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Settling scores with victory

When India won the cup at the Gabba in Brisbane defeating the Australians on their own turf, much more than a tri series victory was scripted.

When India won the cup at the Gabba in Brisbane defeating the Australians on their own turf, much more than a tri series victory was scripted. It was a nation?s assertion against the humiliation, harassment and abuse meted out by the Aussies for almost ninety days, treatment that on occasions bordered on the barbaric. A surveillance camera focused on Harbhajan Singh for example was something the world?s sporting fraternity should be ashamed of.

Cricket in India, the victory demonstrated once and for all, is the new opiate of the masses. One of the greatest modern experiences; its attraction astonishes only the recluse and its appeal spans the country. In fact, what fan reactions this week draw attention to is the fact that in contemporary India, religion takes second place to cricket in order of priority. Rather, it can be suggested that increasingly, cricket is the nation?s secular religion. It has the populated ‘temples and cathedrals’ of worship; it provides the most intense spiritual experiences; it forges the most intense relations with the resident ‘priests and priestesses’.

Hardly surprisingly, the dominant media institutions of modern India extol and teach, indirectly and directly, the worship of contemporary cricket and not traditional religion; the iconic ‘saints’ of schoolchildren are Sachin, Dhoni, and after Australia 2008 Bhajji and Ishant. The media provides for their mass worship not merely on Sundays but indeed, increasingly, on all days of the week, 24 hours on television and in the mornings and evenings in print. The fans have devoured each word they have uttered since returning home and each little movement has been greeted with utmost appreciation.

In fact, given cricket?s potential in contemporary India it wouldn?t be a far cry to assert that the models for shaping individuals, societies and even the nation are to be found on the pitch rather than in temples, mosques and church halls. Religion is now the poor country cousin of this rich urban and also small town cousin. Religion?s influence wanes while cricket’s waxes. No one is immune from primary schoolchildren to the Prime Minister.

For example Sachin with hands aloft after his spectacular century at Sydney in the first final or Harbhajan and Yuvraj shadow boxing after Harbhajan had dismissed Hayden are images capable of transforming a nation from mourning to ecstasy. This mass appeal partly explains the media?s total focus on the game. It can be argued that Indian cricket is far more than a game and is deeply enmeshed in the wider social and political fabric. The media frenzy following the victory down under reflected this and also played a crucial role in deepening these linkages. By focusing so deeply on cricket, to the detriment of all other news, the media ensured that cricket remained central to the nation?s public discourse. The media?s unrelenting focus raised the stakes for politicians and explains their large presence at the felicitation in Delhi and consolidated the presence of a new factor in the countries political matrix, one that

had not even existed a

decade ago.

Sports historian Boria Majumdar is senior research fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne

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First published on: 09-03-2008 at 23:40 IST
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