Here religion & cricket are intertwined

MUMBAI: Along with the multitudes, the colours, the noise and the funny cinema, India has consistently been the subject of one overwhelming stereotype, framed by the orientalist mythology of the West. India is, so we are taught, the most religious country on Earth, home to members of every faith on Earth and birthplace of two of the largest.

The existence here of the ugly side of faith, the violence and intolerance, is begrudgingly accepted, and the Muslim community in India is placed under similar scrutiny to communities elsewhere, but on the whole, the negatives are glazed over.

England has seen a decline in fervour for traditional religion just as its passion for sport has increased; there is much to the idea that for many, one has been replaced, by the other.

India, in the Western eye, throws off the constraints that religion has always placed on Europeans, and clamorous Hindu ceremonies are cited as the reason for the faith’s continuing survival in the compared with dwindling attendance of austere Anglican services. Just as Englishmen have loved the South American footballers who cross themselves before entering the pitch, they love the idea that India mixes cricket and religion as a matter of course.

The first expression of this mixture comes from Mumbai’s streets, where garlanded pictures both of the team and its individual members were plastered and hung. Televised rituals in which priests conferred blessings on the team in the declared hope that they would win the tournament show that there are many who are convinced that the Indian side can rely on more than just their cricketing abilities in the Caribbean.

More proof of the religious nature of cricketing belief in India comes from the reaction since the loss to Bangladesh. The outpouring of emotion, the burning of the very pictures that had been deified the day before all suggests a feeling that certainly goes beyond that which mere sport can create.

Faith is a powerful thing, Empires have risen and fallen on its altar, many have dedicated their lives to it and the majority of the world’s population draw their daily support from it. Mixing it with sport can create scenes that seem on the surface to be overreactions. It can also raise sport into the appropriate celebration of the physical attributes with which humans have been blessed.

More importantly, as is characterised by the headlines that followed the performance against Bermuda, it means the unwavering belief in something of whose existence there is no concrete evidence. There is no need to try and answer the question of whether or not God is surely too busy to worry about sporting results. The important thing is that supporting India can become an exercise in discovering the manner in which religion is most properly practiced.