Cricket and Congress!

Cricket in India enjoys tremendous popularity. Cricket and Cricket administrators are often accused of thwarting the growth of other sports in India. While this is far from the truth, I find popularity of Cricket in India is strikingly similar to support Congress party gets in India. Both are thriving in this country primarily because there competitors aren’t faring any better. Let us analyse the situation in little more depth.

Congress of course is the first political party formed in India. With the stalwarts like Tilak, Gandhi and Nehru as its leaders, it naturally enjoyed huge support from the citizen which led to independence. After independence though, many national and regional parties came into existence. But, barring few years, Congress has been the party which has been in power for most of the period. So, even after nearly 60 years, Congress has a nation wide appeal.

Cricket too, has been immensely popular right from the days of Pentangular tournaments. Other sports did have patches have dominance. Like Hockey enjoyed its golden age in Fifties and Sixties. Tennis too had reached its peak in late Sixties when India reached Davis Cup final twice. Indian football was in its prime in 1962 Asiad and 1960 Olympics. But leave apart these aberrations and you find Cricket ruling the hearts of Indian fans continuously.

So what is it in Cricket as also Congress that keeps people interested? Does the Congress have better leaders than opposition? Are the policies of Congress more pro-people than the opposition? Are Cricketers more talented than other sportspersons? Is BCCI more transparent than other sporting bodies?

The fact is that both are thriving by default. The people of India every now and then throw the mandate towards Congress more out of disgust towards opposition than as an endorsement of policies and programs of Congress. Similarly, Cricket catches people’s imagination primarily because of anarchy that prevails in conduct of other sports.

Congress too is a divided house like the opposition. Similarly BCCI also has a long history of bitter power struggle. But it all boils down to choosing a lesser evil. It is not that the chances didn’t come to the counterpart. In politics, people of India gave chance to non-congress formations for at least three times only to be disillusioned. Similarly, in sports too, glory in non-cricketing sports did come a couple of times. India won Hockey World Cup in 1975. But rather than captalising on it the Indian Hockey Federation killed itself by the infighting. Indian football team reached semi finals of Olympics in 1956, but then the interests of club owners overpowered the national interests. So the people of India had to put their faith and backing to Indian Cricketers who won the world cup in 1983. The shrewd marketers like Dalmiya and now Lalit Modi have since seen to it that Cricket become an enterprise and the global nerve centre of Cricket.

In politics, they say that there are no permanent enemies. Politicians are known to protect mutual interests of friends even in opposition. Same here in BCCI where we find an Arun Jaitley of BJP siding with NCP supreme Sharad Pawar and Congress spokesman Rajeev Shukla and National Conference leader Farooq Abdulla all belonging to different parties. So what is the real truth? Is the politics like a game of Cricket OR Is Cricket is the political Akhada?

This article also appeared on Indiastudychannel.com