On IPL and "Dadaianism"

So the Indian Premier League Season V is on its way. Once again, people all over the country are shouting themselves hoarse over some teams named after Indian cities It was an unique ploy by the cricket-businessmen to make their cash-rich tournament of junk cricket popular across India- they named the teams after some cities. They hoped to polarize the Indian people by regional sentiments by doing so. And bingo, they were immediately successful. People from those cities, and the states in which those are located, immediately started going gaga over these teams.It was conveniently forgotten that none of these teams represent any city at all by team composition.

India is a diverse country of many languages, and for the sake of unity it is important for every region/linguistic group to be respectful of every other. And yet, the obnoxiously rich businessmen running the BCCI wanted to "maximize their profit" by striking at the heart of the unity of India by evoking regional sentiments. And we too were more than happy to forget about India's unity and play ball with these people. Although the IPL lasts for 2months, the polarization remains all through the year. This is not to suggest that IPL is threatening India's political unity, but it  is definitely creating discord among the people especially in large cities (where people have settled from all over the country), who, unfortunately, don't even care about it. And this seems all the more pathetic when we remember that these teams, though named after some cities, don't at all represent those cities by team composition. Some teams don't have a single player from the city they are representing.The polarizing power of regionalism is so strong that, people become blind to this fact. This tendency is both sad and scary. It shows how ruthless and greedy our businessmen are, and how stupid and short-sighted we have remained as a nation. 

Apart from regionalism comes the naked display of obsession towards individuals. People from West Bengal have always been very much fond of one former India batsman and captain from Kolkata. That is very understandable because there haven't been many cricket heros from this part of the country, and here is one who has been among the best batsmen and captains of his time.But the concerned player last captained the side in 2005, and retired from international cricket in 2008, though even in 2012 he is playing in IPL. It is weird to see how obsessed many people of West Bengal are for this individual player. In an attempt to prove that he is the best captain and batsman ever from India, such people keep throwing slanders against the current India players. The current Indian captain has already led India to victories in two World Cups and a large number of tournaments all over the world. Out of jealousy, the so-called fans of the earlier captain keep crying themselves hoarse that the current captain is immeasurably lucky. On the other hand, the victories under the previous captain are projected as outcomes of his brilliant leadership qualities.It is ok if people like the former captain, it is also ok if they do not like the current captain, but how can people make such irrational claims?
As if this is not enough, nowadays another group of people from West Bengal have turned against this former India skipper because he is now playing for the team named after a city different from Kolkata. They are now out to vilify him as an old good-for-nothing guy.

What I am most disappointed with is the role of the young generation- my friends. Most of them "support" IPL teams named after their cities, some very vocally. Some of them are always busy filling up Facebook with hateful and slanderous messages and cartoons aimed at maligning other players to "glorify" the said former India captain, or vilifying other cities which have IPL teams named after them. And to think that many of these people have studied in reputed colleges, some of them working in big companies and some doing PhD- in short they are considered the cream of the society. This is not to suggest that everyone of the current generation is like that- voices of sanity also are not infrequent. But I cannot help being deeply disturbed by the stupidity and narrow-mindedness of the young generation- the generation I belong to.