Sportspeople in India Afraid of Controversy Due to Lack of Job Security: Irfan Pathan

Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan believes sportspeople in India refuse to speak their mind on social issues because of insecurity relating to their jobs, regardless of their stature.

Irfan, who has himself been the target of people on social media for speaking his mind on issues in the country, said that in other countries people speak out because their is less fear of losing everything they hold dear.

"Maybe they are afraid of getting into a controversy. You don’t want to react to everything. But yes there is a way by which you can put across your point of view and you should be doing that," he told Mumbai Mirror.

"In India, a commentator lost a job because a movie star tweeted that this particular person praised the opposition more than the Indian team. The bottom-line is insecurity.

"You are giving an example of US or UK, but there is a certain degree of security in these countries that he or she might not lose his job.

"He or she will continue to enjoy government benefits just like others. So if you don’t have security, and you speak out, you have more things to lose than gain. So because of this you at times won’t say what you believe in."

Irfan further added that people in India must do more to eliminate any kind of discriminatory language from their vocabularies, adding that shaming people on any basis leaves a lasting impression.

"Like I posted (yesterday), racism is not only about colour. It could be about religion or body shape. Here we do body shaming, a person without hair is always called a ganja, an overweight person is mota, and someone with dark skin tone is kala.

"Now this is also a form of racism. We need to start controlling our tongue. We need to understand that body shaming leaves a long-lasting impression on the person being mocked. Look at Sammy. He is talking about something that happened in 2014, when these people were friends.

"But in 2020 Sammy feels that something wrong happened with him and he is talking about it now. We as a team were not aware about it at that time and that issue never came up for discussion in any form."