Handshake Row: India didn’t do anything out of ordinary, athletes have often registered protests like this

It’s been over 12 hours since India dished out a clinical all-round performance against Pakistan in Dubai to collect their second victory on the trot in the Asia Cup and virtually seal their place in the Super 4s. And while the Suryakumar Yadav-led Men in Blue have been showered with praise for their dominant display against their arch-rivals, the discussion on the mainstream media as well as on social networking platforms isn’t focused solely on the events of the match.

Rather, the Indian team’s refusal to shake hands with Pakistan after the game, which took place just a few months after the Pahalgam terror attack and ‘Operation Sindoor’, has got as much airtime and social media posts as match-winning contributions from SKY (47 not out), Kuldeep Yadav (3/18) and Abhishek Sharma (31 off 13).

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India’s stance has been met with widespread praise back home, though many are still of the opinion that the match should not have gone ahead, with several Pakistani fans and former cricketers slamming their gesture. The handshake drama, however, is hardly a one-off gesture in sport, let alone cricket.

Ukrainians, Palestinians and other athletes have also refused handshakes

Sport should ideally be kept free from politics, or so the saying goes. The two worlds, however, end up colliding more often than not, especially in matches and tournaments that command the attention of millions of fans. Popular athletes and teams thus become the perfect ambassadors to send a message to the general public, whether to express solidarity or become the voices of a protest.

Several Ukrainian athletes, after all, have protested against the ongoing war against Russia by refusing to shake the hand of their Russian or Belarusian opponents. A little over a year after Vladimir Putin’s invasion, which was supported by Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko, Ukrainian star fencer Olga Kharlan had refused to shake hands with her Russian opponent Anna Smirnova after their face-off in the 2023 World Championships in Milan.

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Kharlan, who had registered a 15-7 victory in the first round, was initially black-carded and disqualified from the tournament, only to be reinstated later amid mounting pressure on the International Fencing Federation.

The trend would carry over to tennis a few months later in the Australian Open, where Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko refused to shake hands with Belarusian star Aryna Sabalenka, who would go on to win the Grand Slam that year. Tsurenko was hardly the only Ukrainian showing solidarity with her country in Melbourne, with similar gestures being made by Marta Kostyuk.

And it’s not just the Ukraine-Russia war – Israeli athletes have been at the receiving end for Tel Aviv’s ongoing offensive in Gaza. The president of Palestine’s National Olympic Committee had made it clear ahead of last year’s Paris Olympics that he would not be shaking hands with his Israeli counterpart, or any member of their delegation unless they recognised their right to independence.

Later in the Paris Games, Israeli judokas were snubbed by their rivals when it came to the traditional handshake, with an Algerian competitor even being accused of failing a weigh-in in order to avoid a contest altogether. A similar incident had occurred eight years ago in the Rio Olympics, where Egyptian judoka Islam El Shehaby was sent home for refusing to shake the hand of his Israeli opponent Or Sasson at the end of their bout.

In some instances, a handshake ended up leading to a ban – which was the case with Iranian professional weightlifter Mostafa Rajaee, who was slapped with a lifetime ban by his national federation in August 2023 after shaking the hand of Israel’s Maksim Svirsky and even posing for a picture with him during an international competition.

Other instances of politics mixing with sport

These are among the several instances of the marriage of sports and politics. The Black Lives Matter movement, which was the response to the death of African-American Minneapolis resident George Floyd at the hands of a Caucasian police officer Derek Chauvin during an arrest, had a profound impact on sport.

Players in the Premier League, England’s top football league, were seen taking the knee in a show of solidarity in the fight against racism before kickoff in the 2020-21 season, with the gesture also being observed in subsequent seasons. The England football team had also taken the knee before matches in Euro 2020 that took place in 2021.

Such gestures were observed in cricket as well, with the Indian cricket team taking the knee before their match against Pakistan in the 2021 T20 World Cup. South Africa, like those competing in the Premier League, followed the gesture for an extended period of time, given their country’s long, dark history when it came to racism.

Political gestures have also made for some of the most iconic moments in sport, including the ‘Black Power Salute’ in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Two African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who had won gold and bronze respectively in men’s 200m, had raised black-gloved fists while the US national was being played during the podium ceremony.

Lest we forget, it was sport that had played a key role in helping multiple nations take a united stand against Apartheid South Africa, which had been banned from competing in several sports including rugby and cricket, throughout the 1970s and 1980s.