AT FIRST I THAUGHT IT WAS EXPOSE OF A SCANDAL LIKE THE MATCH FIXING BUT WHY SO LATE THIS ONLY AFTER DISMAL PERFORMANCE OF INDIAN AGAINST nz & aUSTRALIANS ?
IT IS NO DOUBT THE BILLION PEOPLE MARKET THAT GIVES UNDUE ADVANTAGE TO ANY CRICKET PLAYER HALF HIS WORTH ,TENDULKAR MAKES MILLION DOLLAR FOR ENDORSING ANY PRODUCT B/C INDIANS ARE JUST TOO MANY IN ONE PLACE I.E. iNDIA 
Mid Day
By: Pramod Navalkar
February 10,2003
Our country should not fear Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. We are quite a powerful nation and no one dare touch us.
However, we face an imminent threat from casteism. We just have so many of castes that we don’t stand united.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru aggravated the problem by creating states on the basis of languages. A further division was created by offering extraordinary sops to backward castes.
When Sushilkumar Shinde became the chief minister of Maharashtra, all newspapers screamed that a Dalit had got the top post.
If we continue to hold such a myopic view delivered by the lens of caste, it won’t be long before we witness another Partition.
One thought the situation would improve in the 21st century; instead, but the casteism is flourishing. No one wants to see how it’s damaging our nation.
Our politics is solely based on casteism. There is no other ‘ism’ or ideology that guides our parties.
When Shinde was declared chief minister, Shalini Patil said she wanted a Maratha chief minister.
I thought this poison is limited to politics. But after reading an article in a leading English magazine, I realise it has penetrated deep in our roots.
The writer, in his article in a World Cup special issue, discusses the castes of our players.
He claims Brahmins have dominated Indian cricket in last 30-35 years ************************************************************
aND THEY KEEP OTHERS AWAY
****************************.
He offers statistics to prove his claim and points that there were seven Brahmins in the ’70s team, five in 1983 team, eight in 1997, eight again in 2000, four in 2002 and six in the current World Cup team.
He has made some outrageous remarks in the article, insisting that Brahmins prefer cricket — no football or hockey for them — because the latter two are contact games and Brahmins don’t like others touching them.
He also claims that in cricket, one need not have a strong physique.
He says that Brahmins dominated this game as it was purely urban and he mentions Ganguly and Tendulkar as examples.
He says that no Dalit cricketer could play in the 20th century except Balu Palwankar and he, too, couldn’t play Test cricket.
He further claims that other castes, including the Sikhs, the Jats, the backward castes are forced to play hockey and football.
These comments are not only outrageous, they are objectionable. So far, our sports have never witnessed such casteist mindset. Our cricket administrators were accused of everything but this.
There have been allegations that there is a regional bias and that there is a monopoly of certain people. But this article goes beyond that and speaks of castes of the players.
If we allow this poison to spread, we may have to select all our sportsmen on the basis of their castes, and not on merit.
The government must take action, or else we will have controversy over the castes in space-age, too.
