Thirty-one test matches played for India. Highest runs scored in the Ranji Trophy — more than 12,000 — Duleep Trophy and Irani Cup. Batting coach for Kings XI Punjab. Batting coach for the Bangladesh cricket team. His brother, Kalim, is a cricket coach in Mumbai. His nephew, Armaan, played for India in the under-19 team during the 2016 World Cup. His niece, Fatima, also played for Mumbai and India ‘A’. But all Wasim Jaffer’s life and career has boiled down to in 2021 is his religious identity — a Muslim. That’s where his identity starts and finishes now.
If you thought cricket and the armed forces are the two institutions untouched by religion, you might just be in for a rude shock. In the words of Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, cricket has now been marred by hate.
Smearing a cricketer
Wasim Jaffer has been accused of choosing players for the Uttarakhand Team, which he headed till some time ago as a coach, based on religion. Jaffer resigned as coach because he was not being allowed to make the decisions he wanted on player selection and was accused of bias. But the Uttarakhand team manager Navneet Mishra has accused Jaffer of communalising the environment and choosing Muslim players. The player who actually called the Maulvi to conduct the Friday prayers, Iqbal Abdulla, told The Indian Express that it was not Jaffer but Navneet Mishra, the team manager himself, who had allowed the Maulvi to come. Other false allegations like not allowing team players to say “Ram bhakt Hanuman ki jai” have also cropped up. Team players would usually say “Rani Mata Sacche Darbar Ki Jay”, but Wasim Jaffer, as the coach, had suggested they say something for their state like ‘Go Uttarakhand’ because that’s what the players represented.
But all of this seems pointless to discuss because how does one ascertain intentions? Which is why criminals can pass off as ‘deshbhakts’ (patriots), and journalists, activists can be labelled ‘anti-nationals’. As it stands today, Wasim Jaffer has been smeared with the ‘communal’ tag.
In a country where a Hindu monk can be accepted as a chief minister, a government can construct a Ram Mandir, the prime minister can sit in its bhumi pujan, and the president can donate for its construction, cricketers offering their Friday prayers becomes ‘communal’.
The cherry on the cake in these petty accusations is that Jaffer was unhappy about the selector choosing players without his advice. The chief selector himself is a Muslim man named Rizwan Shamshad who was accused by Jaffer of not involving him in selection matters. Jaffer wanted Dikshanshu Negi to be the captain of the Uttarakhand team because he was a local cricketer.
Also read: Charges of communal bias a cover-up, I have played my cricket with dignity — Wasim Jaffer
India together?
In this bizarre scenario of what best can be described as petty internal politics in the Cricket Association of Uttarakhand (CAU), communalism has been easily used to taint a person’s integrity. Why? Because the state of affairs right now is so sad that it actually works. The world of cricket is discussing this in whispers, but only a few have spoken up for Wasim Jaffer like Anil Kumble, Manoj Tiwary, Dodda Ganesh, Irfan Pathan, and Mohammad Kaif.
If things were to be only looked at from the parochial lens of communalism, then would Virat Koli not picking Mohammed Shami for the 2019 World Cup semi-final between India and New Zealand be seen as communal bias? Many thought so, but then many also think the Earth is flat. Is Jaffer accused of selecting players with a communal bias just because he is a Muslim, while Virat Kohli dropping a Muslim player is not seen as communal because he is a Hindu? If people start seeing sports for the ‘name’ and ‘identity’ of players instead of their talent, then we’re headed towards a bunch of fanatics taking over our teams.
While he used to be on pitch, it was a tough job for bowlers across teams to get Jaffer out. But in India of today, all it took was a communal spin to send the former Mumbai batsman ‘packing’. The former opener had made his domestic debut in the mid-90s—in an India that was starkly different from today.
What’s sad is that when prominent players like Sachin Tendulkar — who was once Jaffer’s colleague — can speak up against foreign celebrities’ ‘Foreign Destructive Ideology’, they don’t bat an eyelid over the destructive ideology peddled within their own fraternity in their own country.
Also read: Wasim Jaffer, all-time top run-scorer in domestic cricket & former India opener, retires
What’s in a name
It is no coincidence, however, that the loser almost always ends up being from the minority community. Take Danish Kaneria from the Pakistan cricket team, for example. It was only after Shoaib Akhtar pointed out that he was discriminated against in the Pakistan cricket team for being a Hindu and that he was only the second Hindu player who had played for the country that Danish could open up and say that he always felt discriminated against. Dan Christian, Australia’s all-rounder and a member of the Wiradjuri tribe, has also called out the racism and abuse he has experienced while playing for his country.
In early 2019, a few Muslim boys playing cricket in Gurgaon’s Dhamaspur village were told to go “play in Pakistan” and attacked by Gujjar men who objected to them playing in the open. Even though it was not a communal incident according to the villagers, but the phrase used by one shows how the psyche of the common man has significantly shifted.
Gone are the days when young Indian boys wished to be like Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, or Syed Kirmani, hailed as one of the greatest wicketkeepers to have played for India. Or when we were so open-minded that we would buy products advertised by Pakistani Muslim cricketers in India. Former cricketer and now Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan featured in Indian ads of Cinthol, Thums Up, Brooke Bond, and Pepsi!
If sports persons who play for India are being seen communally and not as players representing a diverse nation, we are truly headed to another terrible human tragedy. Much like the one we saw in 1947.
The author is a political observer and writer. Views are personal.