The Hindu : An avoidable controversy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 15, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

An avoidable controversy

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI: It was a controversy India-Pakistan relations could have done without. After days of "informal" advisories from the Union Home Ministry that the Indian team's cricket tour to Pakistan be put off for security reasons, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, intervened to give the green signal for the series.

The controversy has shown that an insidious campaign was under way from within the BJP-led Government to undermine the rapprochement process that the Prime Minister has put in place with the Pakistani leadership since April 2003.

Though the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, L.K. Advani, had publicly supported Mr. Vajpayee's Islamabad initiative, the efforts [which have since been scuttled] to derail the tour of the Indian cricket team show that resistance to making peace with Pakistan remains.

For ordinary Indians and Pakistanis, cricket and sporting links reflect contact at the mass-level. They go far beyond the contacts that take place when political leaders of the two countries meet. Playing cricket or other sport is one sign of "normality" between nations.

So far, India and Pakistan have behaved impeccably in continuing with the quiet process of rapprochement that has been pursued with the sanction of the Prime Minister and the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, which culminated in the January 6 joint press statement issued by the two countries.

A section of the press made sure that the Home Ministry's "concerns" about the safety of the cricket players made it to the front pages on a daily basis till the Prime Minister was forced to act by convening a meeting this morning.

The controversy over the cricket tour, Mr. Vajpayee and his advisers seem to have realised, could undermine the painstaking progress made in India-Pakistan relations. Hence, the decision to go ahead with the tour and a public announcement by the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha.

The peace process itself is extremely fragile despite the fact that communication between the Indian and Pakistani Governments is better today than in the past. However, entrenched mindsets resist reform and opportunities to dent the peace process will not be missed.

No one denies that there are genuine security concerns insofar as Pakistan is concerned but given the fact that nothing is going to change in Pakistan in a hurry, touring Pakistan before or after the Lok Sabha elections is not going to make any major difference to the "threat perceptions" relating to Indian cricket players.

But what is the linkage among the performance of the Indian cricketers, the "feel good" factor and the performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the coming elections? An Indian cricketing loss in Pakistan will have no bearing on how the electorate will exercise their franchise in the Lok Sabha elections.

Mr. Vajpayee travelled to Pakistan soon after Gen. Musharraf escaped two serious assassination attempts. There were obvious risks that the Prime Minister faced, but the Government decided that he would go ahead with the visit.

As many as 350 to 400 Indian sportspersons are scheduled to be in Islamabad from March 29 for the South Asian Federation games, but no concern has been expressed about their safety.

It should not need Prime Ministerial intervention to give the "go ahead" to a tour that had already been cleared in principle by the External Affairs Ministry after the ban on sporting links was lifted on October 22, 2003.

The controversy has revealed that a united front on making peace with Pakistan still needs to be formed within the Government here.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

Keeping it in the family

Cashing in on kinship

Different, for now

An avoidable controversy