The Politics of Cricket: How the BCCI is Both a Political Instrument and Instigator
This article is the second part on the politics of Cricket. Read the first article here.
“In India, cricket isn’t just a sport, it’s a religion.” There’s much truth to this statement by former Australian international cricketer Steve Waugh. As anyone knows, religion carries extraordinary power as an institution over people, and oftentimes, the priests or equivalent leaders at the front of the religion wield the control of this extraordinary power. In India, cricket is no different, and the people at the forefront of the Board of Cricket Control India (BCCI), India’s managerial agency for cricket across the nation, are not only using these extraordinary powers as a political instrument but also as a political instigator. In practice, this duality has perpetuated systematic exclusivity within the Indian national cricket team.
To understand the entire picture, though, one must begin with the overarching political foul-play plaguing the BCCI as an organization. In order to do this, the context of cricket in India as a whole act as an excellent prologue. India was introduced to the sport of cricket during British colonial rule and following independence, took to the sport extremely well. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, cricket grew more and more mainstream in India; but the 1990s marked the start of the BCCI’s serious power climb and growth to the top of the international cricket hierarchy. At the very center of it all was BCCI administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya, who made serious power plays on behalf of the BCCI in the 1990s. He led backroom negotiations that ultimately led to India and its sub-continent cricket allies claiming rights to hold the 1996 Cricket World Cup, despite England being considered the overwhelming favorite for the bid. Dalmiya also became the first non-white President of the International Cricket Council, the FIFA-equivalent for cricket, in 1997, firmly establishing the BCCI as a significant stakeholder in the cricket world. Lastly, in 1999, the BCCI secured a lucrative and monstrous deal with the TV network Doordarshan worth an annual $7 million USD, blowing all other media deals from across each cricket-playing country out of the water.
As the BCCI continued to grow, its golden apple contest the Indian Premier League (IPL) also grew to extraordinary heights, amassing millions of viewers worldwide, massive corporate sponsors, and dozens of high-name cricketers from around the world as competitors. After being created in 2007, it has risen so high in popularity and commercial success that Indian media giant Star India struck a deal with BCCI for media rights where it gives the board $434.8 million USD annually. Given this context, it becomes obvious why the political elite of India would desire a part in the activities of the BCCI. It has immense power from all the financial success as well as control over the ICC (see the previous article for elaboration) and it has immense popularity from all the millions of Indian cricket fans, who treat the sport like a religion. Indian politicians have an insatiable thirst for both power and popularity.
The keen interest in the BCCI by Indian politicians has led to a radical politicization of the cricket organization. Though one would expect the BCCI to be led and administered by qualified cricket scholars, players, coaches, and capable business as well as managerial experts, it is instead infested at the top-most positions by individuals with strong political connections, by both virtues of favoritism and by filial relationships. This nepotism of sorts in turn enables the BCCI to act as an instrument of Indian politics.
In 2015, the Supreme Court of India mandated that a committee be formed that would investigate and provide recommendations to the BCCI after overwhelming rumors alleging broad amounts of spot-fixing in the IPL, though the committee would present a report one year later to the Supreme Court outlining many other structural issues with the BCCI, exposing decades of corruption, inequity, and prejudice. Led by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha, after whom the committee would be named, the committee featured several other former Supreme Court Justices. In their report, the Lodha committee described several problems, but for the purposes of the point being made in this part of the article, the components of the report concerning political conflicts of interest will be discussed.
According to the Lodha committee, there were broad conflicts of interest for many individuals holding office or administerial posts in the BCCI. They separated these conflicts of interests in the BCCI into five primary forms: direct or indirect interest, compromised roles, commercial conflicts, prior relationship, and position of influence. Following their evaluations, they recommended the creation of an Ombudsman and an Ethics Officer embedded into the BCCI to monitor political conflicts of interest as well as several other provisions. Among these provisions was the recommendation that anyone holding certain positions not is allowed as a part of BCCI administration. For example, owners of private cricket academies, commentators, match officials, CEOs, auditors, etc. were now barred from holding positions. Most notably, though, was the new standard that anyone holding political office could not be a part of BCCI administration. Given that the Lodha committee had institutional expertise, support from the Supreme Court, and a popular mandate from the Indian people, the BCCI was forced to accept the broad recommendatory policies put forth by the committee. However, only the provisions highlighted extensively by the media were well-known enough for the citizenry to hold the BCCI accountable for following those provisions but other minute details and recommendations ended up being ignored altogether.
