CITYZEN. IPL as a creator of alternative identities

Ten years of the IPL has thrown up virtually every dramatic element that we have come to expect from our cities. There have been scams, stars, TV fortunes, fallen kings of good times, and much else. In this noisy carnival built around the excuse of cricket there is one element that is both obvious and largely ignored: the rise of city identities.

The IPL teams have predominantly tried to capture the benefits of a city identity. There have been the occasional teams that have gone with a State identity, such as Rajasthan Royals or Gujarat Lions, but the clear norm has been to go with a city identity.

There may have been some doubt when the IPL started just how well the city identity would work with cricketers being auctioned from all over the country. But the city identity clearly overrode the identity of the original city the cricketer came from. There was arguably no better example of this than MS Dhoni and his original franchise, the Chennai Superkings. The combination of a successful team and effective advertising saw this cricketing superstar from a relatively small city in the east becoming an effective marketing symbol for a largely traditional south Indian metropolis.

The growth of the city identity in cricket over the last decade is not always appreciated. This could be because of a deeply engrained idea that the only sub-national identity in India should be around States. Why else would the Supreme Court decide that cities that have been the cradles of Indian cricket, such as Mumbai or Vadodara, have no right to have their teams continue playing the Ranji trophy?

But it could also be because we refuse to see the signs even when they stare us in the face. Take the last India versus South Africa test match in Bengaluru. The crowd gave a standing ovation to AB de Villiers when he came out to bat, an ovation few Indian cricketers received. It is tempting to put this down to sportsmanship from an Indian crowd, an ovation well deserved. But this would be facile. The welcome for de Villiers is likely to have had much more to do with his outstanding contributions to RCB, Bengaluru’s own team in the previous year’s IPL. For that brief moment the city identity overwhelmed the national identity.

From cheering de Villiers to developing a full-blown city identity is undoubtedly a long journey. But there are reasons to cheer any movement along that path. Identity conflicts run just below the surface in most Indian cities. They are sometimes couched in politically correct terms as in Sonu Nigam’s battle against the azaan as noise pollution. As someone who had to bear the noise of his concert in a residential locality in Bengaluru a couple of years ago, I tend to take the noise pollution argument with a bit of salt.

The instinctive argument against such identity conflict is to appeal to larger humane ideals. But that clearly does not have much value in Indian cities. There may have been a time when, howsoever antagonistic we were in thought, we did not express those feelings. But a cursory glance at high decibel television talk shows tells us that such niceties are no longer relevant.

In this overall environment of high identity conflict the way forward may, ironically enough, lie in more identities than less. As the boundaries of one identity cut across those of others, there could be identities that actually bring together people who would otherwise belong to other identity groups. The city identity brings together all the groups in that city, including those from antagonistic religious or caste identities. For the brief period of the IPL match they are able to celebrate together. They may have once been able to do so when they invited each other to their festivals. But with those traditions now being largely dead, the joint celebration of a city identity in an IPL match may be a less-than-perfect substitute. And IPL matches are designed to provide opportunities to celebrate, with innovations like drawing in the boundary ropes.

There are, of course other, admittedly more mundane roles for a city identity. There is a widespread Indian urban consciousness that emphasises keeping houses clean, even if that involves throwing the garbage out into the streets. A greater identification with the city may just increase the willingness of the Indian city dweller to extend her idea of cleanliness to the street as well. But till that happens let’s celebrate the noise of the IPL, with apologies to Sonu Nigam.

The writer is a professor at the School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru

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