A question that has always popped in my mind whenever we play pakistan in any sport (which is mostly cricket) is why we feel obligated to maintain sporting ties with an adversary whose heart is filled with hatred towards our country and our religion; tangible manifestations of which are provided in the form of the regular and brazen terror attacks that we face.
The question was bothering me yet again after yesterdays terror attacks in Gurdaspur, where our brave soldiers braved the bullets of cowardly terrorists and risked their lives for the safety of Indian citizens (that a lot of these citizens are ungrateful enough to watch and appreciate a movie like 'Haider' is a different matter).
Casting my mind back at the previous occasions when this question had been debated in our newspapers and tv channels in the aftermath of every terror attack, I remembered that while a lot of people do oppose playing cricket or any other sport with pakistan (in a show of solidarity and sympathy towards our soldiers), there is a very vocal section of the populace who drown out all other voices by shrilly shouting that sports and politics shouldn't be mixed and that we need to continue playing cricket with pakistan to maintain the sporting contact and encourage people to people ties, in the forlorn hope that this will cause an diminution of Pakistani antipathy and make them love us like brothers.
These shrill protestors are mostly pseudo secular, self proclaimed intellectuals, left leaning loonies and the minorities, who overlook the simple fact that we are not just talking of some sabre rattling between two opponents over some trivial matter; but face a situation where a country much smaller and weaker than our own is hell bent on bleeding us (death by a thousand cuts) by launching cowardly covert attacks (remember Kargil where these dastardly rats were so shit scared of the international reaction that their government not only denied all knowledge and responsibility of the attack but also refused to take back the bodies of their soldiers who were killed in action).
Therefore, to accept these poisonous views would be to completely overlook the deaths of our armed forces and render their supreme sacrifice futile.
Another source of support for sporting ties is from the sponsors and perpetrators of terror themselves i.e. the pakistan government, their cricketers and a lot of their common people.
Their standard argument is that sports and politics shouldn't be mixed and that both countries should play each other inspite of terror attacks.
The question that begs to be asked of these two faced, duplicitous terrorist supporters is that if they believe that politics and sports should be kept separate, why don't they maintain sporting ties with Israel.
Here India is facing terror attacks sponsored by them and they still want us to play sports, while Israel has never harmed pakistan ever (and the only reason pakistan has is that Palestinians are their fellow muslims), so how on earth can pakistan ask us to continue playing sports and themselves boycott Israel at all levels!!
Pakistan should first set an example and recognise Israel and start playing sport with them before advising India to not mix sports and politics (as an aside, this isn't mixing sports and politics, its mixing sports and war).
We all need to continue opposing sporting relations with pakistan and even lead their boycott in the international arena (to the extent that our limited international influence will allow us to do), if only to send a symbolic message to them that we are not fools and can see through their fake gestures of friendship.
The question was bothering me yet again after yesterdays terror attacks in Gurdaspur, where our brave soldiers braved the bullets of cowardly terrorists and risked their lives for the safety of Indian citizens (that a lot of these citizens are ungrateful enough to watch and appreciate a movie like 'Haider' is a different matter).
Casting my mind back at the previous occasions when this question had been debated in our newspapers and tv channels in the aftermath of every terror attack, I remembered that while a lot of people do oppose playing cricket or any other sport with pakistan (in a show of solidarity and sympathy towards our soldiers), there is a very vocal section of the populace who drown out all other voices by shrilly shouting that sports and politics shouldn't be mixed and that we need to continue playing cricket with pakistan to maintain the sporting contact and encourage people to people ties, in the forlorn hope that this will cause an diminution of Pakistani antipathy and make them love us like brothers.
These shrill protestors are mostly pseudo secular, self proclaimed intellectuals, left leaning loonies and the minorities, who overlook the simple fact that we are not just talking of some sabre rattling between two opponents over some trivial matter; but face a situation where a country much smaller and weaker than our own is hell bent on bleeding us (death by a thousand cuts) by launching cowardly covert attacks (remember Kargil where these dastardly rats were so shit scared of the international reaction that their government not only denied all knowledge and responsibility of the attack but also refused to take back the bodies of their soldiers who were killed in action).
Therefore, to accept these poisonous views would be to completely overlook the deaths of our armed forces and render their supreme sacrifice futile.
Another source of support for sporting ties is from the sponsors and perpetrators of terror themselves i.e. the pakistan government, their cricketers and a lot of their common people.
Their standard argument is that sports and politics shouldn't be mixed and that both countries should play each other inspite of terror attacks.
The question that begs to be asked of these two faced, duplicitous terrorist supporters is that if they believe that politics and sports should be kept separate, why don't they maintain sporting ties with Israel.
Here India is facing terror attacks sponsored by them and they still want us to play sports, while Israel has never harmed pakistan ever (and the only reason pakistan has is that Palestinians are their fellow muslims), so how on earth can pakistan ask us to continue playing sports and themselves boycott Israel at all levels!!
Pakistan should first set an example and recognise Israel and start playing sport with them before advising India to not mix sports and politics (as an aside, this isn't mixing sports and politics, its mixing sports and war).
We all need to continue opposing sporting relations with pakistan and even lead their boycott in the international arena (to the extent that our limited international influence will allow us to do), if only to send a symbolic message to them that we are not fools and can see through their fake gestures of friendship.
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