FIFA 2022 Final and Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam

Abstract: This post on FIFA 2022 World Cup Final between Argentina and France (or, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, respectively) is a continuation of my curiosity on  Pānini’s conflict resolution rule, Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam, beyond Sanskrit grammar, contextualized through the adage, "Let the best one win." We now look forward to Hockey World Cup 2023, and welcome 2023, the International Year of Millets. 

“Let the best one win,” is a powerful adage, a wishful one, as it may not always turn out to be true. However, this adage seems to have been echoed by many football lovers after the final match between Argentina and France in the FIFA World Cup 2022 suggesting that in their view the best team did indeed win.

In this post, in sync with the adage, I will touch upon the ups and downs of that match through the lay reading of Pānini’s celebrated conflict resolution rule “In conflict the stronger (or, better) one prevails,” Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam. This draws from a recent post of mine wherein I had indicated that the lay reading renders the rule for wider application beyond Sanskrit grammar. I had also  indicated there how the lay reading of the rule resonates with Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman, John Rawls’ veil in an original position, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator. In the spirit of that wider application, we now get back to that final match.  

Supporters of Argentina and France would have wanted their teams to win. The fan following of Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé would have wanted their idols to be in the winning side. There, however, was an undercurrent of support for Messi, as this would perhaps be his last World Cup and that his caliber as a player has been borne out by the fact that till that final match, he had been in the winning squad of all major football tournaments. In the last four years, Mbappé has also created a fan following of his own since his performance in the 2018 edition of the World Cup that France won, and he has been going from strength-to-strength thereafter.

When the 2022 FIFA final match between Argentina and France began many, so-called neutral supporters (perhaps talismanic, in a veil, and impartial spectators), wanted Argentina to win so that Messi can be part of the winning squad and will have in his repertoire the one Cup that is missing, and they also wanted Mbappé to score at least a goal. It was very much possible that Argentina would have won without Mbappé or his team scoring a goal, or for Argentina to have lost. Given the two competing wishes, it is only after the match that one could know which of these got fulfilled and who of the two teams was better and whether the better team won.

As the match progressed, Argentina and Messi were doing well. They were 2-0 up with Messi having scored one and assisted the other. But, Mbappé had not scored. He fulfills  the neutral supporters wish and around the 80^th minute scores a goal. Hold on, within another minute or so, he goes beyond that and scores another goal. With Mbappé’s two back-to-back goals, France was level with Argentina and by the end of regular time the score line read 2-2.

Now, with the match going into extra time, the neutral supporters wanted Messi to show his magic and were all delighted when he does that by scoring another goal with Argentina now leading again at 3-2. With this, our neutral supporters were somewhere feeling a little let down for Mbappé but this does not last long as he scores again, a hat-trick in a Wrold Cup final, and France levels the score again with Argentina at 3-3 at the end of extra time. With no clear winners, the match goes to penalty kicks.

Mbappé and Messi score their respective penalty goals. France misses out the second and third one with a good save by Damián Martínez the Argentine goalkeeper, but scores their fourth, while Argentina players, after Messi, score their subsequent three and go on to win the World Cup 2022 with the penalty kicks score reading 4-2.

Some non-connoisseur's of the game would suggest what was this ado all about, they could have started with the penalty kicks and decided the match. No, that cannot be. The beauty of the game lies in the the laws of the game along with the ups and downs and the upheavals therein. If there is no decision after the regular time of 90 minutes then the match goes to extra time, and if there is still no decision after the extra time of 30 minutes then the match goes to penalty kicks.

The application of the laws of the game for determining the outcome of a match follows  a sequence, which, in a convoluted sense, seems to support Vipratisidhe Param Kāryam. No decision at the end of a stage of the match (that is, end of regular or extra time) indicates that at the end of that stage the two teams continue to be of equal strength (vipratisidhe) and this requires that the progress of the match to the next or subsequent stage (param) be brought into action or invoked (kāryam). Further, as the match progresses to kicks from the penalty mark the penalty kicks can go on ad infinitum till a decision on the winner is reached.  

To get back to our adage, the best team won, Argentina won the Cup in the penalty shoot out. But, our neutral supporters got more, Messi gets the golden ball as the best player of the championship including his goals and assists (see all goals by Argentina in the World Cup), Mbappé gets the golden boot as the maximum goal scorer in the tournament, and Martínez gets the golden glove as the best goalkeeper of the competition.

There was no decision to be made by our neutral supporters, but in their personal emotional space they felt vindicated and it is this that supports our lay reading of Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam beyond Sanskrit grammar. The feeling by our neutral supporters also seems to resonate Gandhi’s talisman, Rawls’ veil in an original position and Smith’s impartial spectator. What more would they want. The laws of the game to decide a winner in a World Cup final match also seems to, in a convoluted sense, fall in line with Pānini’s conflict resolution rule. It has been a win-win for all. 

Now, we look forward to the Hockey World Cup 2023 that is to take place in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela of Odisha, India in January 2023. Wishing you well-being and happiness for 2023, the International Year of Millets.

[I reiterate of having no knowledge of Sanskrit, as indicated in my pervious post. This is just a continuation of my curiosity of Pānini’s conflict resolution rule, in my lay understanding, beyond Sanskrit grammar. My apologies to Sanskrit grammarians and football aficionados.]

© Srijit Mishra

CC BY-SA

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HDR 2013 - Rise of the Global South

The Human Development Report 2013 - Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World is out. In HDI rankings, Norway ranks first, but Australia (#2) and New Zealand (#6) do better than Norway when it comes to non-income HDI.
 
US (#3) fares poorly in terms of life expectancy as it is below 30 countries. This means that at a higher level of attainment, shortfalls in one dimension are compensated by attainments in other dimensions. Future calculations of HDI could use An Alternative Approach to Measure HDI or choose from A Class of Human Development Index Measures. These address the inequity across dimensions. In other words, as the average attainment increases, the same deviation from a balanced approach is considered worse off. It turns out that the HDI computed with geometric mean does not satisfy this.

Conflict-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and drought-affected Niger jointly take the last position at #186, but despite the odds they are the ones that have made impressive improvements. In fact, the story from HDR 2013 is the rise of the Global South. It is pertinent that when the North slowed down because of the financial crisis during 2007/2008, it is the entrepreneurship of masses and social innovations in diverse settings with proactive state that have helped in this progress. Fourteen countries, mostly low-HDI ones from Africa (including DR Congo and Niger), made HDI gains of at least 2 per cent per annum since 2000.

In 150 years, the year 2010 marks a turnaround as Brazil (#85), China (#101) and India (#136) together have a combined income as that of the six industrial countries of Canada (#11), France (#20), Germany(#5), Italy(#25), UK (#26) and US. The middle class is growing in the South and they are demanding better services, but one should not forget that income inequalities are widening.

I take the liberty to get out of the report and provide some pointers for India. Some recent successes in India are the state-facilitated livelihood missions (see BRLPS, SERP and also NRLM) among others. Civil society participation also have made significant contributions leading to recent legislations on Right to Education and Right to Information. There also have been public movements such as India Against Corruption, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, and Right to Food. Another recent initiative is the RRA Network, which advocates for a differentiated policy and support system for revitalizing rainfed agriculture.

To sustain the momentum, the report calls for enhancing equity, enabling voice and participation, confronting environmental challenges and managing demographic change.The report reiterates the need to change the structures of global institutions to involve and articulate the concerns of the South, to bring in plural concerns and to unravel that the notions of 'publicness' and 'privateness' in our understanding of public goods are social constructs. Bringing about effective interventions needs good leadership who can keep vested interests out of decision making.