Sport in British India

{{See also|History of sport in the United Kingdom#British Empire}}File:Calcuttarugby.jpg being played by Europeans in Calcutta (now Kolkata).{{Cite web |last1=Love |first1=Adam |last2=Dzikus |first2=Lars |date=2020-02-26 |title=How India came to love cricket, favored sport of its colonial British rulers |url=https://theconversation.com/how-india-came-to-love-cricket-favored-sport-of-its-colonial-british-rulers-132302 |access-date=2024-10-04 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}}]]

In 1721, prior to the British East India Company's rise, its mariners played cricket at Khambhat (then Cambay) in western India, the earliest known reference to cricket in the Indian subcontinent.{{cite book |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |author-link=Ramachandra Guha |title=A Corner of a Foreign Field – An Indian History of a British Sport |publisher=Picador |year=2001 |page=3}}

During the colonial era, soldiers would play British sports as a way of maintaining fitness, since the mortality rate for foreigners in India was high at the time, as well as to maintain a sense of Britishness; in the words of an anonymous writer, playing English sports was a way to "defend themselves from the magic of the land".{{Cite book |last=Sen |first=Ronojoy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O5mACgAAQBAJ |title=Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India |date=27 October 2015 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-53993-7 |language=en}} In the early days, the British began clubs, which only whites could join. These clubs were a place where men could gather together to drink, socialize, and play sports. The games played in the clubs included cricket, badminton, rugby, golf, and rowing.{{Cite web |last=Gilmour |first=David |date=2018-09-20 |title=Class, Race and the Colonial Clubs of India |url=https://openthemagazine.com/essay/class-race-and-the-colonial-clubs-of-india/ |access-date=2025-03-31 |website=Open The Magazine |language=en}}

A popular horseback activity was pig-sticking.{{Cite book |last=MacKenzie |first=John MacDonald |url=https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=M4eZEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA105 |title=A Cultural History of the British Empire |date=2022-01-01 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-26078-6 |language=en}}

The interaction between local beliefs and Western sporting practices sometimes manifested itself in anti-sport ways; for example, the initial introduction of football at one Srinagar school, designed to produce physical fitness among the children, had to take place by force because the schoolboys saw contact with the leather ball as defiling them,{{Cite book |last=Mills |first=James H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_boPBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA7 |title=Subaltern Sports: Politics and Sport in South Asia |date=2005-05-15 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-84331-167-6 |language=en}} and similar sentiments of avoiding defilement led to Brahmins preferring cricket because it didn't involve physical contact with lower castes.{{Cite book |last1=Mills |first1=James H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utL2wVTFfmQC&pg=PA50 |title=Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-colonial India |last2=Sen |first2=Satadru |date=2004 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-84331-033-4 |language=en}} An American observer later commented that the British physical education regime also appeared to be meant to produce a "race of subservient people" through its emphasis on elements such as military drills.{{Cite web |title=ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD - ProQuest |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/7feab2d9672ffb5cc783f685763ccfc8/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2030480 |access-date=2025-01-25 |website=www.proquest.com |language=en}}

One of the world's earliest football clubs, the Mohun Bagan was established in 1889. The club was formed when The Football Association of England began making standard rules for football before FIFA, the international governing body of football was founded.

File:Polo in india card.jpg

Modern polo originated in British India in the 19th century{{efn|Although polo had been played since the medieval period, the modern version was conceptualized in British India.}} in Manipur, as a standardisation of a game known locally as Sagol Kangjei, Kanjai-bazee, or Pulu. The name polo is the anglicized version of the lattermost term. The first polo club was established in Silchar, Assam, in 1833. The oldest polo club still in existence is the Calcutta Polo Club, which was established in 1862.{{Cite web |title=History of Polo |url=http://www.hpa-polo.co.uk/about/history_polo.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070818130245/http://www.hpa-polo.co.uk/about/history_polo.asp |archive-date=18 August 2007 |access-date=17 August 2019 |website=Hurlingham Polo Association}}{{Cite web |title=History of Polo in Imphal |url=http://www.indianpolo.com/manipurpolo/history.asp |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190211023839/http://www.indianpolo.com/manipurpolo/history.asp |archive-date=11 February 2019 |access-date=17 August 2019 |website=Indianpolo.com}}{{Cite news |last=Bahl |first=Ananya |date=5 January 2019 |title=Two millennia after the first Manipuri polo match, a women's team is ushering in a quiet revolution |url=https://www.thehindu.com/society/polos-forgotten-matriarchs/article25919688.ece |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200111105136/https://www.thehindu.com/society/polos-forgotten-matriarchs/article25919688.ece |archive-date=11 January 2020 |access-date=17 August 2019 |work=The Hindu}}

