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More at stake than cricket

The government’s decision to cancel the January 2009 Indian cricket tour of Pakistan may have been unavoidable given the security concerns and political sensitivity following last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai. However, care should be taken to ensure this does not set the stage for the drawing down or ending of all sporting, cultural, and people-to-people contacts between the two countries. One need not agree with Sports Minister M.S. Gill’s observations blaming the whole of Pakistan for the mindless acts of a few fanatics in order to conclude that now may not be the most propitious time for the two countries to be playing cricket. The shocking events of Mumbai are too recent and the war of words between New Delhi and Islamabad too acerbic for anyone to pretend there can be business as usual in an arena that Indians and Pakistanis feel so intensely nationalistic about. In this surcharged atmosphere, the consequences of a terrorist attack on the Indian team while on tour across the border can easily be imagined. That said, the cancelling of the tour does place us on the top of a rather slippery slope. Security issues can always be addressed by rescheduling the tour in a neutral venue like Dubai but the overcoming of political concerns is likely to be much more difficult. What happens, for example, if the pressure that the government is exerting on Islamabad does not yield the desired result? If Pakistan stonewalls the Indian demand for the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to be arrested and prosecuted, it seems hard to imagine how the playing of cricket could be resumed. And then what about hockey?

Before we know it, months if not years could elapse before sporting teams from the two neighbours play against each other again. If there is one thing the standoff of 2001-02 taught us, it is that highly visible, negative diplomatic responses such as the ending of sporting contacts or the snapping of transportation links actually contribute very little to the fulfilment of strategic goals like an end to cross-border terrorism. Not only do such measures lack the transformative power of more direct political steps, they can actually make matters worse by helping hardliners on the other side consolidate their hold over society at large. In the aftermath of Mumbai, the Pakistani military establishment has cleverly generated a sense of siege within the country through misinformation and innuendo about possible Indian military action. Regrettably, sections in India are also contributing to this atmosphere by reporting wild rumours about New Delhi seeking to escalate the standoff by adopting further punitive measures.

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