Jaipur, Jan 24 (Inditop.com) The controversy over the IPL took centrestage at the Jaipur Literature Festival with former external affairs ministry spokesperson and now envoy to Israel Navtej Sarna asserting that “playing of cricket as part of the dialogue with Pakistan is important”.
Participating in an open session, ‘A Tough Neighbourhood’ Saturday, Sarna said: “I think that in any civil society there should be a dialogue and playing of cricket as part of the dialogue with Pakistan is important.”
“I am sorry that we are not being able to get talented players from the neighbourhood. I don’t think the civil society of India and Pakistan should be impacted by the IPL. Traffic between the two countries is still quite large – despite the fact that the two sides do not talk to each other,” Sarna said.
Young Pakistani writer Ali Sethi, meanwhile, said ignoring of the Pakistani players in the IPL auction had upset the people in Pakistan who are working for revival of India-Pakistan friendship.
“Pakistan has a very vibrant media and the IPL incident brought up on discussion tables shadowy creatures like former ISI officials saying, ‘Look we told you this is what the Indians want — to humiliate us’. This pushes us more into a corner, the small civil society struggling in favour of the peace process,” Sethi said.
Reacting to the IPL controversy, Asma Jahangir, human rights activist from Pakistan, said: “I come from a tough neighbourhood – and suppose we had done the same to you, how would you feel?”
