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In accumulation During the World Cup clash between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad on October 14, Indian presenters talked about “the biggest rivalry”. For once, they weren’t exaggerating. Cricket competitions between the South Asian giants have been their main interaction outside the battlefield for three-quarters of a century. Each poured into it subcontinental volumes of love and hate, nationalist chest-thumping, desire for peace, addiction to the fray – and the wholehearted commitment of two great cricketing cultures of fascinating contrasts. Even for those ignorant of cricket, the Indo-Pakistani fights provide a vital window into South Asian politics and culture. So what should we think of the Ahmedabad match, in which Banyan participated and which ended in an easy Indian victory?
Especially since the rivalry has become extremely unbalanced, in cricket as elsewhere. India’s victory was the eighth in a row against Pakistan in the World Cup. And it was really overwhelming. The contest took place at the recently inaugurated Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium, the largest in the world, and was attended by more than 100,000 noisy and partisan Indian fans. It was an illustration of the demographic and economic weight that is fueling India’s rise in cricket and beyond. The Pakistani players, only a few of whom had ever visited India, visibly wilted in the arena.
This denotes a big change. In the decades following the bloody partition of British India, Pakistan outperformed India on the field and on the field. It is GDP per capita was 50% more than India’s in 1970. Its cricketers, led by dashing fast bowlers such as Imran Khan, beat the Indians far more often than they lost to them. But the Indians are now much richer than the Pakistanis, and their cricketers are among the richest and best in the world, while the Pakistanis are struggling. Three decades of jihadist violence have left foreign sports teams afraid to travel to Pakistan, giving them near-pariah status. By banning Pakistanis from its lucrative domestic tournaments, India has made the problem worse. The team beaten in Ahmedabad had no star comparable to the stature of Mr Khan (a great cricket captain, but a horrible Prime Minister, now in jail).
Pakistan’s relative decline has changed bilateral relations. Despising its neighbor and now turned towards the world, India has downgraded it. Gone are the days of expanded transport links and people-to-people exchanges, usually for cricket matches. Indian diplomats spend more time on Bangladesh than on Pakistan – not to mention China and America, the great powers among which India increasingly counts itself. “Nobody is thinking about Pakistan,” says an official in Delhi. Except on one point: India’s fear of Pakistani terrorism.
This most divisive aspect of the relationship has become more dominant as others, notably economic ties and cultural affinities, have collapsed. This partly explains why polls show that Indian public opinion toward Pakistan is becoming increasingly hostile, even as the country fades from view. India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which grew by peddling fear of Muslims, has encouraged this. His supporters are the most hostile of all.
All these changes were evident in the Ahmedabad match, the sixth India-Pakistan clash this columnist has witnessed on the subcontinent and by far the most depressing. The first meetings took place during an eye-opening tour by India to Pakistan in 2004, as part of a promising peace process. Indian cricketers and thousands of Indian fans were welcomed by the Pakistani crowd like long-lost cousins. On the other hand, there were no Pakistani fans in Ahmedabad as India had refused to grant them visas. And the Indian fans Banyan spoke with expressed nothing but contempt for their neighbors. When asked what they knew about Pakistanis, three students from Mumbai said only “terrorism.” “Everyone hates them,” a middle-aged man volunteered, listening from the row opposite. Meanwhile, the crowd shouted abuse at the visiting players. After one of them, Mohammad Rizwan, was fired, jubilant Indians chanted a Hindu victory cry, “Jai Shri Ram,” against him.
India-Pakistan cricket has been indicted in the past. But never has hostility seemed so unidirectional and detached from geopolitical reality. The Pakistani threat to India’s security, although real, is attenuated. The potential benefits of cooperation between the world’s most populous country and, soon, the third most populous country, are increasing as environmental and demographic pressures take hold. Yet the prospects of achieving them, in cricket and elsewhere, have never seemed more remote. Pakistan cannot do it and India does not want to. ■
Read more from Banyan, our Asia columnist:
Pakistan expels undocumented Afghans. But at what cost ? (October 12)
MS Swaminathan, the man who fed India (October 3)
China’s Claim to the South China Sea Gets Even Stranger (September 21)
