To cheer or not to cheer

They are promoted by the IPL. The cricketing fraternity considers them part of the game. The spectators, too, relish their sporty acts. They, however, have been in the thick of controversy since the IPL event took off two weeks ago. There are vehment supporters and detractors of cheerleaders, reports Gitanjali Sharma

The moral brigade furiously batting against the IPL cheerleaders brings to the mind a story about two monks. The tale goes thus: once, an old monk and a young monk, while travelling on foot, see a woman drowning in a river. The young monk, without wasting a second, jumps into the water to save the struggling woman. The monk safely brings the woman ashore, and then resumes the journey with the older monk.

After marching in silence for a few hours, the older monk abruptly says, "You shouldn’t have touched her, she was naked." The young monk gently replies, "I saved her and left her there. You are still carrying her on your mind."

The so-called guardians of Indian culture also continue to carry images of cheerleaders long after they perform at stadiums. They have carried them in their minds, preserved them, dwelt on them, obsessed about them, exaggerated them, magnified them and finally blown them out of proportion just about everywhere `85 on the streets, public forums, state assemblies and even Parliament House.

Much ado

In the past two weeks there’s been a lot of fuss over cheerleaders. A furore has been raised over their skimpy outfits and peppy jigs on the field. So much so that one of the teams, Delhi Daredevils, even decided to do away with the unsavoury hullabaloo surrounding them and sent them home to London. Their brief intermittent presence on the field is even being deemed a threat to Indian culture and sensibilities.

And, who are these people who are feeling outraged by this so-called blot on Indian society? It is not the cricketing fraternity, which, at best, finds them refreshing and, at worst, tolerates them. It is not the general public, which at best considers them eye-candy and at worst minor irritants worth an ignore. The killjoys here are some politicians who are taking their role as saviours of all things moral a tad too seriously.

Going by their logic, which screams shame at skin show, shouldn’t they be pointing an accusing finger at our much-publicised and viewed beauty pageants, ramp modelling, MTV programmes, Bollywood item numbers, dance parties and award ceremonies that survive on women in their skimpiest best?

Yograj Singh, former cricketer and father of Yuvraj Singh, puts it bluntly: "When are we going to grow up? Why do we look at women in a negative sense? All those people who have complained against cheerleaders, do they not attend parties or view films which show women dancing? Helen did cabaret 30 years ago. Can you find fault with that? Dancing is an art which should be valued."

Dress code

Already, since the IPL took off, the "inappropriately" clad cheerleaders have been made to show restraint both in their dance as well as dressing. No "vulgar" gyrations, no cleavage displays have been their brief following the "ban cheerleader" chants coming from politicians, particularly in Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Why, the cheerleaders have even been compared to bar girls in Mumbai, a metropolis which now shakily wears its cosmopolitan badge. If a couple of years ago, Maharashtra saw the closure of dance bars, more recently there was the refusal to introduce sex education in schools and before that came the Raj Thackeray-instigated violent anti-Maharashtrian protests. And, now it is moral outrage at the cheerleaders.

Turning the issue into a common agenda, the BJP, Shiv Sena and the Congress exhorted National Congress Party leader and state Home Minister and Deputy Chief Minister R. R. Patil, who had earlier slapped the dance bar ban, to place a similar ban on the "foreign dancers" too. While state Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh urged the ministers to take the presence of the cheerleaders on the field with a sporting spirit, Patil took the "matter would be looked into" plea. It is another matter that Patil would not like to offend NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who is also the BCCI head.

To somewhat quieten the loud protests, an instant remedy lay in calling for a more "covered look’ for the dancing damsels. On their part, the franchisees took prompt action on the unofficial diktat to avoid any negative publicity. Soon you had cheerleaders for Mumbai Indians shedding minis for track pants and even the Kolkata team’s dancers are going in for a conservative makeover under Manish Malhotra.

Rubbishing this holier-than-thou attitude adopted by the so-called custodians of the Indian way of life, Mohinder Singh, secretary of the Chandigarh Cricket Asssociation asks, "What do women athletes and swimmers wear? Do you expect cheerleaders to dance wearing sarees? Don’t the majority of ads showcase women to grab eyeballs?" Cheerleaders, he admits, too serve as an ad, to attract crowds."

