From Mohali to Eden Gardens: A brief look at India's cricket diplomacy
Play is now underway at the iconic Eden Gardens venue as India take on Bangladesh in its maiden day-night Test cricket match. The match is notable for the number of political luminaries and celebrities gracing the occasion, with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also in attendance. Indeed, cricket has long become a staple soft power tool to repair and re-enforce bilateral relations between countries, especially amongst South Asian nations.
India has attempted to use cricket to thaw its frosty relationship with Pakistan on numerous occasions, and sometimes at extremely tense moments. The cricketing rivalry between the two nations goes as far back as Partition itself. The first-ever series played between the two nations took place in 1954 with the Pakistan team invited to the Indian sub-continent. This was followed by another series hosted in Lahore, that saw many Indian fans granted visas into Pakistan expeditiously, to watch the tournament. However, the wars of 1965 and 1971 removed any opportunity to engender any political goodwill between the two nations for 17 long years, until 1978.
The renewed dialogue between Pakistan and India was instigated by two governments that were not in power when the wars took place – the Janata Party government under Morarji Desai and the General Zia-ul-Haq-led Pakistani government. Unfortunately, on this occasion, the move failed - with India alleging that Pakistan’s victory was due to biased umpiring, and some cricketers themselves transforming the narrative into an all too often heard Hindu-Muslim one.
However, at other moments cricket diplomacy or as former Pakistani President General Zia-ul-Haq called it, “Cricket for peace initiatives” have had some success. During the dark period of the 90s when relations between Pakistan and India seemed to be dipping towards the nadir, cricket seemed to be the only common passion between the two nations. Some contend that this was when cricket diplomacy was truly born with peacekeepers recognising the value of the sport in harmonising conflicting narratives, even if only to provide temporary respite.
Following a tense period after the 26/11 attack, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also leapt at the chance to resume peaceful dialogue, inviting both, then Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and then Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, to the World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan set to take place in Mohali. However, it appears that Indo-Pakistan relations are cyclical, and the fact that the two nations last participated in a bilateral series all the way back in December 2012, displays how cricket can also form the basis of a power play strategy, acting as a political wedge. Over nearly a decade now, India has adopted a hard-nosed stance, insisting that no sport will be played bilaterally until Pakistan takes action against terrorist agents that have long threatened the geo-political stability of the region.
Yet, India’s cricket diplomacy isn’t exclusive to Pakistan. India has had phenomenal success in using the game to carve out a warm relationship with Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion of 1979 left Afghanistan in a brutalised state for several decades. With large swathes of its populace spilling over the border into Pakistan, cricket became the most popular sport at Afghan refugee camps.
It has taken Afghanistan years to put a formal framework into place but the team was awarded full status by the ICC in 2017. 2018 saw the first Test series take place between the two nations, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani making individual statements to mark the occasion. Since then India has responded to Afghanistan’s request for access to one of its stadiums, by permitting the Afghan team to use the Greater Noida stadium, as well as other facilities in Uttarakhand and Dehradun.
As such, while cricket is in no way a panacea to the deep-rooted disagreements India may have with its neighbours when used effectively, it can work uniquely to sustain or build robust bilateral relations.
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