Despite this valiant effort by the Indian central judiciary, the Lodha committee ultimately failed in solving its ultimate purpose - eliminating corruption in the BCCI - even though its report was accepted at face value. First and foremost, favoritism and filial relationships replaced outright conflict of interest by virtue of holding both political and BCCI posts. For example, current Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) used to hold the presidency of the Gujarati Cricket Association (GCA), one of the larger and more powerful Indian states in terms of cricket. Even recently, a massive and state-of-the-art stadium was built in his name in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the state of Gujarat. Following Modi, Amit Shah, currently the Minister of Home Affairs and the former President of BJP, took over the GCA. Shah resigned once the Lodha reforms were released, but the GCA, rather than filling the position with someone else who is both qualified and abides by the Lodha reforms, left the presidency vacant altogether, suggesting that though on paper Shah had lost control of the GCA, in reality, he had the opportunity to lead the organization behind the curtains. Furthermore, Shah found another way to circumvent the reforms by making use of the fact that the Lodha committee never placed familial connections outside the bounds of conflicts of interest. He arranged for his son Jay Shah to take over as Secretary of the entire BCCI.
Another crucial figure is Anurag Thakur, who served as BCCI President from 2016 to 2017 when the Lodha reforms removed him. An active member of the BJP party and currently a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, India’s more powerful half of the bicameral legislature, from the state of Himachal Pradesh, Thakur chose his political position over that of his presidency in the BCCI. Refusing to lose a complete stake in the BCCI, though, Thakur took a similar approach to Shah by arranging for his brother Arun Dhumal to take over as the Treasurer of the entire BCCI, which has one of the largest coffers of any sports agency in the world at $2.337 billion USD. The favoritism holding back the BCCI not only holds true for family members but extends to anyone who a politician might view as favorable to their own authority and interests. Jay Shah supposedly appointed former director-general of the Gujarat police Shabir Hussein Shekhadam Khandwawala rather ironically to head the BCCI’s anti-corruption security unit, despite the fact that Shabir was 70 years old when appointed and the Lodha reforms recommended that no one at or above the age of 70 hold any position in the BCCI.
On the other hand, the BCCI has also effectively stood as an instigator for the political climate in New Delhi, which is currently in the hands of Modi and his BJP party. To understand this second component of the BCCI’s presence as explained in this article, one has to first investigate how the BJP and the government in New Delhi function as a whole. The BJP was created as a political wing for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu radicalist group, in 1951. Under the guise of unifying India by a common culture and representing the average Indian, the BJP has in practice stood for Hindu radicalism and thus by virtue, Islamophobia. In fact, it was a Hindu radicalist and member of the RSS, Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, the father of India, in 1948 on the premise that Gandhi was too tolerant towards the Muslims when founding the state of India following independence from the British. Today, the BJP has certainly fulfilled its purpose given to it when the RSS formed it in 1951. With an overwhelming majority in Parliament and the mandate of several states (primarily the states of North India which speak Hindi and are more infamously Hindu radicalists), Modi has spearheaded an agenda of exclusion and inequality.
At the very core of this agenda is the BJP center gem piece of “Hindutva,” a doctrine advocating for an emphasis on Hindu values as ingrained in and defining collective Indian culture. Throughout his rule, Modi has weaponized cultural differences between Muslims and Hindus to radicalize the population into believing that the Muslims are the reason for India’s many problems, not the government. Most notable is the Citizenship Amendment Bill of 2019, which amended decades-old Indian immigration law by providing for an easy route to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are non-Muslims fleeing from India’s neighbors, primarily Bangladesh and Pakistan. In theory, the idea of granting immigrants, who are religious minorities seeking to escape persecution from their home countries, is absolutely an important concern. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Hindus, Christians, Jains, and Buddhists among other religious minority groups are facing discrimination and oppression in countries like Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; but to do so at the expense of Muslims themselves fleeing to India in search of security and stability is wholly a move by Modi to continue the process of marginalizing Muslims to promote Hindutva. For example, the bill claims to serve the interests of religious minorities facing persecution but completely alienates Muslim minorities facing persecution such as the Ahmadis in Pakistan and the Rohingya in Myanmar. If the BJP truly cared about these minority groups, the Citizenship Amendment Bill would not force the dichotomous categorization of immigrants into Muslims and non-Muslims. In defense of the bill, Modi once proclaimed in a speech that people “creating violence” could be “identified by their clothes,” a reference to the unique clothing traditions of Indian Muslims.
