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Indian Muslims : Hame aapka ?jee jaan? nahi chahiye
via India Muslims :
India-Pakistan Twenty 20 world cup final would be a dream come true for millions on this globe. And nothing could have surpassed the tense final moments of the final match. When Misbah tossed the ball of Joginder Sharma, many heart stopped beating. The catch by Sreesaanth put the heart beat back for Indians and perhaps took away few beats for Pakistanis. It was the most perfect finish we could have hoped for.
Shoaib Malik after the match remarked, or rather apologized, to the entire Muslims for losing! I found it extremely disturbing, to say the least. How justified is to associate the whole Muslim world with the cricket team of Pakistan? As a matter of fact this generalization is something very common among Pakistanis. They claimed to have acquired Nuclear weapon to protect the Muslim world when the first testing took place immediately after India tested its nuke. The basis being the only Muslim country to have acquired nuclear capability. The same logic was extended to cricket, Pakistan being the strongest among Muslim countries.
I found it so embarrassing when Malik mentioned this to Ravi Shastri as I was watching the match with my office colleagues. Murmurs immediately buzzed the extremely charged environment. People were critical how Malik was dragging the entire Muslim world into this. He gave a statement before the match that his team will definitely win as it is Ramdaan and his team members ‘jee jaan eek kar denge‘. Its a common perception that India can't defeat Pakistan on Fridays as its an auspicious day for Muslims. Whenever a friend of mine used to mention this, I used to present my counter-argument based on the fact that India has more Muslims than Pakistan so why not India? I never got a reply back.
Even though this statement might be considered frivolous in Pakistan and across the Muslim countries, well in case cricket does make any sense to any of them, it has serious repercussions in a country like India where Muslims are already seen with suspicion. Even though none of my colleagues commented about this statement but a doubt would definitely have burgeoned regarding my loyalties. A natural question would be, "who do you support?"
Irfan Pathan should have objected to this as he was interviewed immediately after him. His clarification would have at least made Malik realise that his team was just representing Pakistan and why the hell is religion being brought into cricket?
I don't want to be termed as a sadist who keeps looking for trifle things on an evening when India won the world cup and thus I don't want this to be a harangue against the incident.
