Cricket and me

As someone who fell in love with the game of cricket long time ago, it is a shame if there is nothing on cricket on my blog. So here is something on it. It is about what I love about the game, how I look at organised cricket's recent set of controversies and why it does not really shake my love for the game.

This was written first on facebook as a response to a comment of a friend of mine which was in turn a response to my status update on the issue of 'walking' in cricket.

First the comment from my friend. Here it is.

"am reminded of my legendary school correspondent, who ppl say, used to strain his neck while in his car to see if any school students are playing cricket in some corner of a play field.. he considered cricket as a waste of time and there are instances when he beat up such children then and there..that's ridiculous and i'm not saying lets do that ... but commercial cricket that ppl were crazy abt (so intense that some fans died of heart-attacks while watching matches) ..where thr's also lot of money and controlled by an orgn that pays no taxes and once said the players don't represent the country.. the players who let us down.. these guys shd walk rather than wait to be shown the way out.. don't we have better things to do than cheer for fixed matches ..........."

And then my response to it.

People and their support for the game, the organisation that runs organised cricket in India which does not pay taxes, claims of not representing the country, and corruption. Those are the issues that I see in the status update.

First, the support thing. Cricket is a game for heaven's sake. Not something worth dying for. The average cricket fan has that perspective. It is only the story of the extremes that finds space in media. Let us not ourselves lose a sense of proportion.

The organisation that runs cricket in India does do its job well. Its side has won the highest accolades of the game. It supports its past players through pensions, has invested in development of the game through better grounds with improvements in spectator comforts, cricket academies for kids, negotiations with sports goods companies for sponsorships for upcoming players, remunerative system of tournaments for players etc. Not to mention organising games which provide entertainment to quite a few people. Even if it is not paying taxes, it seems to be doing a pretty job as far its institutional purpose is concerned. And I think there are other organisations which do not pay taxes but dont have any major impact.

I have personally heard ex footballers and atheletes who have played at district or state level lament the government of India's affiliated sports bodies which are not able to take care of them and how they admire the cricket associations taking care of its players. So clearly, BCCI seems to be getting a few things right.

On the issue of representing the country. If the Government of India says that whoever claims to represent India must be authorised by GoI, well I dont think I need that. The Constitution is about 63 years old. So is GoI. The last time I checked, the 'India' that I have in my mind has a history of at least 2,000 years. So I am good if BCCI says take a hike to GoI. There are organisations, institutions and cultures which GoI do not like but I call them Indian enough. And I see some of that India in the Indian team and the way it plays and performs on and off the cricket.

Now, my love for the game does not stem from some kind of 'nationalism'. Me watching the Indian team does not have anything to do with patriotism. I will wake up early in the morning and watch England play Australia. I will sit late at night to watch a Lara take on McGrath and Warne. My love for the game has to do with the design/structure of the game. Just to explain, I like the switch on, switch off format of the game, the time it gives a person to think and perhaps the test of concentration involved. Or the fact that the boundary is circular and not linear like in football, basketball or badminton which creates the necessity to trust a player's call about the ball crossing the boundary or not. In football, it is always the referee who takes those line calls, there is not much space for test of moral character of the player. I love the elegance of the bodily movements of a cover drive, the gentle curve of a ball swinging, mesmerising spin of the cricket ball....all of it. I like to watch all that. I love the game.

I am not oblivious to corruption in the game. I am as aware about corruption in cricket as I am aware about corruption in Government, Corporates, NGOs and in me. I have not discarded any of those and I am not discarding cricket or the cricket establishment on the basis of corruption.

Someday I hope to write something about cricket that is well researched, structured and elegant. Till then, something like this will have to do. 

Religion in childhood

This is primarily a response to the criticism against children being taught about their religion. Initially, I considered writing about religion in education. Then I came across the Parliamentary debates on teaching of religions in school education. It is a fairly convincing argument that public schools are not the best places to teach children about religion. For reasons of competence and feasibility. Not so much the issue of confining religion to private spaces.

The argument that religion should not be introduced to children until they attain an ability to judge for themselves based on reason is an often heard one. The basis being that beliefs are to be chosen by a rational mind. To begin with there is a practical difficulty. How does a parent then answer the question from a child, "Why do you go to the Church/Temple/Mosque?". But going deeper, what is the nature of beliefs, how are they acquired, what is the role of reason, can it be a choice. Secondly, what is religion and does it mean to introduce religion to children.

But before getting into, let me list what I understand as the reasons for criticising introduction of religion to children. One, it stunts thinking because it is based on beliefs. Two, religion leads to much strife because it tends to be exclusive of sections of society who do not subscribe to the same set of beliefs.

The oft repeated examples of religion and its impact on thinking are the stories of Copernicus (Heliocentricism and  Geocentricism) and Galileo. What is to be kept in mind in these stories is that what the Roman Catholic Church was defending was Ptolemy's propositions which predates the Church itself. And the criticism was in keeping with the traditions of scientific debate of the time. That opposition was suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church through house arrests and destroying records is condemnable in the interests of open debate. But can an honest evaluation of history say that it is only the Roman Catholic Church which has suppressed dissent? Second, is that the experience with other Churches? The Churches themselves have had rather strong debates on everything under the sun and God itself. What about other religions? Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism. They have also contributed to what we call as progress. We should not forget that the decimal system that we are so dependent on emerged is Arab in origin when religious beliefs were popular. Also, we do have periods of strong movement in disciplines like science, philosophy and literature even during the periods of religious dominance. The contributions of religion to the emergence of many universities and centres of academic pursuits cannot be discounted. So, to assume that religion stunts thinking is to ignore that history.

