New Delhi, Jan 21 (Inditop.com) The uproar in Pakistan over its players being left out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Thursday led to furious debate in India too with some experts describing it as paranoia and others maintaining that the cricketers were not given a fair deal.
“The IPL is a private affair. It’s their prerogative to decide whom to take and whom not to take. Why bring the government into it?” Satish Chandra, former deputy national security advisor, told Inditop.
Chandra, who also served as India’s high commissioner in Islamabad between 1995 and 1998, said he was surprised by the “paranoid reaction in Pakistan and those of bleeding hearts in India”.
They have taken no serious action against terrorists linked to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he said.
Agreed Uma Singh, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School for International Studies: “Pakistan is just blowing up the issue and overreacting.”
She speculated that Pakistan’s “overreaction” could also be another way of showing its frustration over its increasing global isolation over terrorism.
Pointing to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ warning to Pakistan to root out the Al Qaeda and associated terror groups, Uma Singh said: “We need to remember what Gates said yesterday� Pakistan is feeling very humiliated and isolated.”
P.R. Chari of Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, a New Delhi-based think tank, also suspected a method behind all the sound and fury in Islamabad over the issue.
He said the Pakistani military establishment may be using the IPL issue to “divert” public attention. “What they are really bothered about, there seems to be a kind of universality in shunning the country� They possibly want to divert attention from what Robert Gates said (yesterday),” said Chari.
Bharat Karnad of the Centre for Policy Research felt a little differently.
He said the government was also in the wrong, because of the “ambiguous signals” it gave to the IPL over the status of Pakistani cricketers if another major terrorist attacks happened against in India.
“Government’s attitude was ambiguous. Then I can see the private owner’s position in not going for the Pakistani players,” he said, asserting that “India had shot itself in the foot”.
He said that India as a rising power had to “learn to treat its neighbours well”. “Pakistan has every right to feel humiliated.”
Kuldip Nayar, veteran journalist and an ardent peacenik, concurred that it was an overreaction on Pakistan’s part but added that there was enough evidence to show that the Pakistani players were not given a fair deal.
“Domestically, they are having so many problems. That’s why it has been blown out of proportion,” said Nayar.
Nayar, however, felt that the incident would not impact people-to-people contacts in the future.
While Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the manner in which the Pakistani players were “insulted” showed that India was not serious about the peace process, a parliamentary delegation’s visit was cancelled with National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza announcing that it was to protest the “treatment meted out” to the country’s cricketers in the IPL tournament.
Rejecting Pakistan’s suspicions about New Delhi’s hand in the absence of Pakistani cricketers from the tournament, India’s external affairs ministry Thursday asked Pakistan to introspect on the “reasons which have put a strain on bilateral ties” and clarified that 17 Pakistani players were given visas.
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna also made it clear that the Indian government had nothing to do with the IPL decision.
