The strange case of the cold, demand for justice and cricket

 

My train to Delhi was delayed by eleven hours. I had checked the status of the train on the web where it did say that the train had been delayed, but for some reason the tele-service mechanically proclaimed that the train was on time. This was a very real dilemma of who to believe and the kind of loss that would result from choosing one from the other. Finally I did go to the station with my luggage and lunch, and came back to have that lunch at the dining table. This gave me an opportunity to watch,later that evening, Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan - former captains of their national cricket teams - discuss that day's one-day-cricket match in Eden Gardens which India lost.

Sunil Gavaskar made some pertinent observations about the Indian cricket team. He said that the IPL is destroying cricket in general, which Imran Khan agreed to. Indian cricketers are choosing self before the nation in opting to play for the IPL. He explained that test cricket was the foundation for all forms of cricket and a cricketer who did well in test cricket would do well in the shorter forms of the game but this was not true in the reverse case.

Test cricket is a long dawn out affair; some of the qualities that a test cricketer builds from this game and needs to excel in this game are temperament, skill, perseverance, patience. I am sure he would agree that the game also needs the players to build and have stamina, concentration, unflagging team spirit and self motivation besides other things which a non-sportsman like me may not be aware of. What Sunil Gavaskar was indicating is that test cricket is the foundry which toughens the cricketers, enabling them to deal with other forms of the game. By cricketers and cricket management choosing to opt for the shorter and more lucrative forms of the game these sportsmen and administrators are building a team which is hollow in every aspect of the game as they havent gone through the winepress that builds and hones the skills and qualities of a good cricketer.

This philosophy as explained by Sunil Gavaskar can also be used in dealing with the current social problems facing our country. Take for example the case of the outcry for justice for rape victims post the brutal gangrape of a young women in a moving bus on the 16^th of December and her subsequent death. After the youth took to the streets with their demands for justice, stricter punishment which ranged from chemical castration to hanging others – from politicians to film stars followed suit. Jaya Bachan shed tears and the lawyers of Delhi declared that they would not represent the accused.

These demands and gestures are all forms of the IPL mindset that beset Indian cricket which have now come to roost within our society. Why do you think rape cases take so long in court? One reason is that lawyers themselves ask the court for adjournments. Lawyers in our country think of the legal process not as a way to get justice but as a method to ensure that the case does not come to trial and thereby allowing the accused to continue living within society.

What exactly was Jaya Bachan shedding tears about? The way women are treated in tinsel town – ala casting couch or the manner of their depiction in movies through vulgar item songs, lurid lyrics and scripts and the clothes worn?

Why is there a hue and cry by society and youth about police and government insensitivity? Dont these very people complain when they are stopped for minor misdemeanour’s? Dont they jump the line on occasion by asking for favours from powerful contacts? Why do they try to bribe their way through police sanction when they are caught transgressing – traffic rules for example? How do they tolerate young children working in homes of their own families or in families of their peers?

It is easy to paint ourselves out of a picture and put the blame on others. What is happening today to women is not something new. We need to ask some basic questions - why do mothers, and inlaws try to kill her as a foetus, why is she not allowed into religious places? And where are we in this picture? Rape is another form of brutality that the female sex has to endure in Indian society.

The point is that this is another instance of missing the forest for the trees. These demands are for quick solutions that do not question the systemic problems faced by women and our role in perpetuating them and our responsibility of preventing them.

This is much like another debate that is doing the rounds of some news channels – that of the cold and homeless. TV channels display shock and anger as poor outstation patients live on the streets of Delhi in the biting cold as they wait for appointments at India's best and largest hospital. The basic question that they repeatedly ask is why isnt the government and the hospital constructing more shelters? Another pointless question which is trumpeted is 'isnt the government shocked'? These half-baked questions do not resolve the problem and only depict the channel as being concerned.

The point is why do patients have to come to Delhi to be treated? Why are private hospitals not following the court's orders to provide beds and treat the poor? It is not enough to ask the government what they are doing, one should also question why government plans and schemes and court orders are not followed.

It is not enough to demand stronger laws and harsher punishments to stop rapes, nor will problems of the sick coming for treatment be solved by building shelters. What Sunil Gavaskar said about cricket has a lot of substance in the current issues faced by our society. We need to build a temperament that respects laws and each other. We as individuals and society need the skill and patience to prevent crimes from occurring and we need the perseverance to use our institutions in a manner that makes them work and deliver.

Seeking quick fix solutions will not solve the problem as they do not question our role in perpetuating a problem and our responsibility in fixing it. It is not without reason that 'be the change you want to see' and 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country' were words spoken by two people who are beacons for freedom and democracy.