Across its six columns on page one last Wednesday, The Indian Express screamed: “For ‘cheering’ Pakistan in India Match, University in Meerut suspends 67 Kashmiri students.”
Indian bowlers had choked Pakistan, until legendary hitter, Shahid Afridi, walked to the middle. A sensational spree of sixes turned the game around. Pakistan won. India was stunned.
Students in Meerut’s Swami Vivekananda Subharti University were watching the match on TV in the hostel’s community hall. There happen to be 68 Kashmiri Muslim students on the premises who cheered Pakistani victory. This was resented by other students. A scuffle led to a brawl.
The authorities suspended the students. The police charged them with sedition but later withdrew the charge.
GS Bansal, the warden of the hostel, told the Indian Express that the Kashmiri students had been punished for being “anti-national”. The Vice Chancellor, Manzoor Ahmad, went a step further. He had the students driven to Ghaziabad from where they improvised their way back to Srinagar.
“By this one act, have you not sent these students straight into the arms of the gun wielding militants?” asked a Kashmiri teacher in New Delhi.
[quote]Kashmir valley celebrated Afridi’s incredible innings with fireworks[/quote]
On his Super Primetime show on Thursday night, Arnab Goswami, the country’s most vocal anchor, took advantage of the incident to draw some red lines on patriotism. “This was not an ordinary cricket match”, he said. It was not a match with Bangladesh, Maldives or England – it was a match against Pakistan, a match that Pakistan won. “To cheer Pakistan against India will not be tolerated”, he warned.
Everyone missed out on a huge irony. While Arnab Goswami was drilling patriotism into the 67 Kashmiri students with misplaced loyalties, the Kashmir valley had celebrated Afridi’s incredible innings with real fireworks from Poonch, Rajauri right uptoKargil.
Stories of media jingoism and cricket have hazily surfaced in my memory.
US invasion of Afghanistan brought in its train a most impressive galaxy of anchors and reporters. One who will remain etched in my mind was Geraldo Rivera of Fox News. He would flourish his revolver on live telecast. He said he would shoot dead Osama bin Laden, should he ever find him. Is Indian television in the process of surpassing that level of jingoism?
Just as patriotic Indians are cross with Kashmiris clapping for the wrong cricket team, so was Norman Tebbit, leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, angry with immigrants. In 1990, he enunciated what came to be known as the “Tebbit Test” to gauge the loyalties of immigrants settled in England. It was a simple test: do immigrants applaud the cricket team of their adopted home, namely England? Or do they persist in supporting the team from countries they have left behind – India, Pakistan, West Indies? I remember how the British press lambasted Tebbit. I have not seen Indian scribes sufficiently moved to write an editorial or two.
By a freak chance, the Meerut story has attracted instant media attention. But this one exposure must not be allowed to obscure the hundreds of thousands of seditious thoughts that simmer in the hearts of so many in the valley.
Ghalib said:
“Na karda gunahon ki bhi hasrat ki miley daad,
Ya rab agar in karda gunahon ki sazaa hai”
(Applaud me, Oh God, for nursing in my heart a desire for hundreds of sins,
If there is to be punishment let it be only for the ones I have committed)
My first Kashmiri story with a cricketing background concerns Feroz. Srinagar was in the grip of one of its routine bouts of tension. I was visiting a family of journalists. Feroz, their son, was eight years old, very bright and a compulsive talker, mostly on cricket. The best way to attract his attention, I decided, was to talk of cricket.
“Do you like Imran Khan?” I asked him. I thought this would give him a chance to keep up his cricket prattle, but he surprised me. “No” he said sharply. He walked out, past the courtyard, his head bowed, like he were in a sulk.
“You asked him the wrong question”, his mother whispered to me. “That is a very sore point with him.” Tears filled her eyes as she told me the story.
The CRPF, in the course of its house to house searches, had found Imran Khan and Wasim Akram posters in several houses. They took aside young admirers of these cricketers and asked them leading questions about visitors to their homes, uncles with “guns”, and such like scary stuff. Posters of Pakistani cricketers in Kashmiri homes were in the perception of CRPF, clues to homes of Pakistan sympathizers.
Word spread rapidly on the network of cricket crazy toddlers that it was dangerous to have Imran and Wasim posters on the premises.
With a heavy heart, Feroz brought his scrap book to his mother and diligently pulled out all the Pakistani photographs, (he did not touch Indian and West Indian cricketers) and handed them over to his mother. He asked her to tear the pictures and turned his face away. He did not wish to see his Gods defiled.
