Cricket Diplomacy India-pakistan
Adam Makin
India and Pakistan are two cricket crazy nations and whenever these two teams clash with each other, it creates a very unique aura both inside and outside the stadium where the match is being played. The cricket competitions between the two countries are loaded with deeper political and diplomatic meaning.
The first India-Pakistan cricket series was played in 1954, when the Pakistani team toured India. Later, thousands of Indian fans were granted visas to go to Lahore when the Indian team went to Pakistan for the first time to play a test series. The Pakistanis did the same when their team toured India again in 1961.
This is what made cricket diplomacy between these two countries very special. The people who were directly or indirectly involved in India-Pakistan foreign policy had one thing in common: their passion for cricket. Though people on both sides were very much against each other, still the fans from both sides went into stadiums and sat together for the whole day to enjoy the match.
Kashmir, due to the prevailing anti-India sentiments in the insurgency era, saw itself aligned toward Pakistan. This led Kashmiris to support the Pakistani team whenever a cricket match happened. Media reports in Greater Kashmir and other Kashmir dailies reported that people distributed sweets and burned crackers whenever India lost and they prayed for Pakistan to win.
These activities were seen as anti-national sentiment by the Indian armed forces, which had been granted special powers under the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) by then. The problem persists today; in 2014 a few Kashmiri students were expelled from a private university in Uttar Pradesh when they were found to be supporting Pakistan in an Asia Cup match against India. The incident spurred a huge debate in the media.
During this period, India went to Pakistan for a three-match ODI series, made possible by the resumption of high level talks between the two countries. Yet cricket between the two nations continued to become more and more tense. In three World Cups where India defeated Pakistan (in 1992, 1996, and 1999), political statements made by both sides using cricketing terminology created controversies.
When Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York in September 1998, it was decided that foreign secretary-level talks would be held between India and Pakistan, and a direct bus service between Lahore and Delhi was proposed. These talks led to the Pakistan cricket team touring India for a two-match test series in January and February of 1999. These two teams were seeing each other in a test series after a long gap of 10 years.
Crowds swelled at the historic Chepauk and Feroz Shah Kotla stadium. Because the two countries were seemingly coming together politically at the time, the crowd displayed immense respect for the Pakistani team, giving them a standing ovation when they defeated India. This was an unprecedented and historic sight appreciated by people on both sides of the border.
Earlier, in January 1999, India had also agreed to allow its cricket team to participate in the first Asian test championship, which was scheduled to be played in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh to promote goodwill among the South Asian neighbors. Interestingly, the Pakistani team was in India when Vajpayee went to Pakistan.
After the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight in December 1999, India cancelled its proposed tour to Pakistan and withdrew from the second Asian Test Championship. BCCI pulled out from the tournament just a week before the championship started, after Vajpayee and his ministers met with BCCI and asked them to cut-off any cricketing ties with Pakistan.
In 2004, Vajpayee again went to Pakistan to attend the SAARC summit, which was very successful in bringing the two countries together after a long time. To boost the new-born friendship, the Indian government gave the green light to a full-fledged Indian team cricket tour of Pakistan, comprising of three tests and five ODIs. Thousands of visas were given to people to cross the border to see the match.
Before the Indian cricket team left for Pakistan, they were invited to meet Vajpayee at his residence, where he asked the cricketers to not only win the matches, but also win the hearts of Pakistani public.
The Indian team was given a grand welcome in Pakistan and wherever they went to play, the crowds gave them huge support. It was a new experience for both the Indian cricketers and the Pakistani public. New friendships were forged between the Indian spectators and Pakistani public during the series. Over the next three years, the two countries played each other three times, once more in Pakistan in 2006, and twice in India in 2005 and 2007. Pakistani spectators were given the same heart-warming reception when they came to India to watch the matches.
However, in March 2007, terrorists attacked Sri Lankan cricketers while they were on the team bus, ready to play a test match against Pakistan in Lahore. Some of the Sri Lankan players were injured and they had to be airlifted from the stadium. From then on, the International Cricket Council suspended Pakistan from hosting international matches.
The 2004-2008 years, until 26/11 attacks, were a golden period for India-Pakistan cricket and their political relationship in general. Musharraf later mentioned this in an interview with CNN-IBN news channel.
Cricket diplomacy again emerged when then-Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, met each other for the World Cup 2011 semi-final clash between India and Pakistan. Gilani invited Singh to visit Pakistan. Peace talks started again and Pakistan toured India in December 2012 for a T20 and three ODIs.
More recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was said to be indulging in cricket diplomacy when he called Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif before the India-Pakistan clash at the 2015 World Cup. This move by the Indian prime minster sparked off a debate in Indian media over the intentions of the Modi government.
Cricket diplomacy has thus long been used as a tool to bring the public in both India and Pakistan closer to each other through sport. For nearly 70 years, the scheduling (or cancelling) of matches has served as a signal of the state of political relations.
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