Rohit Mahajan

The Azeem Rafiq case brings to sharp relief tensions caused in an individual and in disparate groups due to displacement. Rafiq, born in Pakistan, moved to England as a child and became an excellent cricketer — captain of England’s junior team, no less. But he played for Yorkshire, a northern county which has seen lesser assimilation than the southern ones, and where racism and ‘otherisation’ and bigotry, as a recent report suggested, were institutionalised and unpunished.

Playing for Yorkshire, Rafiq suffered horrible abuse over his South Asian origins and his religion — at the hands of his fellow cricketers, ‘native’ white men. Much of it was passed off as ‘banter’, but the underlying animus and contempt would be obvious if you consider insults such as ‘Raffa the Kaffir’, ‘Paki’ and ‘there’s too many of you lot, we need to do something about it’. The last of these was thrown at Rafiq and other Pakistan-origin players allegedly by former England and Yorkshire captain Michael Vaughan. Players of colour were all referred to as ‘Kevin’, and one cricketer went ahead and got a black dog and named it Kevin, Rafiq said. India’s Cheteshwar Pujara was called ‘Steve’ when he played for Yorkshire — the players did not deem it fit to address him by his real name.

Rafiq’s complaints were disregarded until, finally, the scandal exploded and sponsors started pulling out of commercial deals with the Yorkshire County and Cricket Club (YCCC). This hurt real bad and, woken up from slumber, the England and Wales Cricket Board acted, banning Yorkshire from hosting international matches.

A lot of apologising occurred, the chairman of YCCC resigned and a Kenya-born first generation immigrant, Kamlesh Patel — Baron Patel of Bradford! — took over. Patel is a social worker and has done important work on mental health and drug addiction. He has the qualifications to rid YCCC of institutional racism.

Rafiq won praise and sympathy, for he was a victim of bigotry. But those who suffer from bigotry could be bigoted, too. Following the scandal, it emerged that Rafiq had sent anti-Semitic messages about an unnamed Jewish person to a fellow Muslim cricketer, Ateeq Javid, in the past. Now it was the turn of Rafiq to apologise: “I have absolutely no excuses. I am ashamed of this exchange...”

Severe labour shortage in the industrialised midlands and north led to Britain becoming multicultural almost overnight since the late 1940s. The immigrants — from Jamaica and Pakistan and India and other places — brought along prejudices rooted in race, religion and language. Mixing with local prejudices, this created a terrible blend. People such as Rafiq are both victims and perpetrators of bigotry taught by society and religion.

Dravid on the job

It’s sweet irony that Rahul Dravid’s assignment as India’s head coach started with a Twenty20 series. Dravid, a classical Test batsman, could hit big shots when he willed, but he was never comfortable with T20 cricket. In 2008, when the IPL was about to be launched, he told a journalist he was glad that this form of cricket came at a time when he was done with the better part of his career. Dravid, captain of the Indian team in 2007, had skipped the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup that year, along with Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar.

T20 cricket is like a discredited son who suddenly becomes the family’s breadwinner — the money it brings in has earned respect for T20 cricket.

The first of our greats to get involved full-time in mentoring youngsters (India A and India U-19), Dravid is aware of all this as he played several seasons of the IPL. But he will judge his success by what he makes of India’s Test team.

Goodbye, Novy

The journey of the gentle Novy Kapadia has ended at age 68. A teacher by training, Kapadia was a lover of sport — specifically, football — by vocation. A much-loved professor of English at Delhi’s Khalsa College, Kapadia was a writer and commentator in his second avatar, a friend to many families hit by the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. He was an authority on football, and you’d struggle to find a reporter who had not sought out Kapadia to drink at this amazing fount of knowledge.

Death destroys knowledge and wisdom gathered over decades. Goodbye, Novy — you were kind and generous in sharing your knowledge.