Author: Pramod Navalkar
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: February 10, 2003
URL: http://www.mid-day.com/columns/pramod_navalkar/2003/february/44341.htm
Introduction: Pramod Navalkar is
disgusted to find cricket being given casteist overtones
Our country should not fear Pakistan,
Bangladesh and China. We are quite a powerful nation and no one dare touch
us.
However, we face an imminent threat
from casteism. We just have so many of castes that we don't stand united.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru aggravated
the problem by creating states on the basis of languages. A further division
was created by offering extraordinary sops to backward castes.
When Sushilkumar Shinde became the
chief minister of Maharashtra, all newspapers screamed that a Dalit had
got the top post.
If we continue to hold such a myopic
view delivered by the lens of caste, it won't be long before we witness
another Partition.
One thought the situation would
improve in the 21st century; instead, but the casteism is flourishing.
No one wants to see how it's damaging our nation.
Our politics is solely based on
casteism. There is no other 'ism' or ideology that guides our parties.
When Shinde was declared chief
minister, Shalini Patil said she wanted a Maratha chief minister.
I thought this poison is limited
to politics. But after reading an article in a leading English magazine,
I realise it has penetrated deep in our roots.
The writer, in his article in a
World Cup special issue, discusses the castes of our players.
He claims Brahmins have dominated
Indian cricket in last 30-35 years and they keep others away.
He offers statistics to prove his
claim and points that there were seven Brahmins in the '70s team, five
in 1983 team, eight in 1997, eight again in 2000, four in 2002 and six
in the current World Cup team.
He has made some outrageous remarks
in the article, insisting that Brahmins prefer cricket - no football or
hockey for them - because the latter two are contact games and Brahmins
don't like others touching them.
He also claims that in cricket,
one need not have a strong physique.
He says that Brahmins dominated
this game as it was purely urban and he mentions Ganguly and Tendulkar
as examples.
He says that no Dalit cricketer
could play in the 20th century except Balu Palwankar and he, too, couldn't
play Test cricket.
He further claims that other castes,
including the Sikhs, the Jats, the backward castes are forced to play hockey
and football.
These comments are not only outrageous,
they are objectionable. So far, our sports have never witnessed such casteist
mindset. Our cricket administrators were accused of everything but this.
There have been allegations that
there is a regional bias and that there is a monopoly of certain people.
But this article goes beyond that and speaks of castes of the players.
If we allow this poison to spread,
we may have to select all our sportsmen on the basis of their castes, and
not on merit.
The government must take action,
or else we will have controversy over the castes in space-age, too.
