest of the world
celebrates these games by anointing superstars in the respective
disciplines, in India the same games have been deglamourized to such
an extent that there appears to be no other game than, of course,
the one played by the privileged class. When there is hardly a level
playing field, the subaltern class can of course not dream of having
real sporting icons, and, therefore, neither can India as the
‘majority ndia’ lives in its underprivileged classes.
So
is there a future for the Indian sport? Not really till the time the
marginalized, the deprived, the lowered castes, the ethnic
nationalities, the Dalits, create their own sports, as they created
their gods.
2
July, 2008
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