Caste Apart: Australian Media’s Soft Journalism
Eat Cricket, Drink Cricket, Sleep Cricket
Journalists are quite fond of finding new angles to old, beaten-to-death topics. These so-called slants come in handy when you’ve few important things to report, or to be very, very concise, your team is slipping off the pedestal.
By chance or fate, he chose to visit the baby twice in Dr Purandare hospital noticing, to the horror of all on the second trip, that it wasn’t the same boy.
The tiny hole in the boy’s left ear - still visible today - was gone. A panicked search confirmed his judgement: the boy had been swapped with the son of a fisherwoman.
Gavaskar, from a proud, wealthy Brahmin family, the highest caste in the Hindu social order, had an uncle, Madhav Mantri, who played for India. It’s one of the great imponderables, a classic recasting of the nature-nurture divide to speculate whether Gavaskar, raised by a fisherwoman, could have played the game.
He might have had the eye and the dexterity to star in backstreet games, but would a fisherwoman’s son have played 125 Tests and scored 34 centuries? The chances may not have been great. The Brahmin caste, which forms only a tiny fraction of India’s population, has always dominated the national cricket side.
Don’t get me started on neuroscience. It’s my major. This is nature vs. nurture. Let’s leave it to the experts, Andrew.
“Why do their fielders not chase the ball to the boundary? Why do Indian batsmen rarely run for singles, apparently preferring to hit the ball to the fence or amble through for two runs in no obvious haste?” Anand wrote. “Having too many Brahmans means that you play the game a little too softly, and mostly for yourself.”
That sounds like some sort of conspiracy theory!
Despite his talents, Kambli was always booed and mocked at his home ground, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Observers believed it was because of the dark colour of his skin. Not so, says Kambli. “I think it’s because of my caste.”
“I think” signifies you are opining. Facts please?
SECOND TEST SIDE
Castes among the Indian team’s Hindus:
Brahmin
Anil Kumble
Rahul Dravid
VVS Laxman
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly
R.P. Singh
Ishant Sharma
Jat
Yuvraj Singh
Rajput
Mahendra DhoniOf the team’s non-Hindus, Wasim Jaffer is a Muslim and Harbhajan Singh a Sikh.
Ow. I never knew about players’ castes, really, except for Harbhajan and Zaheer’s, obviously.
This is just very, very disappointing reporting from Sydney Morning Herald. Does anyone here actually believe this baloney?
Photo Credit: SMH
Tags: cricket, harbhajan-singh, media-rant, sydney-morning-herald, zaheer-khanRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Cricket, MeThinks, Weekly Debate/Rant
21 opinions for Caste Apart: Australian Media’s Soft Journalism
Uncle J rod
Jan 5, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Falling off their pedastal are they?
You can’t really take anything seriously if Rupert Murdoch owns it Dinnie.
This is the man who invented fox news.
Dinnie
Jan 5, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Kind of. Who won the T20?
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This was way off-base, coming from a country where caste system doesn’t exist at all!
I didn’t know the Murdoch bit, though.
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Which is a good Oz newspaper to read, then?
ashutosh
Jan 5, 2008 at 3:53 pm
They are just going overboard. can someone ask this Andrew what kind of position does this Anand holds. is he a cricketer or a selector or what mate.
first rule of Journalism Andrew
STICK TO FACTS PLZ
Homer
Jan 5, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Uncle J,
Murdoch owns the Sydney Morning Herald? I thought the news.com.au stable belonged to him..
Bas
Jan 5, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Without drifting away from the topic at hand, isn’t Yuvraj a Sikh and not a Hindu (as the newspaper claims) in the first place?
I recall Harbhajan saying in an interview responding to criticism of leaving his hair uncovered for an advertisement (which offended the Sikh community) that Yuvraj doesn’t cover his hair either. Can’t seem to find any video right now but here is the cricinfo link :
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/261738.html
Dinnie
Jan 5, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I’m no expert on castes, Bas. I’m not sure what my caste is, so there…
But I had always thought Yuvraj was punjabi, since he lives in Chandigarh. That’s faulty logic, but that was my idea. Yuvraj is son of Yograj Singh, a former player. I’m sure someone here knows better.
Bas
Jan 5, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I don’t really think we can tell what Yuvraj’s religion is based on him being a Punjabi, Dinnie, because as far as I know Punjab has large populations of both Sikhs and Hindus.
All my point is if the newspaper has got Yuvraj’s religion wrong then there should be some doubt on the accuracy with regards to the castes of the players stated because that would be harder to tell anyway!
Homer
Jan 5, 2008 at 8:22 pm
When did facts come in the way of a story Dinnie? And surely the Andrew Stevenson can talk - after all, his team embodies all the glorious diversity there is. :)
vijay
Jan 6, 2008 at 6:56 am
well yours comments are totally disgusting. Few corrections RP singh is Rajput. And sehwag is Jat.And what about Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan.A new entrant Sanjay singh is also non brahmin. A fact that indian players do not run too much(Although not true for present generation) owes to their lack of fitness and not due to thier caste
vijay
Jan 6, 2008 at 9:52 am
All Australians are Hypocrates withought any distinction of Caste ,creed and sex.
raj
Jan 6, 2008 at 12:30 pm
In view of the farse in the second test match and ugly cricket played by the austrialians, Indian board should pull back their team from australia and severe all cricketing realtionships with theam. Australians must be banned from playing cricket for next two years in all international level by ICC. Austrilians should not be allowed to bring the glorious game of cricke to any more disrepute. They must be taught moral lessons and righteousness and asked to do public service like public toilet cleaning. Cheaters are punished under law. And if you are cheating in the full view of 100 crore people we can’t allow it. They are Australian crickets are criminals in the view of hundred crore Indians. If they go out of the stadium they could be arrested for con’ing the Indian team and the whole world.