By virtue, this deference to Hindus by the BJP has nearly identically translated into the BCC. Muslims comprise an overwhelming minority of the cricketing squad, even when adjusting for population proportions. On the current roster, fast bowler Mohammed Shami is the only Muslim and a cornerstone of the Indian bowling attack. He was India’s leading fast bowler in the 2015 ICC World Cup and had extraordinary performances throughout several test series, T20Is, and IPL matches between then and now. The Islamaphobia this lone Muslim player on the Indian cricket team faced last year speaks extensively to the exclusive climate the BCCI allows to persist.
During the last iteration of the T20 World Cup, which is ICC’s most expansive tournament, India faced political and cricketing rivals Pakistan in their opener. In what was one of the most hyped and anticipated games, both sides brought out their biggest weapons in hopes of winning not merely for the purposes of a victory that might carry them to the round of eliminations but also of winning a symbolic victory for their homeland. Shami was selected by Indian captain Virat Kohli as one of the starting fast bowlers. India batted first, posting a mediocre, albeit not terrible, 151 runs with the loss of 7 wickets (out of 10) after the duration of all 20 overs (or 120 balls). While the batting performance was not remarkable, a decent bowling effort against a Pakistani batting side that is thought to be of slightly less quality than India’s could easily secure the win. However, the Pakistani batting openers would proceed to score all 152 runs needed to win in just 17.5 overs (107 balls) with the loss of zero wickets. What this means is that not only did the Indian bowling squad fail to prevent the Pakistani batting squad from achieving the required number of runs to win, but they allowed this to take place with excess balls remaining and even more embarrassingly, failed to take even a single wicket. For context, this would be equivalent to the Dallas Cowboys scoring 35 points against the New England Patriots while allowing 0 points scored against them. The defeat was humiliating for all, and India would proceed to fail to qualify for the semi-finals whereas Pakistan would, only to lose to the to-be champions Australia in the semi-finals though.
Following the match, Shami faced extensive criticism from Indian fans on social media; but the backlash was not merely on his performance and did not target the other Indian players, who also had poor performances in the game against Pakistan. Rather, they targeted his faith and questioned his allegiance to India itself. His Muslim identity became subject to fans asserting that he threw the game in favor of Pakistan and that he should leave with his family to Pakistan altogether, rather than remain in India just to backstab. After years of loyal service and hundreds of wickets taken, this was the bleak reality that Shami, the lone Muslim cricketer on the Indian national team, faced. Teammates hardly came to his support, with the exception of captain Kohli who following a gracious recognition of Pakistan simply deserving to win that day, spoke publicly in support of Shami denouncing any religious bigotry. Other than Kohli, though, current and former players either remained silent or worse yet extended the Islamophobia on social media.
Following the match, some people within India celebrated the Pakistani victory, which should have been expected since many people in India have family or had family living in Pakistan whereas others simply enjoy watching the Pakistani cricket team play. Personally, despite being an Indian citizen, I have great admiration for Pakistani cricket players and enjoy watching them put on shows of cricketing brilliance. For me, the love is for the sport of cricket and not the politics surrounding it, as it should be. However, the BJP government has made it clear that it will not tolerate such diversity or freedom of expression. Seven Muslims were charged and four taken into custody in the state of Uttar Pradesh following the Indian defeat to Pakistan for the “crime” of “raising Pro-Pak slogans or celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India in the T20 Cricket World Cup match that took place on October 24,” according to a memo released by the Chief Minister’s Office. A teacher in Rajasthan was arrested and later released on bail for the “crime” of sharing a celebratory post of Pakistan’s resounding win over WhatsApp. Two Muslim medical students in Indian-controlled Kashmir were arrested under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for supposedly bringing about an “insult to the national sentiment during the cricket match” after celebrating the Pakistani victory. Not only has the BCCI been silent about this, but their failure to diversity the Indian cricket team with more Muslim players has to the most extent put the few who do make the team like Shami in the spotlight with great pressure and even greater expectations from Indian fans, which unfairly places a larger burden of defeat yet a smaller burden of victory on Muslim cricketers and cricket fans.
