Round The
World
New Delhi, 5 November
2021
Cricket & Nationalism
INDIA’S TEBBIT TEST
By Dr D. K. Giri
Prof. International Politics, JIMMC
The loss of the cricket
match by the Indian National team to Pakistan in the T20 World Cup has once
again stirred the hornet’s nest about nationalism -- loyalty to one’s own
country, national spirit and so on. In addition to small clashes between
students, the law-and-order machinery swung into action to book students
allegedly cheering for the Pakistani team and some other Muslims celebrating
their victory in the social media. The charges framed were quite a few under
the Indian Penal Code. It is high time we take a fresh look at the concept of
nationalism from all dimensions, not just legal as it is being viewed now.
On October 24, India
lost by 10 wickets to Pakistan. Cricket loving Indian nation was disappointed,
but for right-wing nationalists, hell broke loose. The salt to the injury was
added by those cheering for Pakistan. A few Kashmiri students in Raja Balwant
Singh College, Agra allegedly were bucking up our arch-rivals the Pakistanis.
However, preliminary enquiries by the college Administration have found that
the students did not raise slogans, they made social media posts.
In Udaipur, Rajasthan,
Nafeesha Attari, a private school teacher made a social post, “we won” along
with the picture of the Pakistan Cricket team. When confronted by colleagues,
she confirmed that she supported the Pakistan team, although qualified it by saying
it was done in a lighter vein. However, she was booked under section 153B of
the Indian Penal Code and has been sacked from her job. The IPC section invoked
here refers to “assertions prejudicial intent to national integration”. Rajasthan is not a BJP-ruled state.
In Srinagar, cases
have been filed against students and staff of two medical colleges for
celebrating Pakistan’s victory. They have been booked under Section 13 of the
Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), an anti-terror law. Safiya Majeed, a
technician from one of these two colleges, was fired for a social media post celebrating
Pak victory. She was accused of being disloyal to the nation. In the Samba
district of Jammu and Kashmir, six people were hauled up for raising
pro-Pakistan slogan following the match.
In all, in States of
Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and J&K, 14 people have been booked. In UP, seven
students have cases, five are arrested, three of them are Kashmiri students.
They have also been suspended from their college; only one has been slapped
with sedition charges. The charges made against all of them include; Section
153A- promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds: Section
504- intention to breach public peace; 505(1) (b)- the
intent to cause fear or alarm among the public or the inducement to commit an
offence against the state; 506- criminal intimidation; 507-
criminal intimidation by anonymous communication.
Section 66F of Information Technology Act, which covers
“cyber terrorism” – an offence that could lead to a life sentence.
Of all these, the
UAPA is perhaps the harshest in this case, as it is purely an anti-terror law
which refers to “disrupting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India”
and “supporting cessation of part of the territory of India”. And similar, the
older version of pre-independence period enacted way back in 1860 is the
controversial sedition law which reads, “whoever, by words, spoken or written,
or by signs, or by visible representation … Excites disaffection towards the
government established by law in India shall punished with life imprisonment…”.
These charges were perhaps
abetted by a tweet from no less a person as the UP Chief Minister Adityanath
Yogi who suggested that “sedition charges could be made against those
supporting Pakistan cricket team. Bizarre was the video released by a
controversial BJP leader from Jammu with assertions like “those supporting
Pakistan should be beaten up and skinned and their citizenship be cancelled”.
As expected, there
have been equally strong reactions and protests from political leaders, civil
rights activists and others. To cite a few, Mehbooba Mufti has rather sarcastically
raised the point that in India, the mother of democracies-- how can you charge student
with sedition for merelycheering the winning team. The National Conference has
protested the arrests, and has taken out demonstrations in Srinagar demanding
revocation of the charges and release of detainees etc. The placards they
carried read, “Roll back FIRs against students”, “Release Kashmiri students”
and so on.
Ana Tanwirm, the
Founder of Indian Civil Liberties Union, has claimed, I do not know any law
under which supporting another team is prohibited”; he added, “It is not like supporting
any country in a war”. Lubhyathi Rangarajan, a lawyer and researcher
who has done extensive research on sedition and its misuse in India asserted,
“For sedition, there has to be an incitement to violence and a threat to
destabilising the government. Celebrating the victory of a country you might
not like is no reason to charge people for sedition.” He further claimed that,
“There is no law under which you can file cases against people for celebrating
the match victory. These charges are not going to hold in court.”
The legal approach
obviously does not hold water, so charges against the 14 people should be
dropped, unless they have caused violence or disharmony. Let us look at the
concept of national spirit. Even in Britain, the seat of oldest democracy in
the world, Norman Tebbit, the Chairman of Conservative Party, had argued that
the immigrants from South Asia and Afro-Caribbean regions supporting cricket
teams from the countries of their origin were showing disloyalty to the country
they were living in and earned their livelihoods. In April 1990, he formulated the Tebbit Test
which asked the immigrants whom they rooted for in a cricket match. Of course,
majority of Britons did not endorse it. Even the immigrants were happy to ‘fail
the Tebbit Test.’
However, nationalism
should have different connotation in India. We must redefine it. As such
nationalism is a cultural concept, unlike patriotism, it refers to people,
their culture, their community-ness and so on. In a multicultural country,
people have to be sensitive to other’s culture, religions and ways of life etc.
The second aspect of nationalism is the pride for the country. And that is
manifested in certain national icons-- cricket is one of them for India. The
Queen, the BBC and Chatham House in the United Kingdom are British icons and heritages.
No one should try to offend them. Cricket should not be seen as a game only; it
is our national pride.
Therefore, even if it
is not legally wrong, people should stop cheering for Pakistan as it is not
just cricket, there are a lot of emotions associated with Pakistan. To top it
all, Indians could not reconcile emotionally to Pakistan unless they stop
causing bloodshed in India through cross-border terrorism.
There is another
aspect of the dictum, “legal is not moral, nor democratic”. That is, Parliament
is passing laws on the basis of the majority principle in the House. But
moralism and democracy would require inclusivity of minorities of any size or
kind, not just religious. If we are not sensitive to the principle of
inclusiveness, we might trample upon human rights of an individual or a group.
Hence, cheering for Pakistan cricket is not moral, nor inclusive, it is being
exclusive. I rest my case. ---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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