The second aspect of this criticism is the ascription of religion as the primary cause for strife in the world. Pray, I ask what was religious about World War 2 or World War 1 or the fight for supremacy between the capitalist block and the communist block? Mankind's history is replete with stories of violent elimination of differences. And that is not always religious differences.

So, the question that I have is why single out religion for all that is bad with the world.

Coming to the question of religion and children. Most religions are about the following aspects.

1. Description of a God (theism, deism, pantheism etc etc)
2. Man's origin and relationship with God
3. God's expectation from Man and conditions for achieving the 'eternal good life' (generally boils down to a moral framework)

These three aspects together contribute to the development of a world view and a disposition or attitude. The major religions having varying differences on these three aspects. That has very practical implications on how people behave or act when subscribing to different religions. Just like people of different ideological dispositions are likely to different in behaviour and actions. What is particularly remarkable is that the theological frameworks of most religions will have an impact on almost all aspects of human activity and social institutions. Therefore, to shield a child from the influence of religion seems extremely impractical unless we are presupposing the desirability of a non religious society and we are slowly moving towards taking religion out of society.

Assuming that the critics are not talking about a religion less society, we need to see how religion will indeed be taught. As mentioned earlier, religion is a world view. It is not merely a set of 10 commandments. Such a world view or attitude is formed over long periods of time. Beginning from childhood. It does not happen through reading alone. It happens through experiencing events, learning about events and through reflection, discussion and debate. The prayer and worship by another person, the views expressed by someone about a person from a different religion, the texts, the expositions, the acts driven by the religious framework, religious institutions - it is this whole cosmology which leads to the development of this world view and disposition.

While much of the development of the world view can happen subtly as socialisation, there are vast elements which require exposition. For example, why a Christian might take a position against capital punishment will require explanation. A discussion on that with a child will lead to religious conversations. Similarly, when a child sees a priest or a missionary do something and ask for an explanation, he will talk about God, Christ and salvation. Without which he cannot be true in his explanation. It is that explanation which will possibly make the child explore about it a little more. He will encounter concepts like fruits of the spirit  which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In the Christian world view, these are acquired through prayer and submission to God's will. There is a strong theological framework which supports this. I would assume that a Christian parent would want to talk about this to his or her child. And if he or she considers this to be true, can he not talk about it and deprive the child of this knowledge? Religion, when taken in its entirety, is not a specific set of beliefs that can be chosen like picking the flavour of an ice-cream. It is a world view and it includes an attitude. Saying that children should not be taught religion is akin to saying ban religion. It is a position that can be taken. But then express it as such.

The other aspect that I would like to point out is that there is an assumption somewhere in the criticism that children cannot apply their mind. Indoctrination is a form of pedagogy that hampers thinking. It is not restricted to religion. And importantly, religion is not restricted to indoctrination. Critical pedagogy and religion can go together. In fact, much of the methods of critical theory emerged  from the study of Bible. 

Abraham, Isaac, God and an explanation

There is a question that is often asked by those skeptical and dismissive of the Christian God. “How can a loving God ask for the sacrifice of the son of a believer just to test the strength of his belief?” A tentative answer to that question can be given by a Christian based on the meta-narrative of Christianity. This will be acceptable only within that meta-narrative. Outside of that, any answer to that question merely subjects the answer giver to the charge of speaking gibberish.

The first part of the meta-narrative is that while God is loving, he also created everything that we see and therefore has absolute right over everything. And the loving God also demands us to give glory to him, he has absolute distaste for anything being given more value than himself by any of his creations. A believer attributing allegiance to anything including his own son is not acceptable to such on omnipotent God. So there lies the grounds for a test of a believer's faith.(Why does an omnipotent God have to test to know? Because, there is a matter of free will.)

Secondly, in the meta-narrative, there is a concept of eternal life. So even if Abraham's son were to be killed, it is not an eternal death. Our body and our existence on earth is valuable only from the point of view of whether it sings glory to God. There is no other reason for our existence. If the act yields glory to God, that in itself is a necessary and sufficient justification. In short, in the context of an eternal life, a father sacrificing a son for the glory of God does not sound so untenable.

Now, this need not surprise any of us. We all, at least most of us including non believers, believe in a variant of this. In matters of public good, we all believe that the father son relationship is subservient to public good. For example, when a senior police official in Odisha tried to protect his son from prosecution in a criminal case (rape), we all shook our head in disapproval because here was a father who was shielding his son from the long arm of the law, the enforcer of public good. Now if we were to replace public good with God's glory, we will get the same hierarchy.

But all of this makes sense only in the context of God as the creator and the idea of eternal life. Else, it looks untenable and perhaps gibberish.