The BJP’s Hindu radicalism has not only manifested itself in terms of Islamophobia, which should be noted is not and was never a tenet of the Hindu belief system, but has also manifested itself in terms of the exacerbation of the caste system. The Hindu caste system prescribes a social hierarchy of various castes each with a supposed predetermined value or relative use relative to one another. Though there are 4 categories of main castes, there are many, many other sub-castes and other independent castes sometimes unique to specific regions of India that all fall somewhere within the social hierarchy. At the very bottom are Dalits, who are even referred to as the “untouchables.” Individual castes are not only separated based on anthropological and traditional differences, but also by the job they must partake in as historically prescribed and by their “cleanliness.” Dalits are considered only fit for hard labor that is low-paying and should not engage in activities considered luxurious (wearing certain clothes, going to fancy hotels, driving cars, having technological devices, going to advanced academic institutes, etc.) and should not even in any way associate with members of upper castes. Castes can oftentimes be identified by the surname of an individual; each language in India has notable last names indicative of specific castes, which most people native to India can easily recognize. The BJP’s Hindutva doctrine naturally bleeds into the strong belief not only in the caste system as an institution but in the environment of hierarchical discrimination that the caste system invokes. This emphasis on the caste system along with the BJP’s tenet of Islamophobia has tainted the BCCI’s overall production as an agency.
A prime example is Ravindra Jadeja, one of the best players on the Indian cricket team who is ranked by the ICC is currently the number one All-Rounder in the world for the test format of cricket and the number nine All-Rounder in the world for the One Day International (ODI) format of cricket. The point is that Jadeja is a globally recognized star player and by virtue of that, a celebrity within India. In 2021, Jadeja played a couple of extraordinary batting innings against England in a well-advertised three-day tour. Following the match, he posted on Twitter “#RAJPUTBOY FOREVER. Jai Hind🇮🇳,” an open reference to the caste of which he is a member, the Rajputs, which are considered a part of the upper, or higher, castes. Like most, if not all, other players of the active Indian cricket team at any given moment, Jadeja is outspoken and proud about his membership of a particular upper caste. In fact, he adds “Sinh” to his name, which translates roughly to “lion” or “king of the jungle,” a marking of respect and privilege traditionally reserved for upper caste individuals. By contrast, when a Dalit in Ahmedabad, Gujarat by the name of Maulik Jadhav attempted to also add Sinh to his name in 2018, he was physically assaulted and his house ransacked. Dalits regularly face public shaming and harassment for attempting to engage in activities the Hindu caste system arbitrates as reserved for the entitled, which cricket stars on the Indian squad not only enable, but perpetuate and stimulate. It’s not that Jadeja should not be proud of or open about his caste identification, just that the BCCI as an institution should foster greater inclusivity through participation for members of lower castes in the Indian cricket community so that not only Rajputs and other upper castes, but all castes can receive representation and maybe even Twitter shoutouts from successful cricket players belonging to those castes.
In February 2021, former cricket player and legend Yuvraj Singh in an interview called fellow, current cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal a “bhangi,” which directly translates to “uncultured” or “janitor” but is used as an offensive term against members of lower castes. Though Singh was not insulting Chahal in the conversation while using the word and while he issued a genuine apology claiming that he was unaware of the caste implications of the word, the lack of caste-based sensitivity amongst the Indian cricketing elite was clear. An anonymous Dalit filed a complaint for Singh’s usage of the word under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, a piece of legislation meant to eliminate all forms of caste-based discrimination - though it has been horrendously ineffective. Chahal himself never pressed charges nor escalated the issue, knowing that Singh genuinely did not mean to use it offensively in the interview, but the emotional trauma that the usage of this word can have to the average cricketing fan from a lower caste looking up to Singh can be devastating and blind to intention.
