Sportspersons in India have mostly remained silent spectators to political upheavals in the country and have always erred on the side of caution. For them the boundary line of their sporting discipline is a complete world in itself, which they are either too scared to breach, or are willing votaries of a status quo that protects their privileges.
The reaction of the sporting community to the massive protests across the country, driven by the youthful student community, has, as expected, been muted, except for a few brave examples. To remain silent or neutral is their prerogative as much as their voicing dissent or support, yet their fans do expect them to take bold stands when a crisis engulfs the nation or a community.
People would want to know on which side of the divide is India’s cricket captain Virat Kohli, who spoke in euphoric terms on the Prime Minister’s announcement of demonetisation a couple of years back. What does his former captain, the much celebrated icon of the youth, MS Dhoni, feel about the students who are pouring onto the streets in thousands to voice their protest. Does he support them or does he feel they are being misguided?
Dhoni is his own person, not afraid to wear his nationalism and patriotism on his sleeve, as he did in a World Cup match where he wore the insignia of his paramilitary regiment, much against the rules of ICC. His love for the country and its armed forces was on display even before the World Cup match, when, on his suggestion, Kohli’s men wore hats designed on the army fatigue in an ODI against Australia.
Why is he silent now, many would ask? Or does this love for the country surface only when it is in sync with the government of the day’s policies?
Nothing typifies the timidity of the sporting icons more than India’s most “rebellious” captain and now the BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s petrified reaction to his daughter Sana’s verified instagram post where she wrote in defense of the Citizenship Amendment Bill protestors. Quoting from Khushwant Singh’s The End of India, she wrote: Every fascist regime needs communities and groups it can demonise in order to thrive. It starts with one group or two but it never ends there. A movement built on hate can only sustain itself by continually creating fear and strife.”
She went a step further by writing that “those of us today who feel secure because we are not Muslims or Christians are living in a fool’s paradise. The Sangh is already targeting the Leftist historians and the “westernised” youth.”
Ganguly, who has become the board president with the support of the BJP top brass, was quick to post a tweet which read: “Please keep Sana out of all this issues..this post is not true.. she is too young a girl to know about anything in politics.” By distancing his 18-year-old daughter from the post, Ganguly may have been also signalling to his backers in the board that these are not his views.
One wonders what he thinks of his former colleague Irfan Pathan’s courageous tweet, a rare expression of dissent from a cricketer, which read “Political blame game will go on for ever but I and our country is concerned about the students of #JamiaMilia #JamiaProtest.”
Irfan was not the only cricketer who spoke out; joining him was another colleague of Ganguly, Aakash Chopra, who also voiced his concern over the violence unleashed on students by the police.
These two were rare voices of our sportspersons who chose to speak their mind, while the majority either doesn’t care, are too scared to lose favour with the ruling dispensation, or their silence is a loud endorsement of their support for the state. It is time for fans to realise that a majority of sportspersons speak only from platforms provided by their sponsors.