Messi Mayhem Was Not an Accident — It Was a Symptom
The chaos surrounding the so-called “Messi event” in Kolkata was not merely a case of poor
event management. It was a mirror—held uncomfortably close—to the state of governance in
West Bengal during the Trinamool Congress era. When thousands of citizens paid hard-earned
money for a promised global spectacle and were met instead with disorder, misinformation,
police action, and silence from authorities, it revealed something far deeper than a botched
show.
What unfolded at Salt Lake Stadium was not unforeseeable. Large crowds, inflated claims,
weak oversight, VIP privilege, and last-minute firefighting have become familiar features of
public administration in the state. The question is not whether a private organiser failed; it is
why state systems once again appeared absent until damage was already done.
This is where the Messi episode stops being about football and starts being about governance.
West Bengal has spent the last few years lurching from one crisis to another—each treated as
an isolated incident, never as part of a pattern. The Supreme Court’s verdict on the WBSSC
teacher recruitment scam was not a political allegation; it was a judicial finding that exposed
systemic manipulation of a public institution meant to safeguard merit and trust. Thousands
lost jobs, futures were disrupted, and yet accountability remained elusive.
Alongside this lie ongoing investigations into ration distribution irregularities, coal and cattle
smuggling networks, and the repeated appearance of politically connected names in
enforcement agency charge sheets. The Trinamool Congress has responded with a single
refrain: vendetta. But when probes persist across sectors—education, welfare, resources—the
explanation of conspiracy begins to sound less like defence and more like deflection.
What unites these episodes is not ideology but administrative collapse: a government that
governs through spectacle, slogans, and street power, while institutions quietly rot. From
classrooms to stadiums, from ration shops to recruitment boards, the same question keeps
resurfacing—who is responsible, and why does no one resign?
The Messi mayhem struck a nerve precisely because it involved ordinary citizens, not abstract
numbers. Parents, students, workers—many of whom are politically unaffiliated—felt cheated
and humiliated. They were promised world-class organisation and delivered chaos. For a
government that prides itself on “people’s politics,” the silence that followed was deafening.
West Bengal deserves better than perpetual damage control. It deserves transparency instead of
intimidation, reform instead of rhetoric, and accountability instead of excuses. No state can
survive on cultural nostalgia while its institutions decay. No government can claim moral
authority while treating every failure as someone else’s fault.
The Messi event will fade from headlines. Court cases will take their time. But the deeper crisis
remains: a governance model that has normalised dysfunction and trained citizens to lower
expectations.
The real question is no longer whether there was mismanagement.
It is whether West Bengal is being governed—or merely managed for survival.
And that is a far more serious scandal than any failed football show.
