Sullying the game

Sports, the purest form of human contest, is a ritual of skill, endurance and strategy. Bound by established rules and decorum, the moral foundation of sports is based on the integrity of the game. The sole crucible of its success is the sublime calculus of merit, effort and fair play.

A covenant between competitors, sports is also a pact with the spectators and a template for future generations. It draws millions of viewers worldwide. They remain riveted to witness the profound poetry of human endeavour, not an outcome tainted by external coercion.

Spectators and viewers are enthralled by seeing sportspersons and athletes pushing the limits of human potential. The last thing they want are the insidious machinations of those who betray the competitors, the millions of spectators and the game itself.

The recently concluded Asia Cup, with India’s cricket team outplaying its competitors, generated unsavory headlines, the handshake controversy marring the event. The Indian team also refused to take the trophy from the ACC chairman just because he was from Pakistan.

An outstanding sporting win should have been a moment of glory for the Indian team but was reduced to a lame duck shenanigan at trying to avenge India’s ignominious loss on the battlefield.

A game’s outcome should echo the humility of victory and the grace of defeat, not the crowing of a gladiator or conquistador. What could be a more vile act than Narendra Modi seizing upon a sporting victory and likening it to his wanton act of military aggression that saw children, women and the old perish?

Modi and the BCCI, in their orchestration of a game’s result as a military win, are like vandals who deface a masterpiece. Besmirching the game, they continue to taint a healthy sporting rivalry and sully its very essence for contemptible political gains.

Transcending race, politics and adversity, sports binds and unites people. Its cornerstone remains the principle of sportsmanship and respect for the opponent. This in itself is a profound rejection of the ruthless logic of warfare, where victory is laced with the opponents’ lifeblood.

A winning moment on the playing field hijacked and repurposed as a political cudgel for divisive ends is called sportswashing. The most chilling example is that of the 1936 Berlin Olympics famously used by Hitler to promote a myth of Aryan supremacy. It proved that even the most benign of human pursuits can be weaponised for sinister agendas.

Over the ages, sports have been a tool for peace and an antidote to war. The football matches between soldiers on the Western Front during the Christmas truce of 1914 were played in no-man’s land strewn by trenches, craters and barbed wire. It epitomised sports’ capacity to eclipse conflict.

Malcolm Jenkins, an American football hall of famer, rightly observed that sports transcend generations, backgrounds, cultures and races. This transcendence is a sacrosanct trust, built on the imperative that sports is a contest among equals bound by a common ethical code.

Sportspersons become heroes and role models by winning and losing with integrity and upholding the spirit of the game. They are ones with an unyielding moral compass who extend a hand to an opponent, more so a fallen one.

Their legacy is not just in trophies or records but in being an enduring inspiration for those who revere them. What could be a greater fall than betraying that legacy by tarnishing the game – a stain that no medal or trophy can ever wash away.

No trajectories would be more divergent than those of war and sports. War wreaks death, leaving behind a desolate landscape of grief and shattered families. Sport is a celebration of human achievement and connection.

War is defined by destruction, sports by creation; one by chaos, the other by controlled order; one by an inbuilt aim of victory at any cost, the other by a framework of rules and fair play.

A sports field is not a battleground. A sporting contest is a reflection of humanity’s competitive spirit in its most glorious form. It ends with a handshake, a show of respect and the promise of yet another game.

War reverses the order of nature. Greek historian Herodotus is recognised as the father of history. He lamented three millennia ago that “In peace, sons bury their fathers but in war, fathers bury their sons”. One can only rue the malevolent mind that can celebrate, expound and propagate such an agonising travesty.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

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