Throughout the history of Indian cricket, only four Dalits have ever made an active roster or represented the country - Eknath Solkar, Karsan Ghavri, Vinod Kambli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar - a number that under any reasonable doubt must be an underrepresentation of Dalits even when prioritizing pure cricketing talent over caste quotas. Of the four, only Bhuvneshwar Kumar currently plays for the Indian national team, and that too quite rarely (though this can to some extent be attributed to recurring injuries over exclusively caste-based discrimination). In denying lower-caste individuals any meaningful opportunity to play for the national team, the BCCI itself facilitates the cross-application of the caste system into the sport it claims to impartially serve. To be fair, Dalits pursue cricket as a profession in significantly fewer numbers than other castes, primarily upper castes, since their economic status quo at the bottom of the hierarchy necessitates that they choose law, medicine, and business as more secure employment prospects, while cricketing as an industry is both competitive and unlikely to produce a stable career. In India, pursuing sports is a luxury, which oftentimes falls more logically in the sphere of the privileged, or the upper castes. Even still, adjusting for the differing proportions of interest within various caste communities fails to properly explain how only four Dalits have ever played in a cricket history featuring hundreds and hundreds of players for a country where Dalits compose 17 percent of the population.
Many have suggested caste quotas for the cricket team - primarily the active squad for any given cricket match. South Africa employed quotas for their national team in 2016 that at least 6 players of an active squad (which contains 11 players) must be people of color, so the precedent for this solution exists. Ramdas Athawale, currently one of the Ministers of State of Social Justice and Empowerment of India and a Dalit, is a strong proponent of caste reservations in the cricket team, otherwise referred to in Indian politics as affirmative action policies. As Athawale points out, “If we have reservations in jobs and higher education, then logically cricket, and other sports, should be included too, for the same reason of historical discrimination.” For years, the Indian government has been lenient towards creating quotas for many aspects of society, particularly in examination scores required for higher education institutions as Athawale mentions. This has been the source of massive controversy given how competitive the Indian education system is and how lucrative the difference between a few percentage points in entrance exams has been.
Unambiguously, though, Dalits are nonetheless in the sport of cricket more alienated from avenues to professional cricket. Many Dalits in India are concentrated in neighborhoods and regions that receive little attention from the government, much less the BCCI which has fewer obligations to caste justice restoration. Thus, Dalit children live farther from regular cricket grounds, much less cricketing facilities, sports stores, cricket academies, cricket leagues, and district-level cricketing opportunities. The BCCI as an organization has merely claimed to be blind to caste-based discrimination and in asserting so has failed to open its eyes to the realities of historical discrimination that warrants not ignorance, but restorative action to empower lower-caste individuals. If the BCCI worked towards building facilities more equally spread out across the country or instituted BCCI-sponsored cricketing academies that search and vet for local talent, then Dalits would enjoy more reasonable avenues into the sport’s network. Part of the justification has rested on the fact that it simply makes more sense for the BCCI to focus its efforts and activities in urban centers, which is what the BCCI has done regardless of caste implications and falls within the aforementioned perception that the BCCI is “blind” to caste-based discrimination. Again, this blindness better translates to ignorance since the BCCI fails to recognize that lower caste individuals systematically occupy rural spaces in exponentially larger numbers. To say that the BCCI should thus build huge stadiums and offices in rural areas in the pursuit of caste equity would be unreasonable, but as stated previously, cricketing academies that search for local talent present a sensible solution that is also used by many other sports and countries.
Cricket is at the very center of the fabric that forms the Indian subcontinent and identity. The BCCI is the weaver controlling how this fabric grows and decays, but it has failed to do so in recent years under the BJP government in such a way that fosters an inclusive and equitable environment. The injustices are great in number and concerning in gravity; from political corruption to outright discrimination in team member selections, these injustices are, unlike the composition of the Indian cricket team, unequivocally diverse.
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