Games We Play

Description

This book looks broadly at the evolution of sport and play in India and South Asia, those that enjoy mass popularity as well as those that are marginal, situating them in the region's history, society and economy. It is a valuable addition to the study of sports in South Asia, which remains underdeveloped, with a significant bias towards cricket. Avoiding personality-based narratives, focusing only on successful sportspersons, this volume looks at the different sports played and watched in South Asia: from popular ones such as hockey, football, and badminton, to more local ones such as boat racing in Kerala.

About the Author

Ronojoy Sen is a Senior Research Fellow at ISAS & ARI, National University of Singapore. He has worked for several years at The Times of India, last serving as a senior assistant editor on the editorial page. He has wide-ranging interests from politics to books to sport. He is the author of the forthcoming Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India (Penguin) and Articles of Faith: Religion, Secularism and the Indian Supreme Court (OUP).

Omita Goyal is presently Chief Editor of the IIC Quarterly, the Journal of the India International Centre. She started her career in the voluntary sector with the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi. Shortly thereafter she moved into academic publishing where she has spent over 27 years. She worked at SAGE Publications India Pvt Limited for 20 years, leaving as General Manager. Omita took time off to work as a freelance editor for SAGE and other institutions such as The World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP, Voluntary Health Association of India, Centre for Women's Development Studies, WHO, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague and TERI

Table of contents

Introduction: The Landscape of Sport in South Asia

DEVELOPMENT OF CRICKET
1. The Mercurials: The Nature of Pakistani Cricket
2. Cricket in Bangladesh
3. The Journey of Indian Women's Cricket from the 1970s
4. Indian Premier League: The Great Indian Story

NATIONALISM, COMMUNALISM, RACE, CLASS and gender

5. Innocence and Indian Cricket
6. Cricket in Abstemious Times
7. Sports, Radio and Memory: Looking Back at the 1970s
8. When Politics Ran Riot at Eden Gardens
9. 'Indians Make us Angry!': Australian Perceptions of Touring Indian Cricket Teams, 1947-2017
10. India's Sporting Frontier: Race, Integration and Discontent in the North-east
11. Reinforcing Difference: The History of Women's Involvement in Physical Activity in India
12. Focus Sport

ARTICLES BEYOND CRICKET

13. The Decline of Hockey in Pakistan
14. A Story of Two Different Worlds: Indian Hockey's Glory Run and the Unending Struggle
15. The Future of Indian Football
16. Football in Post-Independence Bangladesh
17. India's Shuttle Story: Breaking through Barriers to Take Flight
18. A Well-kept Secret: The History of Rugby in Sri Lanka

ANCIENT PURSUITS AND MODERNITY
19. The Great Gama and his Legacy
20. Wrestling with the History of Yoga as Sport in Modern India
21. Bodybuilding in India: Bollywood Bodies and Middle-class Lifestyles
22. Racing on Water: A Short History of Vallam Kali in Kerala

SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
23. Guru Dutt Sondhi: Indian IOC Member and Visionary of Asian Integration through Sport
24. See You in Court: The Legal Challenge Against India's Sports Bosses

SPORT IN FILM AND LITERATURE
25. Sport in Indian Film
26. 'I Won't Let You Down'