Snooker originated in the late 19th century among British Army officers stationed in India.{{Cite web |title=Origins of Snooker |url=https://www.snookerheritage.co.uk/normans-articles/days-of-old/origins-of-snooker/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824093600/https://www.snookerheritage.co.uk/normans-articles/days-of-old/origins-of-snooker/ |archive-date=24 August 2019 |access-date=24 August 2019 |website=Billiard and Snooker Heritage Collection}} In the mid-19th century, badminton also grew among officers stationed in Poona (now Pune).{{Cite news |last=Nag |first=Utathya |title=History of badminton in India: A starring role in a meteoric rise |url=https://www.olympics.com/en/news/indian-badminton-history-rules-players-sport-game |work=Olympics}} Some British board games, such as Snakes and Ladders and Ludo, were inspired by Indian board games.{{Cite news |date=2012-06-10 |title=Reviving traditional games of India |url=https://www.thehindu.com/features/downtown/reviving-traditional-games-of-india/article3508624.ece |access-date=2023-01-21 |work=The Hindu |language=en-IN |issn=0971-751X}}

{{See also|Indian physical culture#Colonial era}}

File:Rural Sports in India, 1900s.jpg

The British sought to impose their standards of physical discipline onto Indians, while discouraging traditional Indian games and negatively depicting Indian physiques.{{Cite book |last=Mills |first=James H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9OzzyZBZO-IC&pg=PA39 |title=Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-Colonial India |date=2004 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-84331-365-6 |language=en}} They disarmed and demilitarized Indian society throughout the 19th century.{{Cite journal |last=O'Hanlon |first=Rosalind |date=2007-01-01 |title=Military Sports and the History of the Martial Body in India |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jesh/50/4/article-p490_5.xml |journal=Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient |language=en |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=490–523 |doi=10.1163/156852007783245133 |issn=1568-5209|url-access=subscription }}{{cite book |last1=Kidambi |first1=Prashant |title=The Cambridge Companion to Cricket |date=2011 |isbn=978-0-521-76129-1 |pages=187–202 |chapter=Hero, celebrity and icon: Sachin Tendulkar and Indian public culture |doi=10.1017/CCOL9780521761291.015}}

Some self-funded sports clubs, such as the akharas, vyayamshalas, and kreeda mandals promoted and organized competitions at various levels for traditional games during this time.[https://www.ssf.or.jp/dotank/tafisa-japan2019/jp/program/General_presentation_correction_12nov2019.pdf Strengthen ‘Sport for All Movement’ Through Traditional Sports & Games] https://www.ssf.or.jp/ Suresh Deshpande, Sayyad M. Quadri Traditional games and practices which were considered to embody masculine values, such as kabaddi and kushti, were promoted as a way to resist British accusations of effeminacy;{{Cite book |last1=Mills |first1=James H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utL2wVTFfmQC&pg=PR46 |title=Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-colonial India |last2=Sen |first2=Satadru |date=2004 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-84331-033-4 |language=en}} Sikhs for example used their martial history as a way to distinguish themselves.{{Cite journal |last=Brunner |first=Michael Philipp |date=2018-01-02 |title=Manly Sikhs and Loyal Citizens: Physical Education and Sport in Khalsa College, Amritsar, 1914–47 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00856401.2018.1389235 |journal=South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies |language=en |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=33–50 |doi=10.1080/00856401.2018.1389235 |issn=0085-6401 |s2cid=149127674|url-access=subscription }}

Some traditional games, such as kho-kho, were also exported to places like the Caribbean, Africa, and other parts of Asia where indentured Indian servants had been taken by the British.{{Cite journal |last=Mahabir |first=Dr Kumar |title=Disappearing Ancient Games In The Caribbean |url=https://www.academia.edu/20217968 |journal=Academia}}[https://www.kzndsr.gov.za/images/documents/strategic-documents/Annual_Report_2007-2008_10.pdf Department of Sport and Recreation - Annual Report 2007-2008] https://www.kzndsr.gov.za/{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2023-10-04 |title=Asian Games: Indian connect in Malaysia's men's kabaddi team |url=https://www.newsonradar.com/41717/asian-games-indian-connect-in-malaysias-mens-kabaddi-team/ |access-date=2023-10-05 |website=News On Radar |language=en-US}}

{{Excerpt|Sport in Maharashtra#Indigenous sports under British rule}}

India was under direct British colonial rule from 1858 to 1947, and showed constant political, social, and cultural resistance throughout history. Though the British Raj had attained direct control over the subcontinent, there was a perspective that the Native Indians were able to cultivate their own form of national empowerment and a sense of implicit sovereignty through means of sport.

