Cricket is a national obsession, but it need not be the obsession of the government. Cricket in India is organized by a private body called the Board of Control for Cricket in India and, at the provincial level, by associations affiliated to the BCCI. It is thus a surprise - and a trifle alarming - that the foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, took it upon herself to announce that her permission had not been sought in the matter of resuming test matches between India and Pakistan. The immediate context was the recent visit of Shahryar Khan, the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board, to India and his discussions with his Indian counterpart, Jagmohan Dalmiya. Mr Khan and Mr Dalmiya have proposed a series of matches between India and Pakistan. This series - when, or if, it happens - will mark the resumption of cricketing ties between India and Pakistan after the attack on Mumbai in 2008, though the two countries did play each other in December, 2012, in a short series. Ms Swaraj's declaration assumes that a series between India and Pakistan is predicated upon her permission or more specifically the permission of the ministry of external affairs.

This is another example of how the government of Narendra Modi, under one pretext or another, is enlarging the operational space of the State in India. Even sporting activities that are privately organized are being brought under the purview of the State's decision-making powers. Whether India and Pakistan should play each other in cricket can and perhaps should be a matter of wider public debate and the government, if it wants, can be a participant in the debate - only a participant, not the critical one. If the argument is that there are issues of security involved, then the government should make it clear that if it were to provide the security it would charge the BCCI a professional fee. The idea that private activities should be dependent on State sanction cannot be accepted as a principle of democratic governance, and certainly not from a regime that promises to provide minimum government.