Why there’s no reason to celebrate India’s ‘victory’ Down Under
The pan-national merriment by Indians to the recent cricket match re-affirms the ease with which dictators can use the Juvenalian bread-circus duality to keep always keep the masses in the check. That Indians of all ilk – the bourgeois and the proletariat – would celebrate the victory of mercenaries turning out for a private company that amasses billions of dollars in a country where most people live cheek-by-jowl shows why inequality remains rife and revolution will arrive after Godot.
No matter how many stories of impoverished lads rising through the ranks come about, cricket remains the game of our colonial overlords, a pageantry celebrating patriarchy where cis-het men use a phallic-shaped object to whack around a spherical as they try to protect three sticks from a man throwing those balls. The reason it remains the sport of Brahmanical tyranny is simple – it prevents any bodily contact. Even then, Dalit representation in cricket is matched only by its presence in the CPI(M) politburo.
What is the point of celebrating a victory of 11 men in a game whose very terminology reeks of misogyny? What do they call an over in which the batsman hasn’t scored? A maiden!
As if contact sports aren’t enough to satiate the collective bloodlust, we had to witness white men throwing a hard object at a brown man as audiences cheer. What next? Throwing bits of bread and meat into the colosseum as gladiators try to survive?
What’s there to celebrate when a kid who tears up during the national anthem is branded a “good Muslim” just for his religion? Why is the burden of proving one’s patriotism always crudely thrust upon a minority member even as Virat Kohli can chew gum and disrespect national symbols.
Even the treatment meted out to cricketers reminds us of the oppressive nature of capitalism as Virat Kohli can jettison off for his child’s arrival while the likes of Natarajan bowl in the nets. That so many are celebrating this private event as a moment of national pride instead of tuning into Rahul Gandhi’s presser to highlight the capitalist manipulation of the farm laws is the reason Indians deserve to be ruled by a fascist who cares more about his beard than his constituents.
