This article first appeared on the Substack Cricket Et Al and has been republished with permission.

For readers of Cricket et al, few things matter more than cricket. Even for them, loss of life and limb would certainly rank higher. It was thus deeply disturbing when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted his message on X after India won the Asia Cup: “#OperationSindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same - India wins! Congrats to our cricketers”. This wasn’t merely tone-deaf celebration. It represented something far more sinister; the deliberate equation of sporting triumph with military conflict, treating cricket victory as an extension of actual warfare where people die.

Operation Sindoor was no game. Launched by India on May 7 after the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians, it involved coordinated strikes across the Line of Control and deeper inside Pakistan. Over 50 Pakistanis died, including 40 civilians and 11 soldiers. Tens of Indians on the Line of Control lost their homes and lives in the conflict. Many Indian soldiers perished too, some acknowledged only when the Indian Air Force Chief visited the grieving family. Others lost limbs, recognised only after the IAF chief’s visit to the Armed Forces Limb Centre in Pune. By invoking this operation to celebrate a cricket match, Modi trivialised genuine sacrifice and genuine grief.

This moral bankruptcy should surprise no one. None of these sacrifices earned acknowledgment in Modi’s annual Independence Day speech from Delhi’s Red Fort on 15 August. Indian soldiers received an unprecedented 127 gallantry awards, but for the first time ever, the citations describing their acts of valour were withheld from public view. Something is being concealed because there is something to hide. A revelation would perhaps puncture Modi’s carefully crafted ethno-nationalist narrative. Now cricket has been summoned to serve the same propaganda purpose. The preparation was evident before the winning boundary was struck. Indian army soldiers serving on Pakistan’s border were encouraged to spout jingoistic nonsense to a news agency widely recognised as the Modi government’s propaganda arm. A chorus of celebrities, union ministers and ruling party politicians joined this orchestrated performance.

Historian Ram Guha captured the moral revulsion felt by millions when he described Modi’s post as “hasty, ill-conceived, politically imprudent and absolutely unbefitting of his office”. He wasn’t alone. Critics across the political spectrum condemned the Prime Minister for “diminishing his office and our country”. But condemnation misses the deeper danger. Equating cricket with military operations doesn’t elevate sport. It reduces war to entertainment in public consciousness. When the Prime Minister of a nuclear-armed nation treats warfare like a cricket match, he makes future conflicts more likely by stripping them of moral weight.

“War is too serious a business to be left to the generals,” said French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau during the World War I. Fighting and killing can never equate to hitting boundaries or taking catches. Modi’s tweet transformed war from humanity’s gravest undertaking into casual sport. In a nation already afflicted by a majoritarian nationalist politics, this represents profound recklessness. Pakistan, also a nuclear power, cannot be treated as just another opponent to be casually defeated. Yet Modi’s message suggested exactly that; war as just another game where “India wins.”

History offers instructive contrast. During the 1999 Kargil War, India and Pakistan played each other in the World Cup in England, but basic courtesies prevailed. The BJP ruled then too, yet politicians maintained boundaries between sport and conflict. Five years later, the same PM told the Indian team touring Pakistan to not only win matches but also win hearts. Earlier still, in 1971, when India helped liberate Bangladesh by militarily defeating Pakistan, Indian and Pakistani cricketers were touring Australia together as part of the Rest of the World team. In Sunny Days, Sunil Gavaskar recalls how he, Zaheer Abbas and others would dine together even as they were updated about the war’s progress. Sport remained sport. War remained war.

If Suryakumar Yadav’s batting on the field was poor during the Asia Cup, his off-field conduct was poorer. Making unprovoked, boastful claims to journalists as if auditioning for a BJP parliamentary ticket, he promised to donate his match fees to the military. He crossed all boundaries by claiming that Modi “himself bats on the front foot; it felt like he took the strike and scored runs”. Don’t be surprised to see him photographed with Modi soon, receiving national awards or greater political responsibilities. Yet his outrage was pure theatre. He shook hands with Salman Agha twice in private and also with the ACC chief and Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi from whom he refused to collect the trophy. The public fury was carefully choreographed drama, perhaps coached. After all the coach of the Indian team is a former BJP MP.

