Cricket is a new career option for adventurous Indian boys
and Wasim Jaffar, who comes from an ordinary family, is a success story. After
beginning his cricketing career for Mumbai at the age of 15, he scored 314 in
his second Ranji match. Later, he moved to Vidarbha and helped them win the
Ranji Trophy in 2018.
Between 2000 and 2008, Jaffar played 31 test matches
for India with an average of 34.1, which is decent for an opening batsman.
(Chetan Chouhan’s average was 31.6 and Krishnamachari Srikanth’s, 29.9.) He also
holds the record of scoring most runs in Ranji Trophy, having played over 150
matches. In his playing days, Wasim Jaffer was considered one of the vanishing
breed of “gentlemen cricketers”. He didn’t get involved in any controversy as
far as I can recall.
Jaffar, who joined as the head coach for the
Uttarakhand cricket team for 20-21, resigned on 09 February 2021. In his
resignation letter, Jaffer had said the Cricket Association of Uttarakhand
(CAU) officials had been pushing undeserving players.
After Jaffer’s resignation, CAU secretary, Mahim Verma
said he had been informed by players that Jaffer had “communalised” the
dressing room environment and “favoured” Muslim players. He also accused Jaffer
of inviting a maulvi to the ground and thus violating the COVID-induced
bio-bubble too, besides changing the team chant that hails Hanuman. So,
essentially, the complaints against Jaffer are communal and unrelated to
cricket. A senior national sportsman was slapped with charges after his
resignation without the semblance of an enquiry and without giving him an
opportunity to defend himself. This cannot be done even to an ordinary employee
in the organised sector.
After his appointment as coach, Jaffer had hand-picked
three professional players – Jay Bista, Iqbal Abdullah and Samad Fallah — from
outside the state to play for Uttarakhand. The state association apparently had
no problem then.
Subsequent to the allegations following his
resignation, Jaffer said in a virtual press conference: ‘They said I called a
maulvi and offered namaaz on the ground. First of all, I didn’t call a maulvi;
it was Iqbal Abdullah who called him. On Friday, we needed a maulvi to offer
namaaz. Iqbal asked me, and I said yes. The practice was over and we offered
namaaz inside the dressing room. This happened only twice or thrice, that too
before the bio-bubble was put in place.’
He added, ‘There are allegations of me not allowing
players to chant ‘Jai Hanuman Jai’. First of all, no players chanted any
slogan. We have a few players who are from the Sikh community, and they used to
say ‘Rani Mata Sache Darbar ki Jai’. So, I once suggested that we should have
something like “Go Uttarakhand” or “Come on, Uttarakhand” instead. Like, when I
used to be with Vidarbha, the team had “Come on, Vidarbha” as its slogan. And
it wasn’t me who chose the slogan, it was left to the players.’
Jaffer also categorically denied that he had pushed
for Muslim players.
Indian cricketing establishments have had many
blemishes, but never ever was there a controversy in communal lines between an
association and its coach. But then, a lot of new things have been happening in
New India, like the Supreme Court granting a disputed site to those who had
committed an "egregious
violation of the rule of law" at the same site, or the PM laying the foundation
stone of a temple, or the President of the Republic contributing to a temple construction
fund.
The Hidutwa persuasion of our rulers was bound to
intrude into sports sooner or later and it has happened. Uttarakhand is a BJP
ruled state and for the party, everything ultimately boils down to protecting
Hindus form imaginary threats from “others” like Wasim Jaffer.
Four fellow cricketers of Jaffer, Anil Kumble, Irfan
Pathan, Dodda Ganesh, and Manoj Tiwari have come out openly in support of Wasim
Jaffer. They too believe Jaffer is a decent man who has been wronged. Of them,
only Anil Kumble is a name to reckon with, but his tweet was as anodyne as it
could have been. One wonders what former cricketing greats like Gavaskar, Kapil
Dev, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguli, Srinath, Harbhajan, or Zaheer would like to say
on the topic. Or Virendra Shwag, who was Jaffer’s opening partner in several
tests. It would be reasonable to believe they understand the unfairness against
Jaffer. However, it is unavoidable to infer that being a dashing athlete is no
guarantee that one has a spine.
Sachin Tendulkar, the greatest Indian cricketer, exhibited the spinelessness, besides the social awareness of a jellyfish, when he tweeted an inane message – possibly under instructions from political masters he doesn’t really need – against international celebrities who asked legitimate questions about the brutal way the Indian government has been treating agitating farmers.
Let’s face two harsh truths: if you are a Muslim, Christian, or Dalit in India today, whether you are a celebrity or a nonentity, you are liable to be targeted by the saffron party and their henchmen at every turn of the road. Secondly, not many Hindus – who aren’t branded antinational by default – speak out in these toxic days despite the fact that we live in a time that can be described in Rabindranath Tagore’s words, when “justice cries alone, silently, because of crimes committed by irremediable power.”
If like me, thanks to the accident of your birth, you are not an automatic target of the bigoted and poisonous Hindutwa brigade, and yet you don’t speak out against crimes committed by irremediable power, please think: Are you a blind follower of the saffron brigade, are you a creep like Tendulkar, or are you plain scared?
Whatever you are, Dear Reader, you are a part of the problem!
12 February 2021
