Why Pakistani PM Imran Khan concerned that India controls the world of Cricket?

Recently Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman, Ramiz Raja said ‘50% of PCB is run on ICC funding and 90% of ICC is run on BCCI (Indian Cricket Board) funding. He was hinting that Indian PM Modi can shut PCB any day because of India’s soft power on Cricket world revenue. It’s a good suggestion and Modi should do it. Pakistani PM also admitted that ‘India is in the control of world Cricket’.

Modi started ignoring Pakistan after Pulwama terror attack in February 2019. Before that he continued Vajpayee’s policy of friendship will all neighbours and invited Pak PM during his PM oath ceremony in 2014, made unscheduled visit to Pakistan to hug Nawaz Sharif on his birthday. After Pulwama, Modi realized with regards to Pakistan will remain Pakistan, always hostile to India. Since independence, congress party had a liberal idea that Pakistani artists and sports people must come to India regularly to promote friendship between the two south Asian rivals. Nehru initiated ‘friendship games’ with Pakistan as he was extremely keen to get Noble peace prize. Nehru’s name was nominated for Noble prize 11 years out of 16 years he was PM (just Google this) by his loyalists in Indian government. Nehru personally persuaded ‘flying Sikh’ Milkha Singh to go to Pakistan to compete in sports. Milkha Singh was not keen to go to Pakistan for sports events because of his personal experience of massacre of his close relatives after partition in Pakistan when he somehow managed to escape death narrowly. Milkha Singh’s biopic Bollywood movie ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’ depicted the physiological pain people of Punjab and Bengal suffered due to partition.

Nehru and congress never learnt any lesson from the blunder of signing Nehru-Liaquat pact for free flow of people between these two countries after partition. This impacted Bengal badly as Hindus migrated or forced to migrate from east Pakistan in large numbers but ‘peaceful community’ from west Bengal never moved to east Pakistan in desired numbers. Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee anticipated this problem and resigned from Nehru’s cabinet because the pact was against the interest of west Bengal.

Leftist, communist, urban naxalites and congis always welcomed entry of Pakistani artists, sports persons with standard liberal statements that – terrorism has nothing to do with religion, Pakistanis are just like us, Pakistanis are mostly good people and only some narrow minded people in India are opposing Pakistani artists etc. These people and certain film stats, always welcome Pakistani artists as they have vested interest and earns money from Pakistanis who come to India to earn money. So, they will always say, ‘artists are just artists. Don’t divide them between Indian and Pakistani’. This is same group of libr@ndus who say ‘the dead person in Kashmir is not terrorist but son of teacher or doctor’. These libr@andu journalists are obviously paid by anti-national forces. Congress leaders make a beeline visit to Pakistan whenever they get the opportunity. Mani Shankar Aiyer, Jairam Ramesh, Shahsi Tharoor, Shatrughan Sinha & Navjot Singh Siddhu (after joining congress) went to Pakistan just for publicity.

Vote bank politics also plays a part to bring Pakistani artists, sports people to India. In 1987, northern part of south Asia encountered a major drought which impacted both India and Pakistan. Then Indian PM initiated an India-Pak friendly cricket match to mitigate economic woes arising out of drought! Similarly, after 1983 cricket world cup win, Indian cricket officials were asked to jointly host next 1987 cricket world cup in Indian and Pakistan. Why bring in Pakistan every time when we can manage big event on our own? Pakistani ex cricketers as cricket commentators can be seen on various Indian sports channel as if there is shortage of Indian cricket commentators among the billion plus population! These are now past since Modi government came to power in 2014. So, not just Pakistani ex cricketers are crying foul but their vested interests in India also discovering that ‘secularism is in danger in India’! In last 6 years since Modi came to power, BCCI the Indian cricket control board has become richest cricket board and Pakistani cricket board (PCB) has become bankrupt. Now Pakistani players, cricket officials requesting, begging and even threatening to sue in international courts for not playing with Pakistan. Indian cricket crowds, big stadiums, corporate sponsorship, IPL tournament and advertising are big source of revenue which Pakistanis are missing. Recently a Pakistani cricketer even suggested India-Pak cricket match being played in India without spectators to raise fund for Covid-19 pandemic impact. India-Pakistan hockey test series used to happen earlier but that has also stopped. Does this mean, quality of Indian cricket and hockey degraded?

Current Indian government seems to be clear that there will be no business with Pakistan until it shuns terrorism as its state policy to destabilize its neighbours. But some Indian politicians do not follow this simple policy. For them, vote bank politics is more important that national security. Mamata Banerjee invited Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali to Kolkata to perform when Delhi and Maharashtra government refused permission to Pakistani singer. Obviously, she invited the Pakistani singer considering appeasement of her core vote bank. Listening to Urdu songs of Ghulam Ali is out of question as she can’t even talk properly in Hindi but she did that for hours sitting in a front row seat.

Ghulam Ali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Adnan Sami, Ali Zafar, Atif Aslam etc. made money and fame in India. Out of these Adnan Sami seems to be different who decided to take Indian citizenship (perhaps one case in a billion Pakistani who took Indian citizenship in last 7 decades) but rest had no good feeling about India. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was accused of smuggling illegal foreign currency in India for three years. He made money and fame which was not possible in Pakistan. He now sung Kashmir Premier league Cricket official song ‘Azadi’.

Fawad Khan, Ali Zafar, Meera, Veena Malik, Mahira Khan, Imran Abbas, Saba Qamar, Sajal Aly etc. are some Pakistani actors who made huge money in Bollywood. India welcomed them with open arms as this will improve friendship with Pakistan forgetting daily ceasefire violation and casualty at border. In 1980’s Pakistanis were in the forefront of making pirated copy of Bollywood moves and pushing pirated copy moves back to India which harmed Indian film industry immensely. Once all top film starts of Bollywood showed unity and protested on streets of Bombay against high level of piracy. Another problem with Pakistani actors were that they evaded Indian income tax while earning in India. They will go to a private party to perform and ask the organiser to pay the fees on some ‘hawala’ bank account in Singapore or Dubai. Even singer Lata Mangeshkar raised the issue of ‘nasal singers’ taking foothold in music industry during UPA government era. Most of these ‘nasal singers’ were from Pakistan.

Many reality show artists also made money in India by attending ‘Bigg Boss’ reality show, thanks to its anchor Salman Khan. Veena Malik was considered an ‘item girl from Pakistan’ who was doing regular publicity stunts which may appear as nuisance for many Indians. She made lot of money in India but suddenly became religious after going back to Pakistan. When IAF Squadron Leader Abhinandan was accidentally stranded in Pakistan after his Mig-21 was shut down by enemy fire in February 2019, Veena Malik was one of the first Pakistani celebrity to mock Abhinandan’s moustache.

Do we need item girl Veena Malik from Pakistan when we have our own Rakhi Sawant?

Veena Malik made nasty comments on IAF officer Abhinandan, Adolf Hitler and Sushma Swaraj. Now that Pakistanis are hardly getting visa to enter India, bomb blasts across the country also got reduced. No more Samjhota express train and no more Samjhota express blast. Pakistanis who need urgent critical medical treatment can go to London, Europe, USA or its iron brother China instead of coming to India. Pakistani cricket commentators, actors, singers, comedians need to look for employment elsewhere. India has multiple neighbours. Why we are keen to bring in Pakistanis and not artists from Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma etc. Manisha Koirala from Nepal, Runa Laila from Bangladesh and Jacqueline Fernandez from Sri Lanka are some rare film stars from other neighbouring countries. Compare this with wave of Pakistani artists coming to India. This is because some anti-India agents plants these Pakistani guests in India.