ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Boria MajumdarSubscribe to Boria Majumdar

The Dark Underbelly of Stardom

In its obsession for staying politically correct, is the Board of Control for Cricket in India overlooking the opportunities that issues like those that emerged from the Hardik Pandya controversy provide for creating socially conscious cricketing celebrities?

Cricket as Everyday Life

Cricket in 21st century India provides a space where all differences are overcome. The assertion of Indian identity, expression of cultural nationalism or feeling of emotional commonality - these are no longer confined to the stadium or post-match activities. Rather, they have become synonymous with a new games ethic eloquently exemplified through the redefined everyday culture of cricket hardly discernible in European nations.

Communalism to Commercialism

Through a study of the Bombay Pentangular tournament, this essay attempts to retrieve the wider context within which the dynamics of the game of cricket evolved and operated in the subcontinent. Much more than clashes between imperialism and nationalism, between communalism and secularism, the evolution of the game has to be understood in terms of the practices of everyday life in Indian society of the time. The emergence of salaried middle class professionals with an investment in leisure, newly structured hours of work with increased leisure opportunities for workers and the growth of a commercial culture in colonial India shaped the fortunes of our de facto national sport.

The Vernacular in Sports History

A study of sports history is crucial not only to understanding the evolving sporting heritage of a nation, but to appreciate seemingly unrelated political processes such as nationalism, colonial culture, etc. Moreover, vernacular sources present a fundamentally different understanding of history as this paper demonstrates in its study of Bengali tracts on sport which sheds light on imperialist-nationalist politics in late colonial Bengal.

Politics of Leisure in Colonial India

It is possible to read in 'Lagaan' not only evidence of Indian resistance to British imperialism but in the filmic and imaginative mode, a commentary on the evolution and development of cricket in colonial India and an attempt to recover, in fiction, some of the lost history of the game.

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