Entering the stands at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad from either end can be a tad bit haunting for the uninitiated. An unforgivingly vast sea of orange stares deep into your soul, almost as a reminder of whose city you’re in, lest you forget. The choice of colour for a large part of the seating area isn’t incidental here. It very firmly delivers an unsubtle, unmasked and politically charged message – that there’s a reason this place is named after a certain someone and that it’s the de facto power centre of Indian cricket now being run by another certain someone’s son.
The legend of this stadium is built around its capacity to host more than 100,000 people – the exact number varies by different accounts but exceeds 130,000 on the upside. By every verifiable account though, it’s indeed the biggest cricket stadium in the world now.
But the capacity was never the only factor for this venue to be the obvious choice to host the lip-smacking India-Pakistan game at the ongoing Cricket World Cup. There’s so much to leverage out of staging this spectacle at a stadium that’s fast becoming a manifestation for the personality cult of the leader it’s been built in service of.
Narendra Modi is an incredibly popular leader in most parts of the country today but there’s perhaps no place but Ahmedabad that he can entirely count on to deliver to perfection everything that he needs. The waters had already been tested earlier this year when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had been invited at this venue on March 9 before the start of an India-Australia test match.
Packing the stands for test cricket in India isn’t the easiest of jobs. To stage a political event that looks nothing short of a music concert required not only for the stands to look reasonably full but also for the crowd to uniformly act obsequious and indebted to the presence of their leader. Individually vetting the thousands you’ve distributed free tickets amongst is impossible, even for a party of BJP’s resources. The safer option is to stage it among a people you have complete confidence in to not spoil your script. This is where Ahmedabad can be blindly banked upon to deliver.
And deliver Ahmedabad did, to perfection, as Modi and Albanese rode on a chariot around the ground taking a lap of honour to rapturous reception of a crowd (far from capacity despite the best efforts) just too grateful to be breathing the same air the man they’ve submitted their ability to reason for did. It was pretty emblematic of a ‘new India’ where staged events with vetted audience in attendance inflating the ego of an elected leader is how national pride is measured.
Cricket has willingly allowed itself to be used as a vehicle facilitating this pomposity and the gigantic bowl in Ahmedabad is at the heart of this exercise.
Also read: Cricket World Cup: The Good and the Ugly of a Hysterical Crowd’s Collective Energy
On Saturday when India hosted Pakistan at this stadium though, the vast sea of orange wasn’t meant to be as conspicuous as it looked on the drone shots. Much of the sitting area, already expected to have turned blue by the time of toss, remained unoccupied well past the first half of the Pakistan innings.
The stands eventually did fill considerably, though the broadcasters refrained from repeatedly boasting of a ‘record number’ of people gathered for a cricket match. Which is probably an indication the number wasn’t quite the one they were desperately craving for.
Much of the anticipation built around this game was somewhat rooted in the fact that for the first time in a long time, Pakistan attempted some rabble-rousing. Both the cricket boards have been at diplomatic loggerheads for a while now. India’s steadfast refusal to travel to Pakistan didn’t change during the Asia Cup last month and that left the hosts justifiably aggrieved. Having to come across as not taking things lying down, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had at one point threatened to reciprocate by not showing up for the World Cup but few treated it with any seriousness.
The BCCI’s official position is to not extend cricketing relations with Pakistan beyond multilateral tournaments. The board of course does not have the autonomy to decide this on its own and must adhere to the government’s directives. But there’s an element of subterfuge here; in that, the BCCI likes to pose as if it plays Pakistan in these international events only out of fulfilling its commitment despite the strongest reservations. But this could not be further from the truth.
Even though it has affirmed a very uncompromising and principled stand, when it actually comes to milking the popularity of an India-Pakistan match, the BCCI and its entire ecosystem that feeds off cricket cares little about those principles. Tournament after tournament, formats and schedules are rigged to maximise the possibility of the two teams facing each other.
