Column

Unprovoked violence that has created unrest in several cities across the country over the past few weeks has raised several queries which beg urgent answers. The tag of ‘Talibanisation’, I am afraid, is populist jargon and too sweeping in its verdict.

India is too large and complex a country to come under such an umbrella definition, even if what has transpired in Mangalore last week, Mumbai (the past year), and several other cities at various times in the past few months bear a symptomatic relation with each other — namely intolerance of anything which does not subscribe to a particular group’s worldview.

That fringe political entities like the MNS in Mumbai (Raj Thackeray might disagree, but his party must be termed fringe still because it behaves like one) and the Ram Sene in Mangalore have been in the forefront of such violence might make it seem like political opportunism. With the general elections approaching, this is not entirely unlikely, but I wonder if there is a sub-text to all of this which may lie beyond the realm of politics.

This would require a deeper study by experts, of course, yet there are fundamental measures available to the state which must be taken to prevent expression of intolerance which contravenes the common good and the laws of the land. Beating up pub-going youngsters, or people who have come for jobs to Maharashtra from elsewhere is not just reprehensible and divisive, but also against the law. The excuse trotted out of protecting ‘Indian culture’ is specious. Is such violence then to be construed as an expression of authentic Indian culture?

There will always be serious societal issues that will emerge, especially when a country is on an economic growth spiral. When old institutions and its inbuilt checks and balances crumble, there will be dissonance, but these cannot be allowed to become the basis for unsettling the common good.The problem is that when such incidents go unchecked and unpunished, they embolden other fringe groups to find a cause and join in the mayhem.

The best antidote to preventing violence is deploying the law of the land strictly and promptly so that the lesson is delivered unequivocally. This requires strong political will which, alas, is not always evident.

As the new year warms up for the second edition of the IPL and the third of the ICL — bringing in its wake whopping million-plus dollar deals for key players — I was intrigued to find out how international cricketers and the ICC had responded to the World Series started by Kerry Packer, the man widely believed to have brought large-scale commercialisation into the sport.

A web search threw up an interesting BBC interview conducted in May 2002 with England’s Dennis Amiss wherein he talks on the issue of money, which more than anything else, represents the cathartic change that the sport has undergone. “I think we were on something like £200 per Test match in international matches in the 1970s, but with Packer it went up to £2,000,’’ says Amiss in the interview in response to a question about his pay.

For one whole season, which was less than two months work, he received £15,000, which in those days was considered obscene but considered against the million pounds that somebody like Andrew Flintoff or Kevin Pietersen could possibly earn this year, seems like chicken feed.

What remains constant here is the scepticism amongst some people that so much money would corrupt the players, and thereby the game. But the dynamics of a free market economy make such argument pointless. As Packer told the Australian cricket board in 1976 when he was negotiating for TV rights, “Come on now, we are all harlots. Name your price.’’

That might have resonance beyond the cricket field too, though I suspect the current global recession could queer the pitch for cricketers as much as everybody else.