Pakistan’s security czar has advocated a ‘cricket boycott’ against India weeks after ultranationalist Hindu group Shiv Sena disrupted talks between the cricket bosses of the two countries in a Mumbai neighbourhood. Moreover, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has said that Islamabad should not pursue talks with New Delhi until it ‘behaves responsibly’. Dozens of Senaiks had forced their way into the headquarters of the Board of Control for Cricket in India on October 18 and sabotaged scheduled talks between BCCI President Shashank Manohar and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Shahryar Khan on a bilateral cricket series between the two countries. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) wants to host the matches in the UAE, which has been the team’s home venue since 2009 because of security concerns in the homeland. Pakistan has been facing isolation from major Test playing nations since the visiting Sri Lankan team came under terrorist attack in Lahore in 2009. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been reluctant to send its team to the UAE. Rather, it has invited Pakistan to play in India. Amid this imbroglio, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has stopped the PCB from sending the team to India without the government’s permission while Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali has passed scathing remarks against the Indian government. In his personal capacity, he has expressed his disapproval regarding the possibility of the national cricket team’s tour of India. The ongoing tense atmosphere in India is already not favourable for reviving cricketing ties between the rival states. The ultimate sufferers of a rupture in ties are cricket fans. The history of cricket is incomplete without the mentioning of the Ashes between Australia and England and nail-biting contests between India and Pakistan. The fractious relationship with India is a massive impediment to both security in the region and development in both countries. Currently, India is experiencing a swing to the right exemplified by the actions of the Shiv Sena that recently disrupted talks on the resumption of cricketing ties, as well as harassing, often by throwing ink on them, those seeking to promote cross-border literary relations. Maintaining a formal dialogue in this febrile and rapidly changing landscape is difficult at the best of times and impossible today. That said, there are always back-channel communications that still function even in the worst of times and it is these that we look to in order to keep dialogue, however minimal, alive. Indo-Pakistan relations are too important to have the narrative dictated by a small group of extremists — on either side. The Modi government does not seem inclined to rein in the Shiv Sena, with Pakistan seeking a United Nations (UN)-backed international ban on the group. It is unlikely that the UN will declare the Shiv Sena a global terrorist organisation, but within India its agenda of intimidation, division and toxic polarity has now poisoned the trickling waters of conciliation.
pk.shafaqna.com