File:1876 1877 1878 1879 Tiger hunting sport in British India, poaching for trophy skin and head.jpg

The British used sport as another conduit of transferring British socio-political ideas, culture, and beliefs into the fabric of India's system. As Australian author Brian Stoddart writes in his article on British sports and cultural imperialism, “Colonial governors were especially important in emphasizing cricket as a ritual demonstration of British behavior, standards, and moral codes in both public and private.”Brain, Stoddart. Sport, Cultural Imperialism, and Colonial Response in the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1988. Despite many Indians being a part of white-dominated sports teams, there was an inevitably constant re-emphasis of the superior and inferior race ideology within the teams. During this era, there was a prevailing mindset amongst the British colonizers, being the fact that they viewed the Indians through a lens of superiority, which was reflected through socio-political events, specifically through sports. The British believed that the Indians were the inferior and effeminate race, taking the opportunity of sport as a mission to mold, reshape and therefore improve the Native race into a stronger, more physically capable race.Subhadipa, Dutta. The Limits of the History of Western Sport in Colonial India. Barasat: Cambridge University Press, 31 May 2023.

{{See also|Nationalism and sport#India|label 1=Indian nationalism and sport}}File:Rama Murti Naidu 1930.png lifting an elephant; his strongman efforts were meant to counter British accusations of Indian effeteness{{Cite web |date=2017-02-26 |title=A Fine Specimen |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/a-fine-specimen-4542126/ |access-date=2024-08-11 |website=The Indian Express |language=en}}]]Unsurprisingly, the native Indians were not keen on giving up their traditions to follow their colonizers, as author Subhadipa Dutta emphasizes through the quote of “the colonized were not always fascinated to ‘mimic’ the manly gestures and leisure pursuits of their white masters.” To illustrate this, in his book, Ramachandra Guha has delved deep into the political aspect of religion, race and caste within sports teams, especially cricket. Guha successfully highlights the significance of the socio-cultural factors that are entwined in cricket, and how it encouraged the indigenization of the sport.Ramachandra Guha, A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport (Gurgaon, 2014). Cricket came to be seen as a unifying way to demonstrate resistance and success against the colonisers and helped in reducing various forms of societal discrimination,{{Cite web |date=2023-08-18 |title=Caste In Sports: Are Dalits Yet To Reach The Top? |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/sports/caste-in-sports-are-dalits-yet-to-reach-the-top--news-311551 |access-date=2024-05-13 |website=Outlook India |language=en}}{{Cite news |title=How caste, community and religion helped the development of Cricket Culture in India |url=https://www.sportskeeda.com/cricket/how-caste-community-religion-helped-development-cricket-culture-india |work=Sportskeeda}} with tours to the United Kingdom starting in 1911 displaying aspects of Indian progress and international diplomacy.{{Cite journal |last=Kidambi |first=Prashant |date=2013-01-01 |title=Sport and the Imperial Bond: The 1911 'All-India' Cricket Tour of Great Britain |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/hjd/8/3-4/article-p261_5.xml |journal=The Hague Journal of Diplomacy |language=en |volume=8 |issue=3–4 |pages=261–285 |doi=10.1163/1871191X-12341256 |issn=1871-1901|url-access=subscription }} The Indian Social Reformer argued in 1906, after an Indian victory over a European side in the Bombay Presidency powered by chamar (low-caste) cricketers, who earlier had not been allowed to even dine with their teammates, that the occasion was "a landmark in the nation’s emancipation from the old disuniting and denationalizing customs."{{Cite journal |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |date=1998 |title=Cricket and Politics in Colonial India |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/651075 |journal=Past & Present |issue=161 |pages=155–190 |issn=0031-2746}}

Meanwhile, football came to be seen as an equalising game that cut across class lines and united the global anti-imperialist struggle in left-wing regions such as Kerala and West Bengal.{{Cite web |last=Ninan |first=Susan |date=2022-12-05 |title=Making Sense of Soccer Fever in India |url=https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/making-sense-of-soccer-fever-in-india/ |access-date=2024-07-30 |website=New Lines Magazine |language=en}} British accusations of Indian effeminacy, which enabled them to demonstrate superiority and powered their programs to reshape local practices, were resisted in a variety of ways, with success against British teams seen as contributing to national revival.{{Cite book |last1=Mills |first1=James H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utL2wVTFfmQC&pg=PA50 |title=Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-colonial India |last2=Sen |first2=Satadru |date=2004 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-84331-033-4 |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last1=Majumdar |first1=Boria |last2=Brown |first2=Sean |date=2007 |title=Why baseball, why cricket? differing nationalisms, differing challenges |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09523360601045732 |journal=The International Journal of the History of Sport |language=en |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=150 |doi=10.1080/09523360601045732 |issn=0952-3367|url-access=subscription }}

