Make sport, not war

India and Pakistan need more handshakes like this © Getty Images

It is an amazing act. ARY Digital, the television-rights holders of the forthcoming series between India and Pakistan, have decided to call the series the LoC Series. As their press release tells us, "... this is not Line of Control, but ARY's and, in fact, your very own, Lions of Cricket Series". This is a monstrous mistake, and hideously insensitive.

The Line of Control, or the LoC as it is called in India, is at the centre of all the nationalistic emotion between India and Pakistan. It is the thin line that separates the part of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan and the part controlled by India. It evokes immense emotion in both countries. By calling the Test series the LoC Series, politics - and militant nationalism - has been brought into the forefront of the game. This is a retrogressive step, and can only hurt both cricket and relations between the two countries.

There is a duality to sport. On the one hand, it can act as a metaphor for war, and inflame feelings and incite hatred. On the other, it can bring people together. Matches between India and Pakistan have always been played with a fervour close to war. The teams of both countries ground out draw after draw in their early Test series, afraid that they would be crucified by their countrymen if they lost. The homes of some Pakistan players - notably their great hero, Wasim Akram - were attacked after they lost to India in the 1996 World Cup. Cricket is a surrogate for national identity in both countries, and a Test or a one-day international between the two can often seem a matter of life and death.

But sport can also mend divisions and heal wounds. Indians and Pakistanis are so against each others' countries because they have been indoctrinated that way from an early age. The people of both countries have been demonised by the other. One of the great mysteries of the 20th century is how so many ordinary people stood by while millions, in places such as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Communist China, were brutally massacred. How could their humanity be suppressed in such a way? The most credible answer is that they stood by because the people on whom atrocities were committed were dehumanised - stripped of their personhood, as it were. One did not feel sorry for them because, in one's eyes, they were no longer humans, that status had been stripped from them. (In Hitler's Germany, herding the Jews into ghettoes, and making them wear the Star of David for identification, was just such a method of dehumanising them.)

Why this is relevant is that the people of India and Pakistan, after decades of nationalistic propaganda and mutual mistrust, have been dehumanised too, as far as each other's countries are concerned. This is why intellectuals in both countries stress the importance of people-to-people contact, so that the other can be seen as human again, and one can feel empathy with them. And sport - in this case, cricket - fulfils just this function. It brings out, through the exhibition of cricket skills and the emotions shared by players from both teams, an appreciation of the other side. Remember the spontaneous applause that the crowds at Chennai lavished upon the Pakistan team when they won the Test there in 1999? If only we could have more of that, sport would be less a metaphor for war and more a vehicle of peace.

Sadly, by calling it the LoC Series, ARY Digital is emphasising the disharmony, the mutual hatred, the antagonism. Whipping up nationalistic fervour will certainly boost TV viewership, and revenues, but those are already likely to be high anyway. A much more apt title would have been something focussing on friendship and reconciliation. For example, the railway line opened between the two countries is called the Samjhauta Express - Samjhauta means Understanding, or Agreement. That is exactly the right tone to strike.

We hope good sense prevails. This is too important an issue to be left to jingoism, and ARY Digital should rethink their branding of this important series.

Amit Varma is managing editor of Wisden Cricinfo in India.