The BJP is at the centre of it all. The Indian cricket team no longer represents India; it functions as the BJP’s sporting arm. This isn’t accident but design. The BJP completely controls Indian cricket through institutional capture. The entire current BCCI leadership was selected at a meeting at Union home minister Amit Shah’s residence, where all power brokers were present. They then travelled to Ahmedabad for dinner with Jay Shah. Devajit Saikia, the BCCI secretary, maintains close BJP ties. Mithun Manhas, the president, was chosen by Jay Shah as the BJP’s proxy in Jammu and Kashmir cricket, believed to be nominated for the role of BCCI president by Gautam Gambhir himself. It is no surprise that every major cricket decision in India now serves BJP interests. What we witnessed during the Asia Cup was thus inevitable. It was sport subordinated entirely to political propaganda.

This raises profound questions about Indian cricket’s moral leadership. Where are the voices of conscience? Where are current or former players, or writers and commentators, willing to speak truth to power? Syed Kirmani stands almost alone among cricketers in speaking up. Can India never produce an Usman Khawaja, who has stood up to support Gaza, or a Peter Lalor who was sacked for pro-Palestinian posts? England had Mike Brearley, who campaigned extensively against apartheid. India once had Bishen Bedi.

Bedi, who died in October 2023, would have spoken up. Known for never pulling punches while criticising cricket officials, he once demanded his name be removed from Delhi’s main stadium stand to protest the installation of a deceased BJP politician’s statue. He refused lucrative Kerry Packer contracts on principle and later condemned IPL player auctions as treating cricketers “like horses sold to the highest bidder”. “If speaking one’s mind is a crime, then I am guilty several times over,” he once declared.

Today’s stars show no such courage. Sunil Gavaskar, who once saved lives of a Muslim family being attacked during Bombay riots, now sits comfortably on a fat BCCI contract, silent while cricket is weaponised. Recent cricket celebrities queued up to support Modi against agitating farmers who eventually forced him to withdraw controversial agricultural laws. This included Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli. However, Virat Kohli’s subsequent defence of Mohammed Shami was in solidarity against a team mate being targeted for his religious identity.

This systematic complicity isn’t accidental. Research by Joyojeet Pal et al demonstrates how Indian sportspeople systematically align with ruling party initiatives, unlike their American counterparts who engage critically with political issues. Their study reveals that “ownership and governmental control of sports affect public stances on issues that professional sportspersons are willing to engage in online.” Unlike the United States, where athletes frequently criticise politicians and policies, Indian sports figures show “practically no frontal attack on Modi by any of the Indian sportspersons”.

This represents deliberate institutional capture. When sport becomes state propaganda, athletes lose the independence necessary for moral leadership. Cricket’s transformation from national passion to political weapon reflects broader democratic decay in Modi’s India.

Let’s be clear. Pakistan’s response was equally disappointing. The provocative celebrations by some players, cheque-throwing by Agha and trophy-grabbing by Naqvi were petty acts that, while nowhere near India’s moral failure, reflected poorly on cricket’s spirit.

However, the real tragedy lies in what this episode reveals about India’s direction. When cricket becomes a war metaphor, when sporting victories are treated as military triumphs, humanity itself suffers. Sport’s power lies in its ability to transcend political divisions, to create shared joy across artificial boundaries. Modi’s tweet destroyed that possibility, turning cricket into another weapon in his ethno-nationalist arsenal. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should now understand what he participated in when he rode a chariot with Modi around a stadium bearing the Indian leader’s name. That wasn’t innocent cricket diplomacy. It was legitimising authoritarian nationalism on the world stage.

“Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero!” “No, Andrea....unhappy is the land that needs a hero,” wrote Bertolt Brecht. Heroes or not, India desperately needs people of conscience willing to speak truth about power’s abuse. Cricket’s association with militarism isn’t harmless fun in a nation ruled by Hindu-nationalist madness. Without public voices willing to resist, what seems like farcical disappointment could become dangerous disaster, where cricket provides not joy but justification for violence, destruction and the loss of human lives.

The choice remains: cricket as celebration of human excellence, or cricket as weapon of political hatred. Modi has made his preference clear. The question is whether the people of India retain the courage to choose differently.

Sushant Singh is a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University and consulting editor with The Caravan magazine in India. He served in the Indian Army for more than two decades.