Cricket For Peace

The England cricket team has finally returned to India after the Mumbai attacks.  Whilst I understand why they left India, it did somewaht feel like they were happy to get out of the country that had just thrashed them 5-0.  I can relate to their concerns about returning too, as much as I hate to admit it.  Even I, a seasoned India traveller, at one point wondered about cancelling my trip.  I think it was when I heard the (incorrect) stories about people being shot at Delhi airport that my fear kicked in.

Anyway I have returned.  Just a few hours before the English cricketers as it turns out.  And I hope that this two match series proves that terrorism can’t stop cricket – not that that was the terrorists’ aim.

Stories that the terrorists in Mumbai were ‘targetting’ Brits and Americans’ seem total nonsense to me.  If they were, then they failed miserably since only 22 tourists were killed out of about 180.  It surprises me how few commentators  have failed to point this out.

It has been announced that the England team will donate half their match fees (totally about 35K GBP) to the Mumbai victims which seems like a generous thing to do.  And after my initial cynicism about whether the series would go ahead, I’m glad that the whole team has come back and is willing to show some sort of sympathy with India.  Let’s face it, we’ve been victims of terrorist attacks too.

The thing that really saddens me is the way that India and Pakistan are behaving over this tragedy.  India pointed the finger at Pakistan within hours of the attacks happening.  Its no surprise of course, especially as the Congress government has been heavily criticised for being ’soft’ on terror and with a general election only months away.  However it saddens me that the first thing the government does is point the finger at its’ old enemy.

And Pakistan has not come out of this brilliantly either.  Whilst they have made some attempts to crackdown on the supposed  culprits – Sunday’s attack on the Lashkar-e-Toiba camp on Pakistani Kashmir was an example of this, they are refusing to hand over those caught.   Now I understand that from their point of view, they haven’t seen the evidence, but a gesture of goodwill would have been to hand over the LeT chief.  Of course Pakistan is blamed every time there is an attack in India, even when the true  culprits turn out to be Indian  (for example the bombing of the Samjhauta express – Pakistan was blamed as soon as it happened but it turns out now that the perpatrators were most likely Hindu extremists.  The Indian army lieutenant colonel who’s been caught after bombing Jalgoan (I think) was apparently involved in the Friendship Express bombing).  So I can see why Pakistan is reticent.  But for the sake of the peace process, giving India the head of the LeT would have gone a long way.

Sadly this ratcheting up of tensions between the two neighbours bodes badly for the forthcoming India-Pakistan series.  I’ve been told that even if the Indian government doesn’t prevent the series, the India players have sent a strongly worded letter to the PM saying that they don’t want to go because of Pakistan’s ‘involvement’ with the Mumbai attacks, and because of the Pakistan teams’ dishonesty – drug charges, Shahid Afridi apparently lying about his age  etc etc.

For me, this seems tragic, not least because the Pakistani people haven’t seen Test cricket in their country for such a long time.  Also, as I have said so many times before, India and Pakistan need  people-to-people contact more than ever after the war of words between government.

Let’s hope that since England have returned to play cricket in a country that ’some have described as a war zone’ (copyright Steve Harmison (idiot!) in the Daily Mail).  Other teams will have the courage to tour Pakistan.

I just hope that cricket in South Asia can continue despite the bombs and war of words.