The loss of the cricket match by the Indian National team to Pakistan in the T20 World Cup has once again stirred the hornet’s nest about nationalism — loyalty to one’s own country, national spirit and so on. In addition to small clashes between students, the law-and-order machinery swung into action to book students allegedly cheering for the Pakistani team and some other Muslims celebrating their victory in social media. The charges framed were quite a few under the Indian Penal Code. It is high time we take a fresh look at the concept of nationalism from all dimensions, not just legal as it is being viewed now.

On October 24, India lost by 10 wickets to Pakistan. Cricket loving Indian nation was disappointed, but for right-wing nationalists, hell broke loose. The salt to the injury was added by those cheering for Pakistan. A few Kashmiri students in Raja Balwant Singh College, Agra allegedly were bucking up our arch-rivals the Pakistanis. However, preliminary enquiries by the college Administration have found that the students did not raise slogans, they made social media posts.

In Udaipur, Rajasthan, Nafeesha Attari, a private school teacher made a social post, “we won” along with the picture of the Pakistan Cricket team. When confronted by colleagues, she confirmed that she supported the Pakistan team, although qualified it by saying it was done in a lighter vein. However, she was booked under section 153B of the Indian Penal Code and has been sacked from her job. The IPC section invoked here refers to “assertions prejudicial intent to national integration”.  Rajasthan is not a BJP-ruled state.

In Srinagar, cases have been filed against students and staff of two medical colleges for celebrating Pakistan’s victory. They have been booked under Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), an anti-terror law. Safiya Majeed, a technician from one of these two colleges, was fired for a social media post celebrating Pak victory. She was accused of being disloyal to the nation. In the Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir, six people were hauled up for raising the pro-Pakistan slogan following the match.

In all, in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and J&K, 14 people have been booked. In UP, seven students have cases, five are arrested, three of them are Kashmiri students. They have also been suspended from their college; only one has been slapped with sedition charges. The charges made against all of them include; Section 153A- promoting enmity between different groups on religious grounds: Section 504- intention to breach public peace; 505(1) (b)- the intent to cause fear or alarm among the public or the inducement to commit an offence against the state; 506- criminal intimidation; 507- criminal intimidation by anonymous communication. Section 66F of the Information Technology Act, which covers “cyber terrorism” – an offence that could lead to a life sentence.

Of all these, the UAPA is perhaps the harshest in this case, as it is purely an anti-terror law that refers to “disrupting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India” and “supporting cessation of part of the territory of India”. And similar, the older version of the pre-independence period enacted way back in 1860 is the controversial sedition law which reads, “whoever, by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation … Excites disaffection towards the government established by law in India shall be punished with life imprisonment…”.

These charges were perhaps abetted by a tweet from no less a person as the UP Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi who suggested that “sedition charges could be made against those supporting Pakistan cricket team. Bizarre was the video released by a controversial BJP leader from Jammu with assertions like “those supporting Pakistan should be beaten up and skinned and their citizenship be cancelled”.

As expected, there have been equally strong reactions and protests from political leaders, civil rights activists and others. To cite a few, Mehbooba Mufti has rather sarcastically raised the point that in India, the mother of democracies– how can you charge students with sedition for merely cheering the winning team. The National Conference has protested the arrests and has taken out demonstrations in Srinagar demanding revocation of the charges and release of detainees etc. The placards they carried read, “Rollback FIRs against students”, “Release Kashmiri students” and so on.

Ana Tanwirm, the Founder of the Indian Civil Liberties Union, has claimed, I do not know any law under which supporting another team is prohibited”; he added, “It is not like supporting any country in a war”. Lubhyathi Rangarajan, a lawyer and researcher who has done extensive research on sedition and its misuse in India asserted, “For sedition, there has to be an incitement to violence and a threat to destabilising the government. Celebrating the victory of a country you might not like is no reason to charge people for sedition.” He further claimed that, “There is no law under which you can file cases against people for celebrating the match victory. These charges are not going to hold in court.”

The legal approach obviously does not hold water, so charges against the 14 people should be dropped, unless they have caused violence or disharmony. Let us look at the concept of national spirit. Even in Britain, the seat of the oldest democracy in the world, Norman Tebbit, the Chairman of Conservative Party, had argued that the immigrants from South Asia and Afro-Caribbean regions supporting cricket teams from the countries of their origin were showing disloyalty to the country they were living in and earned their livelihoods.  In April 1990, he formulated the Tebbit Test which asked the immigrants whom they rooted for in a cricket match. Of course, the majority of Britons did not endorse it. Even the immigrants were happy to ‘fail the Tebbit Test.’

However, nationalism should have a different connotation in India. We must redefine it. As such nationalism is a cultural concept, unlike patriotism, it refers to people, their culture, their community-ness and so on. In a multicultural country, people have to be sensitive to other’s cultures, religions and ways of life etc. The second aspect of nationalism is pride for the country. And that is manifested in certain national icons– cricket is one of them for India. The Queen, the BBC and Chatham House in the United Kingdom are British icons and heritages. No one should try to offend them. Cricket should not be seen as a game only; it is our national pride.

Therefore, even if it is not legally wrong, people should stop cheering for Pakistan as it is not just cricket, there are a lot of emotions associated with Pakistan. To top it all, Indians could not reconcile emotionally to Pakistan unless they stop causing bloodshed in India through cross-border terrorism.

There is another aspect of the dictum, “legal is not moral, nor democratic”. That is, Parliament is passing laws on the basis of the majority principle in the House. But moralism and democracy would require inclusivity of minorities of any size or kind, not just religious. If we are not sensitive to the principle of inclusiveness, we might trample upon human rights of an individual or a group. Hence, cheering for Pakistan cricket is not moral, nor inclusive, it is being exclusive.  I rest my case. —INFA

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