Also umpires should be criminally procecuted and later publically executed.
Dinnie
Jan 6, 2008 at 2:32 pm
That’s very funny, Raj.
I’d say hire good, fit umpires. Retire ones who aren’t fit any more. Pay them well and all.
One or two wrong calls…no one minds, but if you exceed that number and if that starts turning match results around, that’s bad.
I’ll watch with interest how BCCI reacts to this.
Baseer
Jan 6, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Here is a fine reply to the article from Salil Tripathi on cricinfo:
“What’s caste got to do with it?”
http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/329291.html
Dinnie
Jan 7, 2008 at 11:12 am
Thanks, Bas, I’ll check this out.
Prasan
Jan 7, 2008 at 2:42 pm
It is in a way really funny to see that the very Australians who do not encourage their own down-trodden ab-origins and continue to suppress them. Those who pretend to rate performance over caste/colour etc are now trying ways to divert the attention from the onfield cheats!!!
Accusing Indians of Racism is preposterous as it is the Indians who were victims of this for hundreds of years by these very whites. Australians who are basically british settlers continue the tirade under the garb of anti-aparthied need to intorspect thoroughly before trying to divide the Indian society. In order to show that they are clean they need such foolish acts and the acts like accusing others of racial slurs. They are helped in the process by the other whites (the procters, the bensons etc).. Really shameful.
Dinnie
Jan 7, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I hear ya, Prasan. Welcome btw to Six n Out.
Caste in cricket at Blogbharti
Jan 9, 2008 at 4:30 pm
[…] Sydney Morning Herald correspondent, that Indian cricket team’s selection is caste-based, Dinnie comments that ‘journalists are quite fond of finding new angles to old, beaten-to-death […]
Lali
Jan 10, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I am a second generation British-Asian who has been brought up in a British Education system and was oblivious to ‘caste’ until a visit to India opened my eyes to the influence over all walks-of-live so I applaud Andrew Stevenson’s article and he is just and right for writing this article as it has complete truth in it. This problem of caste goes FAR beyond the issue of cricket, India has and always will be a country divided by its past where it was divided and conquered. Great article Andrew Stevenson, I applaud your research.
BR
Apr 11, 2008 at 6:57 am
5/6 (RP Singh is not Brahmin) cricketers mentioned up there are in the top 5% of International test cricketers in terms of runs, avg, or wickets. As for Ishant Sharma, just ask Ponting if he’s good enough to play at the international level. So, really, Stevenson’s article is nothing but “divide and rule” bull. It’s akin to me asking how come the Aus team has no Chinese people (I know they are a growing immigrant community there) or Aborigines. Then going to to assume surely it’s because a question on the selection form must be “Are you White? (If not, deposit this form in the trash can)” After all, Australians have a history of abusing their minorities, restricting immigration to Whites only, etc. It’s extrapolating past prejudices to a present day environment, where it doesn’t make sense.
Why is the Indian cricket team full of Brahmins? I don’t know - why is the US baseball team full of Latinos? or why are basketball teams full of Blacks? or why are ice hockey teams full of Whites? May be the best players available at the time of selection happened to be Brahmins, or may be Brahmins place more effort in getting formally trained, may be Brahmin parents encourage their kids to play more cricket…did anyone think of any of that? Instead, people go straight to, they’ve got it made coz they’re Brahmin. If that’s the case, then the best players on the team have to be non-Brahmins, coz they “overcame” the prejudices against non-Brahmins to secure a spot in the team. But wait, those 5 tower over the rest of the team - if not most international teams in general. Anytime Brahmins perform well, it’s looked at as a grave sin.
The funniest thing that I’ve heard reg caste was some one ranting angrily that the toppers in nationwide college entrance exams in India are mostly Brahmins (to an extremely disproportionate extent - at least 70% of the time). I found it funny because the exams are objective (like the SAT) and are scanned by machines! No one is even allowed to write their name on the answer sheet. Instead, they get a number from the answer sheet. The results are posted by that number!
If someone succeeds at a higher than normal rate, it is not always because they are being given a helping hand by some power, it’s because they happen to perform better, try harder, practice more, etc.
Finally, the ODI team has next to no Brahmins
Only Ishant, Rohit Sharma (part-timer) & Sachin (who will rest himself more to keep going until 2011). The team does however have in its regular roll 2 Christians (Uthappa & Sreesanth), 2 Muslims (Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan), 1 Sikh (Harbhajan), the rest being other caste Hindus.
Ankit
Apr 16, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hey BR. This is Ankit here, the new owner of sixandout. I believe that there is no bias on the basis of caste. What do you guys think…?
Dinnie
Apr 17, 2008 at 7:28 am
BR:
My friends, most of whom are now engineering undergrads, have a theory. To qualify an entrance in India, you’d have to be one of the two: girl or OBC.
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