The Unmaking of Composite India: Sport, Citizenship, and the Expanding Grammar of Exclusion

 

-Ramphal Kataria

Cricket Diplomacy, Communal Mobilisation, and India’s Self-Inflicted Reputational Crisis

Abstract

The uncertainty surrounding the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup has revealed the growing fragility of sports diplomacy in South Asia. Bangladesh’s refusal to play matches scheduled in India, following the withdrawal of cricketer Mustafizur Rahman from the Indian Premier League (IPL), signals a deeper crisis than a mere sporting dispute. This article argues that the episode exemplifies the increasing subordination of ostensibly autonomous institutions to majoritarian political pressures in India. Situating the controversy within the history of sports boycotts and diplomatic signalling, the article examines how communal mobilisation, selective outrage, and institutional retreat have damaged India’s regional relations and global sporting credibility. By linking the Bangladesh episode to broader patterns of social exclusion—religious, racial, caste-based, and regional—the paper contends that the erosion of “Composite India” poses a long-term threat to democratic cohesion, diplomatic trust, and India’s international standing.

1. Introduction: Cricket as Political Index

Cricket in South Asia has long been entangled with politics, but recent developments suggest a qualitative shift in this relationship. The uncertainty surrounding the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup—specifically Bangladesh’s refusal to play its scheduled matches in India—cannot be explained through logistical or security considerations alone. Rather, it reflects a deeper crisis in which domestic political dynamics have begun to dictate the terms of international sporting engagement.

At the centre of this rupture lies the Mustafizur Rahman episode in the IPL. The abrupt withdrawal of a duly auctioned Bangladeshi cricketer, following pressure from communal fringe groups, transformed a franchise-level decision into a bilateral diplomatic controversy. Cricket, once a key instrument of India’s soft power and regional engagement, has thus become a barometer of the republic’s internal political health. The episode forces a reconsideration of how far institutional autonomy has eroded under majoritarian pressure—and at what cost to India’s regional leadership and global credibility.

2. Sport, Boycott, and Diplomacy: Historical Perspectives

The politicisation of sport is not a contemporary aberration. Sporting engagement and disengagement have historically functioned as instruments of diplomacy and moral signalling. Ping-pong diplomacy in 1971 facilitated dialogue between the United States and China, while apartheid South Africa’s prolonged exclusion from international sport reinforced global condemnation of racial segregation. The Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984 further demonstrated how sport could become a theatre for geopolitical confrontation.¹

In South Asia, cricket diplomacy has been particularly fragile. India–Pakistan cricketing ties have repeatedly collapsed following political crises, normalising neutral venues and suspensions. Bangladesh’s present stance must therefore be understood within this tradition. Boycott here is not an emotional overreaction but a calculated diplomatic signal, deployed when sport is perceived as unsafe, politicised, or discriminatory.

3. The Mustafizur Rahman Episode: Procedure, Power, and Perception

Mustafizur Rahman, one of Bangladesh’s most accomplished fast bowlers, was included in the IPL auction list after clearance by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). During the auction, multiple franchises—Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals among them—placed bids before Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) secured his services.

The subsequent withdrawal of Rahman, reportedly following BCCI intervention citing vague “broader circumstances,” marked a significant procedural rupture. The IPL auction process is governed by rules and approvals designed to insulate sporting decisions from extraneous pressures. Retroactive interference, absent transparent justification, undermines institutional credibility.

In Bangladesh, the episode was widely interpreted as evidence that cricketing engagement with India is vulnerable to non-sporting pressures, particularly communal mobilisation. Whether or not this interpretation fully captures the BCCI’s internal reasoning is ultimately secondary. In diplomacy, perception often carries more weight than intent.² The damage lay not only in the decision itself, but in the message, it conveyed: that contractual sporting arrangements in India can be overridden by political sentiment.

4. Selective Outrage and the Communalisation of Sport

The public outcry against Mustafizur Rahman’s inclusion did not emerge organically. It was selectively mobilised and symbolically targeted. Although KKR is co-owned by Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta, both Hindus, the controversy was personalised around Shah Rukh Khan, the franchise’s Muslim co-owner. This targeting was amplified by the broader context of West Bengal’s polarised electoral politics.

A critical counterfactual question exposes the communal logic of the outrage: had Rahman been finally purchased by Chennai Super Kings or Rajasthan Royals, would a similar protest have occurred? The absence of agitation during earlier bidding rounds strongly suggests that the issue was not the player’s nationality or the auction process, but the symbolic association of a Muslim owner with the inclusion of a Bangladeshi Muslim cricketer.

This selective outrage converted a routine sporting transaction into a communal narrative, collapsing the distinction between franchise autonomy and religious identity.

5. From Sporting Dispute to Diplomatic Crisis: Bangladesh’s Response

Bangladesh’s response was swift and unprecedented. Reports indicated the suspension of IPL broadcasts, formal communication to the ICC seeking venue changes, and a clear declaration that its team would not travel to India under prevailing circumstances. This escalation transformed a domestic controversy into an international diplomatic problem.

