The statistics were not good. India’s cricketers had just suffered their first defeat by Pakistan in a World Cup game, had taken no wickets and faced elimination from a competition they had been expected to win. What happened next, however, crossed the line from sport into nationalism and religious hatred.
Mohammed Shami, 31, a fast bowler and the only Muslim in the team, faced a torrent of online abuse from Hindu nationalists who accused him of deliberately playing badly to concede 43 runs in 3.5 overs in the T20 World Cup in Dubai late last month. He was a traitor, they said, who should be deported.
The captain, Virat Kohli, who is Hindu, was then pelted with more abuse after leaping to his team-mate’s defence. “Attacking someone over their religion is the most pathetic thing a human being can do,” Kohli said at a press conference in support of Shami. “There is a good reason why we are playing on the field and not some bunch of spineless people on social media that have no courage to actually speak to any individual in person.”
The attacks are the latest in a long line against Muslims in India and their defenders, fuelled by the rise of Hindu nationalism in the BJP party of Narendra Modi, the prime minister.
In another incident related to the same match several Muslims, including a teacher and students and staff of a Kashmiri medical college were sacked, expelled and arrested for allegedly celebrating Pakistan’s victory. Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and a Modi ally, has said that anyone who cheered Pakistan would be charged with sedition.
Advertisement
Cricket has long been a flashpoint for religion and nationalism and Hindu groups are increasingly scrutinising sport and other areas of popular culture for signs of “insensitivity” to their faith. When Aamir Khan, a Muslim actor, urged Indians in an advert not to let off firecrackers at Diwali because of the associated pollution, hardliners said that he had no business telling them how to celebrate. The feeling among Muslims is growing that their every word and deed is being scrutinised by Hindu nationalists.
“This shows a paranoid nationalism wherein you are looking for enemies,” the political scientist Asim Ali told the Financial Times. “Cricket provides the acid test to prove patriotism . . . It’s all about using big events to drive home the message that Muslims’ loyalty is always in question. You cannot trust Muslims to be patriotic.”
“The cultural wars against Muslims are being waged across a wide spectrum, socially, culturally and politically too in the sense of silencing their voices in the public sphere. These attacks are vulgar with no intellectual content at all, just hate,” the author and columnist Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr said.
Political analysts say that Hindu-Muslim polarisation in almost every sphere of life has been normal for some time under the Modi government but it increases before elections. This time it is the election in Uttar Pradesh in February that is obsessing the BJP. A defeat would be a big setback.
The social commentator Santosh Desai said that campaigning had already begun and Hindu groups had started mobilising people on Hindu-Muslim lines. The more the BJP can get Hindus angry and upset over “insults” to their faith or culture, the more it is assured of their vote. “What you will see now is one provocative remark after another coming from BJP ministers or BJP trolls and the purpose is to mobilise Hindus against a common enemy, ie Muslims,” Desai said.
