Mahadeep Singh Jamwal
I fail to understand why our politicians always look into each and every aspect with political goggles, whether it is common cause of everyone, achievements of our icons and even our sports that are supposed to be taken as with sports spirit. The sport is the most noble of the wars on international platforms because it is a war of peace and friendship. The international sports battles aren’t like the political wars but in India, our politicians take the sports also as a weapon of their political wars to settle their scores. ALL politicians try to associate themselves and their politics with winners. It is the very life blood of politics and has always been that way. Likewise the blind followers of these politicians form their troll army to throw garbage on one another. Each individual processes his view, thereby coming to a judgment that yields an attitude. The attitudes of different individuals are then aggregated, mostly on social media for the most part, and then such views start trending on social platforms.
After Australia’s victory over India in ICC World Cup, some people are expressing their pain and are taking this defeat because of the presence of Modi in ‘Narendra Modi Stadium’ and taking him as ‘Panauti’ for the event. ‘Panauti’ is not trending on social platforms only but in electronic media also as some TV channels, YouTube Channels and Media pages have also brought it on a wider spectrum by conducting debates on the word ‘Panauti’. The psychological study on the subject ‘Thinking’ reveals that it is our attitude that creates opinions. An attitude consists of three types of elements: cognitive (beliefs); affective (emotions or feelings); and behavioral (intent to act). These elements can affect one another. The political parties are grappling over the trending of ‘Panauti’ and are in a word war to prove one another as behaving below humanism. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi remarked that India would have won World Cup final against Australia but because of Panauti PM Narendra Modi they lost the match and defined ‘PM’ means ‘Panauti Modi’ whose entry into the stadium was a bad omen that led to India’s defeat in the World Cup 2023 final match against Australia on Sunday. Our boys were close to winning the World Cup but due to PM Modi’s entry, they lost the match. Former Cricketer and TMC leader Kirti Azad remarked ‘There is decency and decorum in sports. There are no rules in politics but there are rules in sports. Can someone visit the PM office if he loses elections, over visiting the PM to the dressing room of Indian players after India lost the World Cup? In a tongue-lashing, the BJP leaders termed the remarks of Rahul Gandhi about the Prime Minister as “shameful, condemnable and disgraceful” and remarked these comments as signs of desperation and mental instability.
In general understanding, we define ‘Panauti’ as a word for someone whom we think brings bad influence, bad omen, sign of ill luck, harbinger of bad luck. The word is used to refer to someone who is considered unlucky or brings bad luck. But I believe nobody is ill-fated; it is our faith that creates such pejorative opinion. Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta guides us that faith can be of three types: in goodness, in passion, and in ignorance.
Superstition falls under the category of faith in ignorance, which is characterized by misguided rituals, empty sacrifices, and belief in the supernatural without understanding its essence.
The best analytical views after losing the match would have been to deliberate whether the Indian Team had dedicated themselves to the job at hand, whether the Indian Team had determination to win, and whether they applied the best of them to the task at hand. But we diverted our focus to a person only with political intentions to dig out some voters’ favor. It is a universal admittance that in order to succeed we need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you and something to inspire you and I believe the PM of the country is the best object and his presence would have acted like a catalyst to augment spirit of winning the match. The experts have practically analyzed some of the reasons such as: Toss, collapse of the middle-order, dew impact in second innings, fewer boundaries, no big partnerships, Australia’s aggressive batting, fielding and shot selections, Pat Cummins’ captaincy, tactical errors and losing wickets at important times. I ask a simple question to those terming Modi as ‘Panauti’ for losing the match, what logic do you have for your observations?
Concluding, our Team India has to carry a message that learning is after all not whether we lose the game but how lose and how we have changed because of it and what we take away from it that we have never before to apply in our next matches. Losing in a curious way is winning.
