South Africa provides a viable template on how to make the game more inclusive

“What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” C.L.R. James famously said. The spectacular rise of Lungisani Ngidi in South African cricket (in the recently concluded South Africa-India series) from the racially oppressed black African majority community is a lesson for other sporting nations characterised by racial and caste oppression. More importantly, the quota policy for the disadvantaged communities of South Africa shows a mirror to India whose marquee sport, cricket, reflects severe social inequities. The virtual absence of Dalits and Adivasis from the Indian playing XIs is there for all to see, even though they constitute around 25% of India’s population.

An invisibility

In a nation where the word “reservation” can unleash violent emotions, it is nevertheless important to deliberate upon the advantages of reservation in sport. After years of Independence, the sporting culture has thoroughly failed in equalising opportunities for the most disadvantaged sections of the population.

In a country where the government school system is in tatters, one can only imagine the quality of its sporting facilities. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the Dalits and Adivasi children cannot afford anything more than these government schools.

Thus, the invisibility of Dalits and Adivasis in Indian cricket is both a result of voluntary and involuntary layers of socio-economic discrimination culminating in almost immovable structures of caste and class exclusion. Cricket, compared to hockey, the official national sport, and football, has been more an elite sport. From the 1950s to the 1990s the game was mostly upper-caste and Brahmin-dominated.

It was also big city-dominated. As Rajdeep Sardesai notes, in his book, Democracy’s XI , in the first 50 years of Indian cricket, only seven cricketers hailed from rural areas. Therefore, it is not that Dalits and Adivasis cannot pick up cricketing skills. It is that they simply do not have the opportunities. Their better presence and glorious contributions in football, hockey and athletics show what is possible with sufficient support.

Here, the quota policy Cricket South Africa (CSA) has adopted is a model worth considering. Without the policy, the cricketing world would have lost, among other black cricketers, a Hashim Amla — a South African of Indian descent — one of the greatest batsmen of all time. There is no other way to resolve the massive social inequities such as caste and race in sport other than by tackling them head-on.

As Amla himself put it, “Other countries in the world just put racism and oppression under the carpet, like it doesn’t exist and it never existed. This country [South Africa] puts it out there, that is why we are so sensitive to these things.”

Hence the CSA’s policy which lays out that of the 11 players fielded by the national team, a minimum of six players should be colour, and at least two players black African, has democratised the game unimaginably. (This proportion need not be kept in each match, but it must hold as the average for a season.)

Issue of merit

But in India, there is an almost intractable tendency among the privileged to gloss over caste as if it does not exist. “Merit” has become a term which masks grievous historic exclusions and oppressions. What is merit when the Indian team, with the largest cricketing pool in the world, has consistently given disastrous foreign Test performances? Contrastingly, South Africa, even with its quota policy, has been one of the best Test performers in all conditions. Of course, the quota policy which led some white cricketers such as Kevin Pietersen to leave South Africa, has given rise to unpleasant race equations in the team. But in post-Apartheid South Africa, the quota policy had a larger historic mission which can only be understood if cricket is seen as a part of a social structure rather than in a vacuum.

Therefore, the time to discuss reservation and other measures to broaden diversity in Indian cricket and to demolish the myth of merit is definitely here. The contours of these policies need careful deliberation, which in any case cannot be imposed at the Test cricket level as a sledgehammer. But they must begin at the lowest levels, school and the domestic game.

Those who shudder at the very idea of reservation must realise that what the cash-rich Indian Premier League does is also a form of reservation: limiting the number of foreign players and allowing a certain number of domestic uncapped players. And see the results: the unprecedented opportunity in the form of players who have not even played Ranji Trophy playing together with cricket legends has not only unearthed new talent but also spread the already-commercialised game further into rural and non-traditional areas for cricket. Yet, the social diversity deficit is huge.

Of course, quota in cricket is not the most ideal resolution of the inequity problem. It is the last resort in a system which has completely failed in providing equal educational and social opportunities to most marginalised communities. When developed democracies are increasing diversity in every sphere, in India it remains an anathema.

Nissim Mannathukkaren is Chair, Department of International Development Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada. Twitter: @nmannathukkaren