‘Frequent Indo-Pak cricket matches will make it feel less like a war’

Indians at Delhi literature festival question why cricket suffers in politics

If Pakistan and India faced each other on the field more often, every match would not seem like a war, Indian journalists proposed at a literature festival in Delhi.

"India and Pakistan should play cricket... It all depends on the nature of the Pakistani state," Indian politician and author Shashi Tharoor said while speaking at a session of 'Times Lit Fest Delhi 2017'.

Expressing hope to see more people-to-people contact, Tharoor asked “why should cricket bear the burden of what diplomacy can't solve?"



The thought was reiterated by Indian journalist and author Rajdeep Sardesai. "To my mind, play cricket more often... you'll find it doesn't become a war," he said at the discussion on "Cricket as Indian Democracy's Alter Ego" on the concluding day of the Times Litfest 2017. "War will be fought, but cricketers must play cricket."

Indian spinner Bishen Singh Bedi revealed he had more friends in Islamabad and Lahore than in Delhi. "Why should cricket and entertainment suffer if trade and diplomacy are on?" asked Bedi

The panelists, however, argued on cricket and democracy. Sardesai said “politics remains a closed shop,” adding that unlike politics no one in the Indian cricket team had a mother or father who had played cricket for the country.

"I wanted to play cricket very badly and that's what I did," Tharoor said on a lighter note, maintaining that "politics is still subject to popular referendum".



The session briefly turned into a political debate after Sardesai’s comment that he did not think "political parties play for Team India anymore; they play for themselves". Skeptical on the state of Indian politics at the moment, Sardesai said while politics celebrated mediocrity, cricket preferred talent and excellence.

But the discussion ended with Bedi expressing gratefulness for being given the opportunity to play the game, adding that “with a third-class engineering degree, all he could have become was a politician, and that would have been unacceptable to him.”

This article originally appeared on The Times of India.