The timing compounded the damage. Only days earlier, India had sought to stabilise ties with Dhaka through high-level diplomatic engagement, including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to convey Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s condolence message to Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Tarique Rahman following Khaleda Zia’s death. Cricket diplomacy thus unravelled what formal diplomacy had just attempted to repair.

Bangladesh’s placement, de facto, in the same administrative category as Pakistan for cricketing purposes reflects a significant erosion of India’s regional standing.³ The loss here is not Bangladesh’s alone; it is India’s institutional and diplomatic failure.

6. Institutional Retreat: BCCI, ICC, and Governance

The irony of the episode is striking. The ICC is chaired by an Indian national, and India positions itself as a responsible global sporting host. Yet the handling of a single IPL contract escalated into a reputational crisis threatening a major international tournament.

This outcome was not inevitable. Transparent procedures, clear communication, and political insulation could have contained the controversy. Instead, the BCCI’s apparent capitulation to fringe pressure signalled institutional retreat. The episode raises troubling questions about governance: if sporting bodies cannot uphold their own procedures against political mobilisation, their credibility as neutral arbiters collapses.

7. Beyond Cricket: The Expanding Grammar of Exclusion

The Mustafizur Rahman episode must be situated within a broader social context marked by expanding forms of exclusion. The killing of Angel Chakma, a student from Tripura, in Dehradun in December 2025—after he was racially abused as “Chinese”—illustrates how physical appearance has become a criterion of belonging. Citizens from the North-East routinely face racial profiling, compelled to publicly assert their Indianness.

Parallel dynamics operate elsewhere. Bengali-speaking Muslims in Delhi are labelled “Bangladeshi”; migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are treated as outsiders in Maharashtra; caste divisions are actively mobilised for political consolidation. The cumulative effect is a narrowing definition of citizenship, structured around religion, appearance, language, and region.

8. Political Rhetoric and the Normalisation of Suspicion

Political leadership plays a decisive role in legitimising social attitudes. Remarks made in the name of Swadeshi—such as Prime Minister Modi’s reference to imported Ganesh idols with “small eyes” as “Chinese innovations” at a public event in Gandhinagar in 2023—were widely interpreted in the North-East as racial caricature rather than economic critique.⁴

During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Muslims were repeatedly identified through markers such as clothing, beards, and food habits, while gendered symbols like the “mangalsutra” were deployed for electoral mobilisation. While such rhetoric may yield short-term political gains, it normalises suspicion as a mode of governance and deepens social fragmentation.

9. Caste, Gender, and Electoral Fragmentation

Fragmentation in contemporary India is not incidental; it is strategic. Electoral politics increasingly mobilises caste binaries—Jat versus non-Jat, Yadav versus non-Yadav, Rajput versus Jat—while even Scheduled Castes are subdivided for political gain. Women, meanwhile, are reduced to symbolic categories rather than substantive political agents.

This managed disintegration undermines social solidarity and erodes the foundations of democratic citizenship. The logic is consistent across domains: division is instrumentalised to consolidate power.

10. Diaspora, Global Image, and Security Implications

Domestic majoritarianism carries external consequences. As racial fringe movements gain traction in countries such as Australia and the United States, India’s internal conduct becomes a point of reference. If Indians themselves deploy racial and religious hierarchies to define belonging, there is little reason to expect restraint from xenophobic actors abroad.

Attacks on Indian students and migrants in Western countries underscore how domestic narratives can translate into external vulnerability.⁵ The erosion of India’s plural image thus has tangible security implications for its diaspora.

11. Conclusion: Composite India and the Stakes of Sport

The Mustafizur Rahman episode is not merely a sporting controversy; it is a diagnostic moment for contemporary India. It reveals how deeply majoritarian impulses have penetrated institutions once assumed to be neutral, and how quickly domestic polarisation can spill into foreign policy setbacks.

Composite India—plural, diverse, and inclusive—is not a rhetorical ideal but a constitutional necessity. Undermining it for short-term electoral consolidation risks long-term national disintegration. When sport becomes sectarian, diplomacy falters. When diversity is framed as invasion, unity becomes untenable.

The question is no longer whether India can host a cricket tournament, but whether it can sustain a republic capable of commanding trust—at home and abroad.

References

1.     Allison, L (1986): The Politics of Sport, Manchester University Press.

2.     Murray, S (2012): “The Two Halves of Sports-Diplomacy,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol 23, No 3.

3.     Majumdar, B and Bandyopadhyay, K (2006): A Social History of Indian Cricket, Pearson Longman.

4.     Media reports of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swadeshi speech, Gandhinagar, 2023.

5.     Human Rights Watch (2018–2024): Reports on racial violence against South Asian migrants.