DC Edit | The Messi Mess In Kolkata A National Shame For India

An unabashed display of VIP culture brought national shame as a tribute to Lionel Messi, one of the world’s greatest footballers, turned into a display of branded chaos that is uniquely Indian. The bigwigs of West Bengal’s ruling TMC hierarchy hijacked what should have been a parade to let people who had paid exorbitant sums get just a glimpse of Messi and caused it to descend into chaos.

Normally, such parades are held with a pride of place for the super-achievers in an open jeep or, better, a vintage car that goes around the stadium so thousands can see them and thus given the feeling they were participants in a special moment. But all the public saw was a scrimmage of VIPs, their kin, selfie and autograph seekers, security personnel, media-persons and hangers-on walking around with Messi reduced to virtual oblivion.

Managed privately by a one-man agency that had brought stars in the past to the football-crazed city of Kolkata, the event became so disorganised that a few star guests like Shah Rukh Khan chose to go away from the stadium where the celebration had quickly turned into a riotous display with an angry public launching assorted missiles like water bottles, chairs, hoardings, etc.

Politics played its part, too, with the governor kept out but, ironically, the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, chose to abandon her drive to the venue. An upset chief guest Messi and teammates Luiz Suarez and Rodrigo De Paul wished to leave the ‘City of Joy’ in a hurry. They could, however, do so only after their departure was delayed by a fracas at the foot of the stepladder of the chartered jet as the chief organiser was arrested on the tarmac — a rare enough occasion when accountability was upheld in time.

Kolkata had set such a poor example of how not to run a public event to honour a sportsman of magnitude that Hyderabad was able to organise the event with decorum and a sense of order in which there was also a short display of the footballing skills of a master of the dribble and shoot in the Argentinian great Messi who had carried forward the legacy of the likes of Maradona to take his nation to the pinnacle of achievement in winning the World Cup in 2022.

What is so alien to the Indian that he cannot handle with even a modicum of efficiency an event in which sports-obsessed fans are supposed to pay a tribute to their heroes? What happened at the RCB celebration after the IPL this year, or what took place at a political meeting in Tamil Nadu involving the actor Vijay would be to recall textbook lessons in understanding an innate Indian incapacity to deal with crowds and organise special events with discipline.

Sensing that the mood of a city, with a history of hosting footballing greats like Pele, Maradona and Messi himself, was of disillusionment with the way its most-anticipated fan moment was handled, the chief minister was quick to order a probe and have the organiser arrested and remanded. What cannot be restored, however, is the reputation of a crowded India’s ability to match the best practices in organising any public event in which there is huge public interest. Kolkata did, however, keep its love affair with football going with a large crowd turning up to greet Uruguay star Diego Forlan at the airport as he flew in for a reality show shoot in the summer of 2010.