Cricket in Colonial India 1780 – 1947

Boria Majumdar

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415400145
• eBook ISBN: 9781317970125
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: History

This is an exacting social history of Indian cricket between 1780 and 1947. It considers cricket as a derivative sport, creatively adapted to suit modern Indian socio-cultural needs, fulfil political imperatives and satisfy economic aspirations. Majumdar argues that cricket was a means to cross class barriers and had a healthy following even outside the aristocracy and upper middle classes well over a century ago. Indeed, in some ways, the democratization of the sport anticipated the democratization of the Indian polity itself.

Boria Majumdar reveals the appropriation, assimilation and subversion of cricketing ideals in colonial and post-colonial India for nationalist ends. He exposes a sport rooted in the contingencies of the colonial and post-colonial context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India. Cricket, to put it simply, is much more than a 'game' for Indians.

This study describes how the genealogy of their intense engagement with cricket stretches back over a century. It is concerned not only with the game but also with the end of cricket as a mere sport, with Indian cricket's commercial revolution in the 1930s, with ideals and idealism and their relative unimportance, with the decline of morality for reasons of realpolitik, and with the denunciation, once and for all, of the view that sport and politics do not mix.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport

Royal Cricket: Self, State, Province and Nation

From the earliest years of British settlement in India, cricket was nurtured by leading public figures, military commanders, educators and journalists. Consequently, it was natural for men of status and affluence in India – the princes or maharajas – to take up this alien sport. Maharaja patronage of sport was an established practice in India by the middle of the eighteenth century. The reasons behind cricket patronage by the Maharajas were, however, much more complex, some of which have not been discussed in existing studies on Indian cricket. For some aristocrats, cricket was a tool of social mobility, for others it was a means of challenging the British masters by defeating them on their own turf. For some others, however, much more than achieving social mobility by emulating the colonizers, it was a means to further other ambitions, gain economic stability and political power over their rivals.

Cricket was much more than just another game to the Victorians. Indeed, they glorified it as a perfect system of ethics and morals, which embodied all that was most noble in the Anglo-Saxon character. They prized it as a national symbol, perhaps because – so far as they could tell – it was an exclusively English creation unsullied by Oriental and European influences. In an extremely xenophobic age, the Victorians came to regard cricket as further proof of their moral and cultural supremacy. [1]

From the earliest years of British settlement in India, cricket was nurtured by leading public figures, military commanders, educators and journalists. Consequently, it was natural for men of status and affluence in India – i.e. the princes or maharajas – to take up this alien sport. Maharaja patronage of sport was an established practice in India by the middle of the eighteenth century. As Ann Morrow points out in her book, The Maharajas of India, sport was thought to be an important way of ‘sweating the sex’ out of the other ranks. The British upper classes loved big-game hunting, which was a symbol of status, the criterion being the number of animals one shot. In colonial India, sports such as big-game hunting became a shortcut to being a gentleman, drawing the maharajas into it. [2] It was their way of proving their credentials to their peers. In fact, as Rosalind O’Hanlon has shown, hunting was an integral part of the Indian aristocratic tradition from the early decades of the eighteenth century. ‘Manly qualities’, she argues,

were displayed in very direct and physical ways: in the splendour of men’s physiques, the dazzle of equipage, the grim efficiency of their weapons and the magnificence of their fighting animals. Here, allies, troops, patrons, and rivals continually weighed and judged, challenged and affirmed each other’s possession of the manly qualities and competence deemed essential in the successful ruler, ally, military commander and warrior. [3]

The maharajas also took to polo from the 1870s. In fact, the Hindu princes were at the forefront of the revival of polo. Armed with equestrian skills and enormous resources at their disposal, the maharajas took the polo-playing world by storm. The princely houses of Patiala, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Hyderabad, Kishangarh, Alwar, Bhopal, Kashmir and Bikaner were the leading patrons of the sport in colonial India. [4]

Some of the rajas patronized wrestlers. Famous among the patrons were the maharajas of Patiala, Jodhpur and Datia. The Raja of Datia patronized Aziz Pehlwan, father of Gama, one of the best-known wrestlers in Indian history. The Maharaja of Patiala was another major patron and arranged a bout between Gama and Zbysco, two well-known wrestlers in contemporary India, in 1928. In Bengal, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar was a leading patron of kushti [5] and it was under his patronage that the world wrestling competition was held in Calcutta in 1892.

