With the recent victory in Test and One-day matches, Team India has broken a seven-decade jinx. Wining against Australia in Australia is something to rejoice for a country having large number of cricket lovers. This has come as a welcome reprieve in these chaotic times, given the global and the local cues the environment is sending. From Yellow Vests in France to the shutdown in the United States, to the Chinese expansionist designs, things around the globe gave little to cheer for in the recent past. Not that the world is going to end any day soon. But it certainly is giving a lot of anxious moments, forcing us to keep our fingers crossed. More so because France, the US, and China are not just stray cases. They seem like ominous pointers of the shape of things to come. With a rider, that is, if they persist. Nearer home, the picture is equally hazy, and noisy too. The present year being an election year, we will witness the pyrotechnics of competitive politics when all stakeholders will let loose all their arsenals and go whole hog for a no-holds barred. After all, it is winning at every cost that people want. The casualties in such a situation can be many, involving the populace, the institutions, and even the economy. Already the signals are there with Foreign Portfolio Investors withdrawing from the Indian Capital market in a big way. The backdrop is threatening, if not dreadful, and definitely chaotic. Naturally, what Team India has done Down Under gives reasons to smile. It was some five decades ago that on the Caribbean tour, Ajit Wadekar and his team had accomplished a similar feat when India recorded its first ever Test series win in West Indies, the then king of cricket. Sunil Gavaskar, of course, was the find of the series. In the same year, India had also recorded a first ever Test series win in England. The performance of Virat Kohli’s team then gives us the much needed boost when things do not appear to be all hunky dory. Even otherwise, the history of Indian cricket overseas has been mostly a case of so-near-yet-so-far. Till then, we had won against New Zealand only, that too in 1968 under MAK Pataudi. But cricket, perhaps, may not be enough as there are other pressing concerns that need to be addressed. And at several fronts — political, social, and economic. The situation reminds me of an old incident. It was 1977 and the Parliamentary elections were announced after the Emergency was revoked. We were gathered outside the Banaras Hindu University gate on the main road of Lanka to hear Chandrasekhar, then popularly known as the Young Turk of Indian politics who had the guts to defy the all-powerful Indira Gandhi. Chandrasekhar narrated how he had come to join politics. He was a PhD scholar registered under Acharya Narendra Dev, who happened to be the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Chandrasekhar recounted how his guide had told him that the country was more important than the PhD as what would one do with a PhD if the country is in a chaos? Chandrasekhar took the plunge. As we inch towards the D-day, a similar predicament awaits us.

We must realise that the country is too important to be left to politicians alone. We the people of India have to play our part.

Pathak is a professor of management, writer, and an acclaimed public speaker. He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com