Indian Premier League – Blasting National Boundaries.
By Carmo D’Souza
Indian Premier League (IPL), well Bollywood personalities, cricket professionals, Indian industrialists and celebrities. A mix up of cricket professionalism, iconic players, media expertise, ball to ball updates, rules of game, cash, sponsors , price bids and cheer groups. Eight great teams with unique selection of names in a format called Twenty 20 , with stages called Round Robin and Knockout, are struggling on the cricket field for 45 days, involving huge money, television rights , franchises and what not, with the cheer girls dancing on the ring of controversy. It all makes news and news sells. Interesting to watch how the IPL has captured the hearts and minds of cricket lovers.
One of the important pointer is that IPL has blasted knowingly or unconsciously the national boundaries. There is a flurry of beautiful strokes that flow all over the field and flow beyond the boundaries. It may be symbolic, but the fact remains that the National Sovereignty as postulated by great legal scholar Austin has really been put to test. And the silliness of that Austinian theory is day by day demonstrated on the IPL cricket fields. Great Austin challenged in a game dear to the British.
Modern scholars like C. K. Allen have questioned Austin’s claim to National Sovereignty- a part of British Heritage. British are feudal in nature unlike the Roman Imperator. Had Austin overlooked long course of English history and based his theory of a short run of English sovereignty of his days? Whatever the answer , Austin hoisted National Sovereignty so high in his Imperative Theory, that it enabled Britain to build an Empire. Or was it the other way round? Whichever way, the fact is that National Sovereignty became a brand name , pursued by each and every country in the twentieth century. However the fag end of the century showed the dilution of this solid walls , as environment sent its warnings, and the human rights echoed from one corner to the other with the shrinking world .
It is interesting to analyze IPL under this background. The names of the eight teams in one side seemed to uphold royalty and sovereignty and the ideals dear to the patriarchs of monarchy. As Shakespeare has said that a rose by any other name smell as sweet, perhaps the names in IPL , do not stand for the old monarchial culture. We have Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Bangalore Royal Challengers ( though the royal may have a different connotation ), Kings XI Punjab. One additional team has the royal trapping in the form of Kolkata Knight Riders. That leaves only three other teams which cannot be bracketed in Royal Brand , that is Mumbai Indians , Delhi Dare Devils and Deccan Charges. But chargers too have been associated with mighty kings and the Devils too have their own kingdom, in the other world..
Then where are the brushes of Internationalism in IPL Cricket? Could any Pakistani cricketer inspite of his cricketing prowess get applause in Indian soil if not perhaps in Hyderabad of old. In IPL today , Pakistanis are head and shoulder with their India counterparts, cheered by the crowd. Country loyalty has shed place to club loyalty. And there are the cheer girls to lay the foundation for their teams support.
The Bhaji incident is another pointer to that direction. Calling man a monkey cannot be tolerated either by men or monkeys. Though we Indians are sometimes in habit of calling our tiny tots affectionately ‘monkeys’. And the Indian Nations solidly stood as one including the mass media , that we did not do it. There was simply no room for apology. It is not to infer here that the incident happened. The reaction of the nation was spontaneous as revealed by various letters to the press. However the new Bhaji incident , has brought a lot of doubting Thomas to the front. Are national boundaries crumbling down?
It is too early to expect a new world order from the IPL. Surely, it may not be enviable too. Where money, bids and loyalties are to be bargained on auction or evaluated in terms of dollars, or built by cheer leaders. But the IPL surely has made us conscious of our traditional way of thinking which is undergoing a radical and rapid change. May be IPL is a stepping stone, were more systematic, conscious and dedicated efforts in building world order will emerge. After all , India had great ancient saints like Budha, Mahavira and others . It produced modern leaders in that direction like Gandhi, Nehru and others. Presently there is a group of Montessori schools in Luckknow with around thirty thousand students that are working towards it. I am not to sure whether they are good at cricket too.
Viva India. Viva IPL.
