Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India

Ronojoy Sen

Published by Columbia University Press 2015

Nation at Play

A History of Sport in India

Ronojoy Sen

In the series Contemporary Asia in the World

https://doi.org/10.7312/sen-16490

Overview
Contents

About this book

Ronojoy Sen pairs a novel history of India's engagement with sport and a probing analysis of its cultural and political development. Sen follows the transformation of sport from an elite, kingly pastime to a national obsession. He pays special attention to the dominance of cricket in the Indian consciousness and the chronic failure in international competition. Sen captures the political nature of sport in India and reveals centuries-old patterns of patronage, clientage, and institutionalization.

Reaching as far back as ancient times, Ronojoy Sen pairs a novel history of India's engagement with sport and a probing analysis of its cultural and political development under monarchy and colonialism, and as an independent nation. Some sports that originated in India have fallen out of favor, while others, such as cricket, have been adopted and made wholly India's own. Sen's innovative project casts sport less as a natural expression of human competition than as an instructive practice reflecting a unique play with power, morality, aesthetics, identity, and money.

Sen follows the transformation of sport from an elite, kingly pastime to a national obsession tied to colonialism, nationalism, and free market liberalization. He pays special attention to two modern phenomena: the dominance of cricket in the Indian consciousness and the chronic failure of a billion-strong nation to compete successfully in international sporting competitions, such as the Olympics. Innovatively incorporating examples from popular media and other unconventional sources, Sen not only captures the political nature of sport in India but also reveals the patterns of patronage, clientage, and institutionalization that have bound this diverse nation together for centuries.

Author / Editor information

Ronojoy Sen is senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He has worked for over a decade with leading Indian newspapers, most recently as an editor for The Times of India. He earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and read history at Presidency College, Calcutta. He is also the author of Articles of Faith: Religion, Secularism, and the Indian Supreme Court.

Reviews

Sen is to be applauded for writing such an ambitious book, enriching our understanding of the history of sport in India.

Rich in detail and nuanced in terms of analysis.... [Ronojoy Sen] is to be praised for adding to the understanding of sport in India by looking at how it intersects with culture and politics, and for using sport to provide insights about Indian history and society.

His ambitious book examines Indian sports in a largely chronological manner and does not duck the more awkward questions, such as the perceived athletic limitations of Indians. The narrative has an attractive sweep to it, starting with the place of sports and martial competition in Hindu epics such as the "Mahabharata" and the "Ramayana."

Joseph S. Alter, Yale-NUS College, author of The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in North India:
Ronojoy Sen has produced a fascinating, rich, and thoroughly engaging history of sport in India. He manages to paint at once with powerful, evocative, and very convincing broad strokes and with the finely gauged brush of an ethno-historian concerned as much with the intricacies and nuances of embodied experience as with quirky personalities and the odd politics of everyday life. All of this adds up to a book that fully captures the imagination to generate deep and often unexpected insight on the serious business of play in modern India.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Down the Ages: Sport in Ancient and Medieval India Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2 . Empire of Sport: The Early British Impact on Recreation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
3 . White Man’s Burden: Teachers, Missionaries, and Administrators Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
4 . Players and Patrons Indian Princes and Sports Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
5 . The Empire Strikes Back The 1911 IFA Shield and Football in Calcutta Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
6 . Politics on the Maidan Sport, Communalism, and Nationalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
7 . The Early Olympics India’s Hockey Triumphs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
8 . Lords of the Ring Tales of Wrestlers and Boxers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
9 . Freedom Games The First Two Decades of Independence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
10 . Domestic Sports State, Club, Office, and Regiment (1947–1970) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
11 . 1971 and After The Religion Called Cricket Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
12 . Life Beyond Cricket Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	361

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 400
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 24
- Other: 24 b&w photographs

eBook

Published: October 27, 2015
ISBN: 9780231539937