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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Ungrateful Nation

Even by South Asia’s febrile standards, Bangladesh’s decision to pull the plug on the Indian Premier League (IPL) is a breathtaking exhibition of diplomatic petulance that betrays Dhaka’s deepening insecurity as the country lurches into turmoil. The ostensible trigger for the ban the so-called ‘Mustafizur row.’ The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) asked for the release of Mustafizur Rahman from the Kolkata Knight Riders squad ahead of the 2026 IPL season owing to the crisis within...

Ungrateful Nation

Even by South Asia’s febrile standards, Bangladesh’s decision to pull the plug on the Indian Premier League (IPL) is a breathtaking exhibition of diplomatic petulance that betrays Dhaka’s deepening insecurity as the country lurches into turmoil. The ostensible trigger for the ban the so-called ‘Mustafizur row.’ The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) asked for the release of Mustafizur Rahman from the Kolkata Knight Riders squad ahead of the 2026 IPL season owing to the crisis within the country and the anti-India and anti-Hindu sentiment within Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi state chose escalation by responding with a blanket ban on IPL broadcasts, wrapped in the language of wounded national pride. For a country whose citizens avidly consume Indian entertainment, sport and media, the move borders on the absurd. That absurdity deepens when placed in context. Bangladesh is among the most India-dependent countries in South Asia. India is its largest trading partner in the region, an energy supplier and has, until recently, been its diplomatic shield in uncomfortable forums. Even its cricketing rise has been inseparable from Indian patronage including the IPL itself, which has turned Bangladeshi players into global brands. To theatrically boycott the league now tantamounts to self-harm. More striking is the sheer ingratitude of this nation. Bangladesh’s very existence owes much to India’s intervention in 1971 in all forms - military, diplomatic and humanitarian. New Delhi bore enormous costs to midwife the birth of a nation that had been brutalised by the Pakistani military. For decades thereafter, India absorbed refugees, stabilised borders and repeatedly extended a hand of cooperation, often despite provocations. While gratitude in international politics rarely lasts forever, such open resentment from a beneficiary towards its benefactor speaks poorly about Bangladesh’s strategic maturity. Worse, Dhaka appears to be flirting with a familiar and unhappy template of the Pakistan model of grievance-driven nationalism. By asking the International Cricket Council to move its T20 World Cup matches out of India, citing nebulous “security concerns,” Bangladesh has chosen to politicise sport in precisely the way Islamabad has done for years, often to its own detriment. The result could be a de facto cricketing wall between India and Bangladesh, choking bilateral series and isolating Bangladeshi cricket from its most lucrative neighbour. All this hoity-toitiness might have been easier to stomach if Bangladesh’s moral posture were credible. It is not. As Dhaka lectures India on hurt sentiments, it continues to brutally persecute Hindus and other minorities within its own borders. When governance falters, governments often reach for symbolic enemies. Cricket, the region’s shared religion, has now become Bangladesh’s chosen battlefield to rail against India. But symbolism cuts both ways. By blocking the IPL, Bangladesh is not humiliating India but depriving its own people of something they enjoy. States that punch the air usually end up hitting themselves. Bangladesh would do well to remember which path it once hoped to follow and which neighbour it should avoid emulating.

Unrest within Mahayuti

Updated: Jan 21, 2025

Mahayuti

Mumbai: The state administration on Sunday stalled the appointments of guardian ministers in Raigad and Nashik districts. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had cleared the appointments before he left for Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum on Saturday. They are believed to have been stalled on behest of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the state in absence of the Chief Minister.


NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan were entrusted with responsibilities of guardian minister for the Raigad and Nashik districts respectively, where Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale and Dada Bhuse had staked claims. Gogawale is a first-time minister while, Bhuse had been the guardian minister of the district during previous government under Eknath Shinde.


Shiv Sena, NCP and BJP all the three constituents of Mahayuti have strong roots in both the districts. However, the Shiv Sena and the NCP had been particularly on loggerheads there. The Shiv Sena, which had been demanding the guardian minister’s post in Nashik district has managed to win only two assembly seats in the district where the NCP has Six and the BJP has Five MLAs. On the contrary, in Raigad the NCP has won only one seat while the Shiv Sena and the BJP both have Three MLAs each in the district.


Sunil Tatkare, MP from Raigad Lok Sabha constituency and the stat unit president of the NCP and father of Aditi Tatkare, had been the guardian minister of Raigad between 2004 and 2014. Gogawale had always been his political opponent before Tatkare joined the Mahayuti government under Ajit Pawar’s leadership in 2023. Gogawale claimed that all the Six Shiv Sena-BJP MLAs in the district had opined in his favour to be the guardian minister of the district and after the decision to appoint Aditi Tatkare was announced, his supporters resorted to violent protests. They burnt tyres in bid to stall traffic on highway in the district. Reacting to the developments, Tatkare said that the issue should be pondered over after CM Fadnavis returns from Davos on Saturday and settled amicably.


In Nashik Girish Mahajan had been the guardian minister of the district between 2014 and 2019 when Fadnavis was the Chief Minister.


The post of guardian minister doesn’t have any constitutional mandate and is considered to be a political appointment. Guardian ministers head the district planning and development councils (DPDC) that control the funds for development works being carried out in the particular district. This control wields much of political power to the minister in that district whereby spreading the party in the district becomes much easier. This is the reason why the grass root politicians seem to be very sensitive to such appointments.


While Gogawale and Bhuse are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian ministers, some others like NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s Pankaja Munde are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian district in their home districts of Kolhapur and Beed respectively. DCM Shinde is learnt to have gone to his ancestral village Dare in Satara district after the decision and BJP’s firefighters Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Girish Mahajan are expected to meet him there to try finding a way out of the issue.

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