Consequently, a strong desire stemming from frustration arose from the Indians; a desire to essentially reclaim their country that has been controlled by Europeans. The theory that Indians resisted British colonialism through sports to regain power over their country has been evident in various scholarly articles, books, and monographs. Specifically, in the 1963 memoir Beyond a Boundary, Trinidadian Marxist intellectual C. L. R. James compares Indians on the field to Greek drama plays: “selected individuals played representative roles which were charged with social significance.”C. L. R. James, Beyond a Boundary. (Trinidad: Hutchinson, 1963). The author explains that there is irony between the English origins of the sport and the means of which Indians use it as a way to express their national identity – an identity which they feel was stolen from them as a result of the British Raj rule. This is further evident through the quote “... Social and political passions denied normal outlets, expressed themselves so fiercely in cricket precisely because they were games.”

Furthermore, emphasizing and delving deep into its meanings, the memoir offers crucial points regarding the concept of native Indians expressing sovereignty within the games that they play. The memoir leads the reader to speculate beyond the meaning of cricket being a game for pleasure to view Englishness as an inherent and leading force within the actual sport. Through the lens of James’ memoir, the sport evolves into a nuance where Englishness intersects with West Indian identity formation, both in and beyond the field.Manthia, Diawara. Englishness and Blackness: Cricket as Discourse on Colonialism. Callaloo: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Indians used sports as a gateway or an opportunity to regain national pride and identity, ultimately fighting against the British narrative. The colonized therefore developed their own physical strength and power while confronting and rejecting the components of imperial ideology. They developed proud self-image throughout time as a significant step for achieving freedom and establishing popular sovereignty, which underscores the revolutionary power of resistance amongst Indians against their British colonizers through harvesting strength and national self-determination and identity.

{{See also|Muscular Christianity#Asia|Muscular Hinduism}}

{{See also|Parsis cricket team}}Sport sometimes factored into the promotion of communal violence, as was the case with football clubs in Calcutta.{{Cite journal |last=Dimeo |first=Paul |date=2003-07-01 |title=`With Political Pakistan in the Offing...': Football and Communal Politics in South Asia, 1887-1947 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022009403038003003 |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |language=EN |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=377–394 |doi=10.1177/0022009403038003003 |issn=0022-0094|url-access=subscription }}

{{See also|India at the Olympics#History|India at the Commonwealth Games#History}}File:Indian-Hockey-Team-Berlin-1936.jpg, later going on to defeat Germany 8–1 in the final]]Dorabji Tata, with the support of Dr. A.G. Noehren, the then-director of YMCA, established the Indian Olympic Association in 1927.{{cite web |title=History |url=https://olympic.ind.in/ioa-history |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727074115/https://olympic.ind.in/ioa-history |archive-date=27 July 2019 |access-date=24 August 2019 |website=Indian Olympic Association}}

British India competed at six Olympic Games, winning medals in field hockey.{{Efn|Due to misinformation many believes that hockey is national sport/game of India, but it is wrong. There is no national sport/game of India. Sports ministry of India told in an answer to RTI question in 2020, that there is no official national game of India.[https://olympics.com/en/featured-news/india-national-game-sport&ved=2ahUKEwjig9q7lff6AhWAcGwGHVWJD5wQFnoECFIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw34gR9QQqhRrmulRaLgmhTz India National game] {{dead link|date=March 2023}}{{Cite web|url=https://byjusexamprep.com/current-affairs/national-game-of-india_amp&ved=2ahUKEwjig9q7lff6AhWAcGwGHVWJD5wQFnoECA0QBQ&usg=AOvVaw11tqG_nl5ZrumiEElaJRsk|title=National game of India}}{{Dead link|date=December 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}}}

{{Main|YMCA in India}}{{See also|Baseball in India#History|Basketball in India#History}}

File:An Airbase Baseball Game (BOND 0296).jpg]]

The YMCA played a role in bringing Western physical culture and ideas around Muscular Christianity, while also shaping the development of modern yoga. Harry Crowe Buck was one of the major proponents at the time.{{cite journal |last1=Fischer-Tiné |first1=Harald |date=March 2019 |title=Fitness for Modernity? The YMCA and physical-education schemes in late-colonial South Asia (circa 1900–40) |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=512–559 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X17000300}}{{Cite thesis |last=Ramachandran |first=Aishwarya |title=Counterflows of knowledge: the transnational circulation of physical culture practices between India and the West during the early 20th century |date=2019 |publisher=University of British Columbia |url=https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0379712}}{{cite book |last1=Watt |first1=Carey |title=Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia |date=2021 |isbn=978-0-429-43101-2 |pages=345–358 |chapter=Physical culture and the body in colonial India, c.1800–1947 |doi=10.4324/9780429431012-33}}

• Culture of British India
• History of sport in Myanmar

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British India

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