Here is another cricket story from Kashmir
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/standpoint-why-i-hate-cricket-1968754
Tebbit test and this is not directly comparable…
– Muslims in modern India are not immigrants
– No war(s) between UK and various immigrant nations. UK if anything is the party in the wrong (colonialism)
– Immigrant’s countries have not sponsored insurgencies in UK
– Immigrant nations do not covet UK territory
I personally don’t care whether Kashmiris support Pakistan or whoever else. If it makes them feel they are making clear who’s side they are on – fine – doesn’t change ground realities.
But please don’t try and compare it with immigrants behaviors in UK/US etc. Doesn’t hold up.
For what its worth – IK is the best allrounder ever…period. WA is the best left arm pacer ever…period and what an inspiration to have fought diabetes like he has.
Mr Naqvi says the Indian media did not criticize this episode. Typical of Mr Naqvi to speak lies. Almost all major papers, dozens of then, wrote articles and editorial condemning the incident.
Immature imposed patriotism . there is nothing wrong in appreciating a good sportsmen . when we watch Wimbledon tennis matches, we clap and appreciate unknown players playing for their country. we do the same for Olympic competitions.
But when it happens in a student environment, it may be problematic . students are emotional and boisterous . The kashmiri students should also have used their wisdom and avoided such confrontation. But it was not a planned event .
university action is not acceptable. too much for too little. must say sorry
Mr Naqvi says the Indian media did not criticize this episode. Typical of Mr Naqvi to speak lies. Almost all major papers, dozens of them, wrote articles and editorial condemning the incident. Mr Naqvi specializes in digging half-truths to condemn India week after week.
The kashmiri students were not jubilating pak cricket victory.
They were jubilating the killing of baloch by pak army, the attack on Malala, the killing of anti-polio workers, the killing of Salman Taseer, the burning of girls’ schools and so on.
We only have to get at the real interpretation of the event.
The best punishment to Kashmiti students will be to send them to actually live in Pakistan. Where they will dread for their dear lives if they are Shias, Sunnis, Barelvis, Deobandis, Ahmedis, Baluchis etc. and zillion other denominations. If they do not belong to the sect of the person questioning them they will be taught a lesson of their life time. People do not appreciate the blessings they have until they see the alternative. It is said more tears are shed for the answered prayers ! Let them live in Pakistan.
Think, if in the streets of Karachi, Baloch students openly supported any Indian victory over Pakistan in a cricket match.
in my humble opinion over reaction from both sides shall lead us nowhere,rather it will complicate the matters further. ,kashmiries have genuine grievances against indian government,of broken promises,time and again murder of democracy in kashmir,blatant human rights violation,erosion of internal autonomy etc.etc.but pakistan is no way an answer.let them put their own house in order.The offer to kashmiri students for admission in pakistan is a big joke and an act of shameless politicking.if they were sincere towards kashmiris,thousand of kashmiries from Pak controled kashmir would not have been wandering in foreign countries for employment. Islamabad’s cold and stone faced response towards Baharies of Bangla Desh is a well known bitter truth.Furthermore what is the stutus of those who crossed the socalled LOC and latter on shunned the gun culture.
There is fault in our reasoning. We have suppressed Kashmiris for decades and then expect them to say “Jai Hind”. Yes, Pakistan has taken advantage of the problems created by successive Indian governments in Kashmir. But thats is what adversaries do. We too took advantage with Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan. You don’t have Tamilians or Rajasthani’s supporting Pakistan because they have a place in India’s political system. Try sending the army to arrest a Punjabi or a Keralite and all hell will break loose. We need to start treating Kashmiris like normal Indians. Get the Army and Para-military forces out of Kashmiri towns and post them along the LoC, get a huge budget for infrastructure development, ensure jobs for Kashmiris and have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in place. Those who have killed innocents must be punished. This is India…the world largest democracy. We cannot have 2 laws…one for Kashmir and the other for the rest of India. When we have done all of the above, then proudly say that the integrity of India is non-negotiable.
Dear Moderator, Please publish my comments.
Does Mr Naqvi and others who have lapped up this issue know that a case of treason was registered against two Jammu Kashmir National Awami Party (JKNAP) leaders at the Dadyal police station for celebrating India’s victory against Pakistan at Mohali in 2011 World Cup ? The vice president JKNAP, Khawaja Naeem, and the district president JKNAP, Mirpur chapter, Imran Shehzad, were accused of celebrating India’s over Pakistan during the World Cup semi-finals played in the Indian city of Mohali back in 2011. The case has not yet been dismissed.
Indian media never exploited it and Pakistan media, of course, was mourning as well.
So why criticize India ?