Visit web site : http://www.ismilda.org/
E-mail: carmodsouza@gmail.com
By Carmo D’Souza
Indian Premier League (IPL), well Bollywood personalities, cricket professionals, Indian industrialists and celebrities. A mix up of cricket professionalism, iconic players, media expertise, ball to ball updates, rules of game, cash, sponsors , price bids and cheer groups. Eight great teams with unique selection of names in a format called Twenty 20 , with stages called Round Robin and Knockout, are struggling on the cricket field for 45 days, involving huge money, television rights , franchises and what not, with the cheer girls dancing on the ring of controversy. It all makes news and news sells. Interesting to watch how the IPL has captured the hearts and minds of cricket lovers.
One of the important pointer is that IPL has blasted knowingly or unconsciously the national boundaries. There is a flurry of beautiful strokes that flow all over the field and flow beyond the boundaries. It may be symbolic, but the fact remains that the National Sovereignty as postulated by great legal scholar Austin has really been put to test. And the silliness of that Austinian theory is day by day demonstrated on the IPL cricket fields. Great Austin challenged in a game dear to the British.
Modern scholars like C. K. Allen have questioned Austin’s claim to National Sovereignty- a part of British Heritage. British are feudal in nature unlike the Roman Imperator. Had Austin overlooked long course of English history and based his theory of a short run of English sovereignty of his days? Whatever the answer , Austin hoisted National Sovereignty so high in his Imperative Theory, that it enabled Britain to build an Empire. Or was it the other way round? Whichever way, the fact is that National Sovereignty became a brand name , pursued by each and every country in the twentieth century. However the fag end of the century showed the dilution of this solid walls , as environment sent its warnings, and the human rights echoed from one corner to the other with the shrinking world .
It is interesting to analyze IPL under this background. The names of the eight teams in one side seemed to uphold royalty and sovereignty and the ideals dear to the patriarchs of monarchy. As Shakespeare has said that a rose by any other name smell as sweet, perhaps the names in IPL , do not stand for the old monarchial culture. We have Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Bangalore Royal Challengers ( though the royal may have a different connotation ), Kings XI Punjab. One additional team has the royal trapping in the form of Kolkata Knight Riders. That leaves only three other teams which cannot be bracketed in Royal Brand , that is Mumbai Indians , Delhi Dare Devils and Deccan Charges. But chargers too have been associated with mighty kings and the Devils too have their own kingdom, in the other world..
Then where are the brushes of Internationalism in IPL Cricket? Could any Pakistani cricketer inspite of his cricketing prowess get applause in Indian soil if not perhaps in Hyderabad of old. In IPL today , Pakistanis are head and shoulder with their India counterparts, cheered by the crowd. Country loyalty has shed place to club loyalty. And there are the cheer girls to lay the foundation for their teams support.
The Bhaji incident is another pointer to that direction. Calling man a monkey cannot be tolerated either by men or monkeys. Though we Indians are sometimes in habit of calling our tiny tots affectionately ‘monkeys’. And the Indian Nations solidly stood as one including the mass media , that we did not do it. There was simply no room for apology. It is not to infer here that the incident happened. The reaction of the nation was spontaneous as revealed by various letters to the press. However the new Bhaji incident , has brought a lot of doubting Thomas to the front. Are national boundaries crumbling down?
It is too early to expect a new world order from the IPL. Surely, it may not be enviable too. Where money, bids and loyalties are to be bargained on auction or evaluated in terms of dollars, or built by cheer leaders. But the IPL surely has made us conscious of our traditional way of thinking which is undergoing a radical and rapid change. May be IPL is a stepping stone, were more systematic, conscious and dedicated efforts in building world order will emerge. After all , India had great ancient saints like Budha, Mahavira and others . It produced modern leaders in that direction like Gandhi, Nehru and others. Presently there is a group of Montessori schools in Luckknow with around thirty thousand students that are working towards it. I am not to sure whether they are good at cricket too.
Viva India. Viva IPL.
Visit web site : http://www.ismilda.org/
E-mail: carmodsouza@gmail.com
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