Yes. The word in the headline is Paapistan. This was used by the author as a cover headline for a magazine in 2009 when “non state actors” wielding sophisticated weapons attacked the bus taking cricket players of Sri Lanka in “cosmopolitan” Karachi. Since then, no foreign cricket team (except one by Zimbabwe in 2015) has even considered visiting Paapistan as an option. You need to be alive to play cricket, isn't it? In 2011, Paapistan had no problems when the International Cricket Council decided that no World Cup matches could be played there. There was a bit of whining and Track-2 dining of course. But mercifully, cricket players and spectators were not asked to risk suicide bombing attacks that have become as routine in Paapistan as tu tu mein mein politics in India.
For anyone with even an iota of common sense – forget nationalism, national interest and decency-the latest serial drama by Paapistan expressing concern about the physical security of its cricket team in India while playing the T-20 World Cup is laughable. But such delusions are ok for a country and many ( hopefully not most) of its citizens to still nurture conspiracy theories that the slaughter of kids in Peshawar and Quetta are Indian and Jewish acts. What is shocking is the manner in which the State and the mainstream media in India is giving a platform to Paapistan to make such ridiculous claims. I mean, TRPs do matter and anything to do with cricket and Paapsitan makes for great infotainment. But this kind of absurd nonsense?
This author will not be surprised at all if “peaceniks” and candle lit vigil activists encourage the right of Paapistan to express concerns about chances of terror attacks on cricket players in India. But what in the name of God is the Narendra Modi government doing? It is all right for Modi to dream of going down in history books as a statesman who solved the Paapistan problem. Many prime ministers before him have nursed that futile ambition. Like Modi, they have ignored seething anger of ordinary Indian citizens and victims of multiple and repeated terror attacks to shake hands with leaders across the Wagah border. Cricket has played a surreal role in this. General Zia Ul Haq watched a cricket match in Jaipur in 1987 even as Paapistan was neck deep in terrorism in Punjab and planning a bigger one in Kashmir. It has happened again and again since then.
Is it worth it? Across the world, people with common sense have called out Paapsitan as a rogue state that is perhaps the fountainhead of terrorism. Geopolitics might compel other nations to continue mollycoddling Paapistan. But why India? Most Indians like this author don't want any hostility with the neighbour. Most believe in live and let live. But at what cost?
