Mumbai recently won two wooden spoons. Cricket as they say is religion in India. There should not be any politics in religion though religion plays a great role in Politics. Definitely, there is politics in Cricket as we see politicians managing cricket matters. Cricketers have turned into politicians, and politics is prevalent in cricketing matters. There are ‘politics like’ camps within cricket. IPL introduced Bollywood influence in Cricket through franchise owners. Cricket is a big business so business houses entered cricket just as Bollywood is big business. Politicians and Businessmen go in cohorts historically. So you end up in Cocktail of Cricket which is a religion, Politics, Business, and Bollywood. And there is eternal underworld nexus to all this cocktail. Mumbai is the capital of everything except Politics. Delhi is the political capital. Ironically, a win by Mumbai Franchise versus Delhi Franchise ousted Delhi from playoffs in the 2022 IPL. Mumbai team won a wooden spoon in IPL 2022.
Things went wrong right at the auction. There was no valid strategy to retain the core which had won titles in past. For the most successful franchise, it was a management failure. Even within the retention the huge amounts spent on non-performing assets like Ishan, Pollard, and to an extent the captain really backfired. Joffra Archer was known to be unavailable for 22 but the plan was for the next seasons. It is still a gamble. Non-availability of SKY and Mills were additional disadvantages introduced midway. There was no support for Bumrah in the bowling. They should have retained Boult. There was no dreaded spinner in the lineup. Sams did well towards the end when there was no hope for qualification. They also did not support Davids after two failed outings. When he was reintroduced in playing eleven it was late. They found some good talent for the future in Tilak Varma, Brevis, Shokeen, and Kartikeya. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for Mumbai. The past glory and aura took a dent in 2022. It’s a very steep road ahead for 2023. Hope they do some good trading or talent scouting for uncapped players which rebuild the core for the future. That needs a transition plan for leadership by 2024. Unless that happens, the fear of consecutive wooden spoons looms large.
The state of Maharashtra with its capital of Mumbai was known for being a pioneer and leader in commerce, industry, entertainment, cricket, fashion, trading, and exports. Maharashtra is philosophically driven by saints right from Dynaneshwar, and Tukaram to the Warkari leaders of today. Maharashtra in past had a legacy of political and social leaders right from Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, Bajirao, and Madhavrao Peshwas, Ahilyabai Holkar, Rani Laxmibai, Lokmanya Tilak, Veer Savarkar. Maharashtra is driven by thoughts of visionary thought leaders like Dr. B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule, Shahu Maharaj, and Agarkar. On the social front, we have a legacy of the likes of Dr. Baba Amte, Dr. Prakash Amte, Dr. Bung, and Sindhutai Sapkal. We still have generations growing up on the literary genius of Acharya Atre, Pu La Deshpande, Vinda Karandikar, V V Shirwadkar, G A Kulkarni, V P Kale, and many more in this list. We had musical geniuses like Pt Bhimsen Joshi, Lata Mangeshkar, and Asha Bhosale just to name a very few. In fact, the entire business, media, films, music, and creativity reside in Mumbai. Marathi theatre had many luminaries and drama has impacted thought propagation and solutions to social issues. We had great journalists and media personalities. Maharashtra cultural movement has bases right from main cities till remotest villages and recently it has spilled over in foreign lands like US, UK, Europe, Australia, Middle East, Southeast, and Far East Asia through well spread NRI population.
But these are past glories. The level of the current political slugfest in Maharashtra politics has handed another wooden spoon to the state along with IPL 2022 wooden spoon. The kind of personal vendetta, caste-based equations/slurs, and polarizations have really damaged the basic culture of the state which at one stage was the most civilized state in India. The language used by party functionaries, the accusations, threats, unconstitutional language used, violence and mobocracy have dented the image of Maharashtra. . There is a chronology to the things that went south. First is the betrayal of the electoral mandate. Votes garnered through the pre-poll alliance led to comfortable numbers for that alliance. The verdict of people in a democracy is the basic foundation of a party/ies forming a government. This verdict was violated by politicians to betray the trust of voters. Then we saw the notorious morning swearing-in ceremony and proposed an unholy alliance to counter the wrong done in the first place. Then we saw this alliance breaking due to some unknown pressure. The parties which had no common ground concurred only for obvious reasons. There was no apparent thought process. Then there was the notorious chain of events that rocked the state. There was an alleged involvement of corrupt police officers to collect revenues from businesses and hand them over to the politicians. There were scandals involving celebrities, film stars, their kids, and drugs. Many ministers were accused of crimes like corruption, and terror links. The ruling dispensation lacked an agenda. During Covid, Maharashtra registered maximum cases, the highest number of deaths, and the highest number of infections. There were accusations of corruption in the covid relief center's funds. The only policy was to blame the center. Opposition in the state was also involved in some strange non-issues being highlighted in the narrative. The noises on both sides have added to the cacophony. The media has stooped to new lows. There were cases where people were arrested for their criticism or even abducted and physically harmed by ministers and politicians. I think it’s the time for leaders across the parties to draw some basics and revive the culture and civil behavior across the board. Otherwise, the wooden spoon looms for the next few years.
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