Revision as of 17:23, 10 March 2015

SC players who have represented India

Palwankar Baloo was a spin bowler and a scheduled caste social reformer

Vithal Palwankar (c.1886 – 26 November 1971), who belonged to a scheduled caste, was not only a star player, he was the first captain of the Hindus’ cricket team in the Bombay Quadrangular cricket competition.

Vinod Kambli

Karsan Ghavri

Lalchand Rajput

Doddanarasiah Ganesh: Born: June 30, 1973 in Karnataka, Ganesh was a right-arm seam bowler and lower-order batsman who played in 4 Tests and one ODI in 1997.

Eknath Dhondu Solkar: arguably India's best fielder ever

How many scheduled caste cricketers have represented India internationally?

a) Dalit Nation – The Only Authentic Voice of Dalits writes, ‘We had only few dalit cricketers in all these years Balwanth Paloo ( the cricketer who Inspired Babasaheb), Eknath Solkar and Vinod Kambli.’

In order to pad [pun unintended] its case of caste bias, Dalit Nation puts Dilip Doshi, a Jain, and Ashok Malhotra, a Khatri, in ‘the list of Brahmin Indian cricketers.’

Incidentally, Wikipedia informs that Babasaheb Dr. ‘Ambedkar was opposed by M.C.Rajah and P.Baloo who joined hands with Congress and Hindu Mahasabha and signed a pact against the position of [Babasaheb Dr.] Ambedkar called 'Rajah-Moonje Pact'... In 1937, Baloo ran against [Babasaheb Dr.] Ambedkar for a designated "Scheduled Caste" seat in the Bombay Legislative Assembly. [Babasaheb Dr.] Ambedkar defeated Baloo.’

b) Mr Rajesh Krishna writes, ‘As of my knowledge only two dalits have so far represented India in his [sic] 75 years of history (Balwanth Paloo from Karnataka and Vinod Kambli).’

By ‘Balwanth Paloo’ perhaps Mr Rajesh Krishna, Dalit Nation and countless websites--Indian as well as foreign--that have simply copy-pasted their remarks mean the legendary Babaji Palwankar Baloo of Dharwad. Wikipedia’s List of India Test cricketers mentions no one called Balwanth (or Balwant) Paloo.

c) Mr Anand writes on Ambedkar.org, ‘Independence [sic] India has produced not one Dalit cricketer. (Vinod Ganpat Kambli and Doddanarasiah Ganesh, both with short-lived careers, are being talked about as the only post-1947 Dalit cricketers but Kanadiga friends inform me that Ganesh could be a backward caste ‘gowda’ and Kambli, it appears, is from a fisherman caste and technically not Scheduled Caste.)’ [Emphasis added]

In view of Mr Anand’s analysis, that only leaves Eknath Solkar from the Dalit Nation's list. Elsewhere, Indpaedia has presented the results of its Google searches about the Solkar caste. Unless fresh evidence comes up, we accept SportTaco’s assertion: ‘Solkar was of high-caste origin.’

d) Indpaedia, as will become obvious in the next few paragraphs, has NO position in this debate except to investigate into the veracity of every ‘fact’ proffered, every assertion made. During their Google searches into the caste and domicile of every test cricketer since independence, Indpaedia’s volunteers chanced upon facts that give some totally fresh and hitherto undiscovered inputs into the history of the scheduled caste contribution to Indian cricket.

Google searches reveal nothing about the castes of a very large number of cricketers. An equally large number of surnames are titles rather than caste-names. Indpaedia’s volunteers believe that reader-sourced information about cricketers' castes not revealed by Google might lead to at least two or three more scheduled caste heroes in test cricket.

e) Karsan Ghavri, the discovery: In 2004 The Times of India mentioned that ‘The BJP want[ed] Ghavri to fight from Patan, a reserved seat.’

However, before making an assertion that neither Mr Anand nor Mr Rajesh Krishna nor DalitNation were aware of, Indpaedia crosschecked, and with several sites.

Indeed, the site Elections.in indicates that from 1967 to early 2009 (both inclusive) Patan was a seat reserved for the SC category. If the two items are correct, and they do seem to bear each other out, then Karsan Ghavri could probably be the tallest post-1947 test cricketer from a scheduled caste (since Mr Anand has doubts about Mr Kambli’s fisherman caste being scheduled). In any case, even in North India ‘Ghavri’ is by no means an ‘upper caste’ (as falsely asserted by Mr Anand).

Further support for this discovery comes from the site Glimpses-Of-Hindu-Genius, which lists ‘Eknath Solkar, Vinod Kambli Karsan Ghavri’ under ‘Our Dalit Heritage.’

Mr Anand has made dark insinuations about 'Brahmin selectors.' Dalit Nation has spelt it out: ‘The Brahmin selectors, the players and Brahmin commentators form a mutual admiration society.’ The fact is that in 2012 Karsan Ghavri headed a [cricket] Board's initiative to unearth talent through open trials The Hindu.

f) Discovery 2: Would Mr Anand, Mr Rajesh Krishna and DalitNation include the Scheduled Tribes in the Dalit category? If yes, then Lalchand Rajput, never mind his surname, is a bona fide member of the Goaar community. (See Note, which indicates that he could even be considered a scheduled caste, at least in his own state, which is what matters.)

And as for hints of Brahmin-dominated cricket management in India, Lalchand was variously the manager of the Indian cricket team and its coach.