Other sports that received royal patronage were horse racing and golf. Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodeyar started horse racing in Mysore and races were held during the birthday celebrations of the maharaja, attracting among others a large number of British officers. Kashmir was the golfing Mecca of India from the late nineteenth century. Golf started in Kashmir when Colonel Neville Chamberlain prepared a six-hole course in 1890–91. In 1901, the Maharaja of Kashmir donated land at Gulmarg for laying out a golf course, which became known as the Upper Golf Course. In 1915 a nine-hole course, known as the ‘Rabbits Course’ was built.

It was natural that the maharajas would take to promoting cricket in the course of time. The reasons behind cricket patronage by the maharajas were, however, much more complex, some of which have not been discussed in existing studies on Indian cricket. For some aristocrats, cricket was a tool of social mobility, for others it was a means of challenging the British masters by defeating them on their own turf. For some others, however, much more than achieving social mobility by emulating the colonizers, it was a means to further other ambitions, gain economic stability and political power over their rivals.

The roots of cricket patronage by the maharajas can often be traced back to the peer rivalries that dominated princely life in early twentieth-century India. It was to outdo his sworn rival, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, that Jagadindranarayan Ray, the Maharaja of Natore, patronized cricketers from across the country, disregarding social taboos. [6] Similarly, the rivalry between the Maharaja of Patiala and the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, which manifested itself in an ugly tussle for captaincy during the twin tours of Britain in 1932 and 1936, [7] led these aristocrats to patronize men from all walks of life. Aristocratic patronage, rooted in political and commercial considerations, played a significant role in making cricket ‘representative’ in colonial India, an aspect of the game ignored in existing studies on the subject.

Often, it was on purely economic grounds that some of the princes took to playing and promoting cricket. It was to assuage his financial crisis that Ranjitsinhji, arguably India’s best cricketer ever, was determined to represent England in the 1890s. [8] It was by demonstrating his prowess in the mother country that Ranji was able to convert his hapless position in Nawanagar, [9] his native state, to one of unassailable strength. [10] Had it not been for his cricket, Ranji, a disinherited heir, would never have been able to win back the gadi [11] in 1907. Even when he was not jamsaheb, Ranji had used cricket’s popularity to pay off his debts. In a recently discovered collection of Ranji’s letters to his friend Mary Holmes, [12] Ranji mentions a book he was writing in 1905, Cricket Guide and How to Play Cricket, [13] to alleviate his financial crisis. He hoped to sell 5,000 copies of the book, using the sum earned to settle outstanding debts in England and India. [14]

Finally, princely patrons also took to sports promotion to consolidate/establish regional supremacy. This is best evident from an analysis of the tussle between Bengal and Bombay/western India over the control of India’s two most popular sports, cricket and football in the 1930s and 1940s. Having already lost out to his western Indian counterparts in cricket by the 1930s, [15] the Maharaja of Santosh, Bengal’s foremost sports patron, was determined to reinforce Bengali supremacy over the control of soccer. [16] British recognition and support continued to be pivotal in determining the outcome of this struggle. The Indian Football Association (IFA) [17] under the Maharaja of Santosh was not happy with its role as a regional institution and aimed to govern the development of football in the country, posing as the central governing body for soccer in India. It was as a mark of protest against such intentions on the part of the IFA that other state associations formed the All India Football Association (AIFA) in the 1930s. [18] The formation of the AIFA in September 1935 triggered a bitter struggle between the Indian states, Bengal on the one hand and the western and northern Indian states on the other, for control of the game. [19] The Maharaja of Santosh employed the recognition granted by the English Football Association to impress that the IFA was the only internationally recognized governing body for soccer in India. [20] At the same time, Santosh also tried to oppose the Bombay Pentangular cricket tournament, the lifebl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Editors' Foreword
• Other Titles in the Series
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• 1 Royal Cricket: Self, State, Province and Nation
• 2 Cricket in India: Representative Playing Fields to a Restrictive Preserve
• 3 Crickhet in Colonial Bengal (1880–1947): A Lost History of Nationalism
• 4 Cricket in Late Colonial Bengal (1930–47): A Story of Decline
• 5 Cricket in Colonial Bombay: 1850–1940
• 6 Communalism to Commercialism: The Bombay Pentangular 1892–1946
• Epilogue
• Appendix: The Vernacular in Sports History
• Index