Cricket lovers all around the world are watching Pakistan play India at Colombo. Just as in the last two years, I have boycotted watching the game, in support of our martyrs and jawans, and I shall continue to do so until the issue of cross-border terror has been resolved to India’s satisfaction. This is from a cricket crazy fan who has watched India play live for fifty years in almost every Test-playing country (barring Pakistan and New Zealand)
Excuse my rant, but I hate the fact that our players play on the cricket maidans, whilst the Pakistani-sponsored terrorists bomb our women, children and Jawans across Kashmir, Punjab, Delhi, Mumbai and various parts of India. As someone who was orphaned as a teenager, losing my entire family to a brutal act of Khalistani terrorism (also trained & bred in Pakistan) I know exactly how these families feel and it rankles.
Whether we want to admit it or not, our Indian government appears impotent in the face of commercial interests of the BCCI and the ICC, whilst Pakistanis dance on the pyres of our martyrs, whether they be the Kashmiris, Pandits, Punjabis, Mumbaikars or innocent children. It is indeed shocking and painful for me to watch this policy inertia, as one who has supported and worked for this party for more than three decades since 1995. Many fellow right-wingers will jump to blindly defend the so-called decisions of the government, but they will do well to remember that criticism is the soul of inner-party democracy, something that we often criticise the Congress Party for not having. It’s time we take a step back and look at ourselves.
India was faced with the ignominy of the Pakistan Prime Minister refusing to play cricket with India at the 11th hour, and the tension took more than a week to resolve, with the ICC sending firefighting teams to Islamabad to repair the situation. Pakistan humiliated India even more by calling the Bangladesh Cricket Board President to decide on the issue, because it was the rejection of a Bangladesh player from the IPL that caused Bangladesh to pull out from the World Cup in India. This was exactly the high moral ground stand that India should have taken, that India would not play with Pakistan, and would forfeit the two points, until Pak eschewed cross-border terrorism, sadly we did not do so, whereas both Pakistan and Bangladesh played to their own National galleries and seemed to claim the high moral ground, in what they both knew, was apparently a losing battle from the start.
The lack of a coherent Indian National policy on whether or not to play Pakistan in various sporting events, or whether to boycott them just as the Arab-Israel boycott or South African Apartheid boycott, or the US Boycott of the Moscow Olympics, or England boycotting games in Zimbabwe, or Australia refusing the play Afghanistan, whether to play Pakistan in the sporting arena, as though nothing was going on at the borders, and yet allow cross border terrorism to continue rampantly, or take the stand once and for all.
Our Prime Minister has often stated that blood and water cannot flow together, and yet we forget the images of the Pahalgam valley, where a young widow sat and watched her husband killed and dying in her arms. Where a young child saw his father being gunned down, after their pants had been pulled down to check if they were circumcised or not. The ignominy of hearing that they were made to recite the “Kalma” to check their religion before they were murdered in cold blood.
That Pahalgam terror attack is still fresh in our memory, and India’s Operation Sindoor was conducted less than 8 months ago, where we levelled 11 targets inside Pakistan. Was that meant to be the end of our action? Did we reset our lives? Then why did our Indian Members of Parliament travel across the globe, talking about the terror attacks and India’s armed action in response to the heinous Pahalgam terror attacks? I was present in Washington, at the National Press Club, when the team of MPs briefed the Press and American policy makers.
During this time until today, we have played Pakistan in two tournaments, in four matches, and it fills me with shame that this was supposed to be the Nationalist government of the NDA, It was pathetic to even hear comparisons that India had beaten Pakistan during Sindoor and on the cricket field during the Asia cup, it was almost belittling the sacrifices of our martyrs and soldiers.
The government has been at a loss for words, other than mouthing platitudes about maintaining the sanctity of global sports, in the hopes of securing the Olympic Bid for Ahmadabad for 2036. It is almost farcical that a Hindu right-wing BJP party that once had a manifesto in 1996 of a blue water navy, of eliminating cross border terrorism, and rehabilitating displaced Kashmiri Pandits – to the 2024 manifesto that vowed to “continue the policy of surgical strikes of 2016 & 2019” and “eliminating cross border terrorism” “to defend Bharat’s citizens at home and abroad from all threats of terrorism”. Yet this government has appeared directionless with respect to Pakistan and would succumb in such a manner to centrist middle-of-the-road options, more like the Congress or a UPA/ National front government would have done in Aman Ki Aasha games.
On the other border we have Bangladesh where we have Hindus being massacred in Dhaka and the surrounding areas, for almost two years now and the heady BJP concepts of Shuchita ; Suraksha ; Swadeshi ; Samajik Samarasata & Shakti, and the eternal promise of protecting Sanatan Dharma and Hinduism around the world, seem to have disappeared like extinct Northern white rhino, with Indians and Hindus being targeted at home and in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Canada, USA and even the UK.
Here’s why I believe that INDIA must NEVER play PAKISTAN until the situation is resolved –
Their terrorists were responsible for
- Mumbai bombs 33 years ago,
- Attacked Parliament 25 years ago,
- Attacked Mumbai trains 20 years ago,
- Attacked the Samjhauta Express 19 years ago,
- Attacked Ahmedabad 18 years ago,
- Attacked Mumbai 18 years ago,
- Attacked Pulwama 7 years ago,
- Attacked Uri 10 years ago,
- Plus, their terrorists from across the border have been responsible for 6,289 bomb blasts across India from 2008 to 2025.
We can’t have our Jawans & citizens dying, and we clap on the cricket fields with them.
The carnival at Colombo will end, and the ICC World Cup will continue, but India and this government will have to formulate a concrete long-term policy vis-à-vis Pakistan to save its credibility and cement their position in history. Either the NDA becomes a Congress party Aman-Ki-Asha or reflects the strong Nationalist DNA of the NDA, Sangh Parivar and the BJP and works towards fulfilling the promise of their founders.
Sanjay Lazar
Sanjay Lazar is an aviation analyst, Lawyer, and author who writes on International relations, Aviation, and law. He has spent 40 years in aviation and lost his entire family in the Air India Kanishka bombing in 1985. He is @sjlazars on @x.