The home broadcasters in India have no hesitation building up the game as the ultimate cultural marker of an entire nation. A slew of news anchors and former cricketers who’ve carved a brand out of insincerely rehashing hawkish jargon on TV are all too happy to be sharing screen-space with their Pakistani counterparts. And then follows the same tired rhetoric of sports having to rise above the ugliness of daily politics.
That the BCCI ascribes a first-among-equals status to an India-Pakistan contest was confirmed during the Asia Cup itself when a special reserve day was arranged for it in the event of a washout. None of the other teams had their games insured by such an arrangement and worse still, they were made to publicly state they were on board with it.
The special treatment for this fixture only became more blatant on Saturday when a haphazardly organised pre-game entertainment show was arranged ahead of the match. Featuring some of the more famous names in the Indian music industry, the show was meant to be the perfect precursor before the showdown event in front of a record crowd. It’s hard to think of another world event across all sports that commences without an opening ceremony but then has one specially arranged for a blockbuster game in the middle of it.
Perhaps it was the backlash they faced for this brazenness or maybe it was a case of poor due diligence where someone forgot to clarify who pays royalty fees to the music labels, but minutes after, yes, after the show began, it was revealed that it’s only for the live audience in the stadium and that it won’t be televised. Nothing could’ve summed up the BCCI’s ineptitude, chicanery, and all-round clumsiness more poetically.
The tournament is wide open still and odds aren’t totally stacked against India and Pakistan locking a faceoff in the final at the same venue. Who knows, it might even prompt the BCCI into arranging a closing ceremony for the tournament after all.
Should it really materialise though, no one is going to be happier than the BCCI. The political imagery of India defeating Pakistan to lift cricket’s ultimate prize in a stadium named after – and perhaps even in presence of – its tallest active politician is massive; particularly six months before the country goes to polls.
The last time India lifted a World Cup at home, the visuals of a jampacked Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai jamming to Vande Matram in chorus made for a memory everyone went home with. The scenes might very well repeat in a month’s time but Ahmedabad may have a slightly different choice of song.
The stadium has in a short time managed to shift the fan culture to be more representative of the politics its benefactors stand for. Politically loaded religious sloganeering is getting increasingly common. The familiar Bharat Mata Ki Jai and Vande Matram are now followed with the even more affirmatively raised Jai Shri Ram.
And it isn’t just an innocuous invocation of faith. During the India-Australia test in March, the chants were directed at Indian fast bowler Mohammed Shami. No one chose to address it then and this time the Pakistani batsman Mohammad Rizwan was at the receiving end.
Also read: India-Pakistan Cricket: On a Sticky Wicket in Ahmedabad
A few months back, former PCB chairman Najam Sethi had voiced his concerns at Ahmedabad being the proposed venue in the World Cup for Pakistan to face India. The city indeed confirmed his worst fears.
No home crowd is expected to be particularly cordial to a visiting team, let alone to the fiercest rival. Boorish and uncouth behaviour too is part of the deal and professionals are more than prepared for it. Chants aimed specifically at mocking a Muslim player’s faith, however, cannot pass as harmless banter and reflect worryingly of the rot building up at the heart of the Indian society.
It wouldn’t have been deeply concerning if it was only limited to a few miscreants creating a menace. This shift in vibe instead was in all its glory as the DJ played a recently popular number from the film Adipurush and the chants reverberated through every corner in the stadium.
Indian cricket has never militantly kept faith out of the stadium experience. Wankhede regulars famously raise Ganpati Bappa Morya every now and then but it has never been weaponised to intimidate players from another faith. The chant is in fact inclusive in nature and only invokes a feeling that’s distinctly associated with Mumbai.
What’s happening in Ahmedabad on the other hand isn’t business as usual for Indian cricket fandom. It breeds a sense of exclusion and anxiety and shall steadily drive people away from stadiums. If not nipped in the bud, it won’t be too long before more cities catch up with it. And that won’t make for a very pretty sight.
