Sammendrag
Has cricket diplomacy between India and Pakistan been successful? That is the point of departure for this thesis. The aim this work is three-pronged. First, it discusses the connection between sport and politics, and the relationship between sport and diplomacy. Second, it situates the case of cricket diplomacy in relation to other cases of sport diplomacy. And, finally, it identifies and discusses the particularities of the relationship between India and Pakistan and cricket diplomacy. Sport’s potential for peace has achieved an increasing amount of attention in recent years. It is considered as having ‘the power to bring people together, bridge differences, and promote communication and understanding,’ and not the least contribute to ‘lasting peace,’ in the United Nations Secretary-General’s 2006 report Sport for Development and Peace: the way forward. Sport then, or certain sports such as cricket at certain times, clearly has a significant place in contemporary social life. Cricket is a sport that permeates practically every layer of South Asian societies, and the game has occupied ‘a central place in a range of emerging positions and identities’ in the years after the countries achieved independence in the late 1940s. The term cricket diplomacy was born in 1987 as Pakistani president Zia-ul Haq made an unexpected visit to India to watch cricket, which helped defuse a potentially explosive situation. 20 years on, cricket diplomacy is more relevant than ever, and it has played an important part in the peace process between India and Pakistan starting in 2003.