Even as the prudes continue to rave and rant over the "obscene" performances that don’t jell with seriousness of the game, many IPL supporters consider cheerleaders a vital part of the game called "entertainment cricket" or Twenty20 cricket.

Taking up for the beauties who add zing to the game, S. Kapoor, the liaison officer for the visiting IPL teams at Mohali, says, "Just as the public applauds a sixer or a four, the cheerleaders show their applause by dancing. What is wrong with that?"

Cheerleading is a common phenomenon the world over. It is, however, largely associated with American football and basketball. The Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa was the first international cricket event to employ cheerleaders. For most Indians that was also probably the first time they were exposed to this concept. Like BCCI joint secretary and PCA’s honorary secretary M. P. Pandove points out, "Cheerleading is part of all sports in Europe and America. It is nothing unusual. It is just that people here have not been exposed to it. With time, they’ll accept it and find nothing unusual about it."

The critics of the concept, however, find it difficult to welcome "such frivolities". They consider them as distractions that take away the seriousness from the game. The puritanical custodians of cricket don’t think the game requires anything more than the game itself to draw cricket buffs to the stadium.

Ranbir Singh Mahendra, MLA and general secretary of the Haryana Cricket Association, firmly believes that cricket doesn’t require this kind of publicity. The IPL organisers are letting out the message that they are competing with the ICL. "It is only if you have apprehension about your ability to attract spectators, would you resort to such tactics."

The IPL enthusiasts, however, think differently. Cheerleaders for them are a part of the glitzy baggage that comes with Twenty20 matches, which is altogether a different ballgame. Like any other commercial event, the IPL spectacle, too, has been banking on all the allurements it can dish out. Cheerleaders are just a miniscule part of the bigger gameplan to attract more and more people, and not necessarily lovers of the game.

What have cheerleaders done to invite the ire of prudes? All that they do is respond to a boundary or a sixer or an out with a little boogie act, lasting a minute or so. At best, says Akanksha, a cricket buff, their enthusiasm brings a smile to the lips and cheer to the heart. Her perception probably is shared by millions of spectators and viewers in the country who have not shown any resentment or given undue attention to this novelty. Though initially incidents of "harassment" and "leering at cheerleaders" were reported, by and large the crowds at the stadium have been minding themselves.

Prudish moves

Noted social historian Ramachandra Guha’s allegation of the scantily-clad cheerleaders "stoking the base, voyeuristic and sexual insecurities of the Indian male" may be lapped up by the prudes but it finds little favour with cricket fans. Titillation can’t sell cricket. Moreover, if the purpose is to ogle there are better opportunities available than the cricket ground. Anurag Thakur, president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association and son of Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, says the past few weeks have seen some good matches and entertaining cricket. The cheerleaders, he insists, are just to entertain the crowd for a short while. At the end of the day, people come to watch cricket, not cheerleaders, who are just a part of the big show.

Such reasoning, however, has not gone down with politicians who continue to frown upon this western activity that could lead to "moral degradation and depravity". West Bengal sports minister Subhas Chakraborty and closer home Punjab Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla have lambasted this "non-Indian" phenomenon. Our culture doesn’t permit such nude dances, is their refrain.

Taking a middle course D.P. Azad, former coach of the likes of Kapil Dev, while admitting that we must change with time, insisted that the cheerleaders should be properly attired. The debate for and against the sporty cheerleaders, who have flown thousands of miles from the US and parts of Europe to be a part of the IPL spectacle, continues. The debate primarily is being kept alive by prudes, particularly political leaders, who hope to derive some political mileage or deflect attention from more pressing issues at hand.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi recently pointed out that the cheerleader controvery "is on the television and not in the minds of the people." Here we may beg to differ to say that the controversy is on television and in the minds of politicians, where it continues to fester.

At the end of the day, however, the reality is that the land that gave Kamasutra to the world is finding it hard to fully open its doors to the cheerleaders. A telling comment on our society and times.