We’ve heard this before. And now Kapil Dev says this again on ‘Frankly Speaking’ when interviewed by Arnab Goswami, the NDTV veteran and now the editor, Times Now. He is asked what he thinks of Sourav Ganguli.
Kapil Dev’s surprise reply is that Sourav epitomizes courage and aggression, so unlikely in a Bengali. For good measure he adds that Bengalis are ‘kings’ in their paras (‘own’ locality), but crumble outside. He says Sourav is an exception from this typically Bengali syndrome.
That Sourav is certainly so is agreed (see this post, Sourav’s comeback). But Paaji’s sweeping remark is nothing but unfortunate, because it’s not true.
Bengali’s typical heroism as meant by Kapil is actually reflective of turbulent times of 70s, when every para here used to have one or 2 mastans (toughies/ruffians) who would protect his ‘turf’ through coercion. There used to be frequent street-fights among them to proclaim supremacy in which crude country-made bombs and one-shot guns would be freely used.
Youth of Bengal of that time had a hidden admiration for these mastans. On ground this meant that they would behave with uppity when they went to other places, believing their assumed arrogance would make them somewhat invincible. What would instead happen was that they would flee the scene at the slightest hint of strong challenge.
That was more of rowdyism, which in today’s world of free speech and free movement has no ready acceptance. Many feel Bengalis per se are argumentative (not bad) and quarrel at the drop of hat (surely irksome), but they are not any different from anyone else in being less or more fearful or fearless in adverse conditions.
Coming back to Kapil Dev’s interview, he himself later says that Rahul Dravid now and Sachin Tendulkar – when he was – ought to be more assertive as captains. Don’t their meekness suggest that they lack the verve to lead the team?
For that matter, when Paaji broke down in uncontrollable sobs in a Karan Thapar interview on BBC some years back, asked as he was about his involvement in match-fixing scandals, didn’t that indicate his vulnerability?
If theirs are not signs of submissiveness that would rank low in how Kapil Dev looks at things, certainly he can have no reason to think about Bengalis the way he does.
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