Cricket, Public Culture, and Mediated Identities in Calcutta, 1934-1999
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Research Collection Doctoral Thesis Cricket, Public Cultures, and Mediated Identities in Calcutta, 1934-1999 Author(s): Naha, Souvik Publication Date: 2016 Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000000131 Rights / License: In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH Library DISS. ETH NO. 24103 Cricket, Public Culture, and Mediated Identities in Calcutta, 1934-1999 A thesis submitted to attain the degree of DOCTOR OF SCIENCE ETH ZURICH (Dr. sc. ETH Zurich) presented by SOUVIK NAHA M.Phil., Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Born April 4, 1987 Citizen of India accepted on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Harald Fischer-Tiné Prof. Dr. Christian Koller Prof. Dr. Projit Bihari Mukharji 2016 Abstract This thesis explores a network of mediated relationships, constituted by the mass media, readers, and spectators, to uncover various strands of the public’s mobilisation as cricket consumers in Calcutta from 1934 to 1999. It argues that mediatisation and mediation of cricket have played more significant a part in the circulation of cricket than historians have accorded to it. It studies the role of literature, news reports and radio broadcasts, which have transmitted cricket for a long period, as agents of producing a history of the sporting public. The framework of culture in this thesis is formulated on media texts which, far from being confined to objective treatment of cricket, evoked canons, provided the sport with a sense of tradition, and determined the protocols of its appropriation. The chapters argue that texts constructed the sport as an emotional and aspirational institution by asking rhetorical questions and producing knowledge for consumption by its followers. Although editorials, letters and articles on stadium riots, misogyny of spectatorship, dismal performances and scandals routinely expressed anti-cricket sentiments, a comprehensive analysis of every strand of opinion is necessary for understanding the making of the cricketing public. The thesis does not examine epistemological issues of the reading of texts in detail but emphasises the importance of mediation in the making of embedded audience and communities. It comprises six chapters which inspect the observations of cricket as a foreign, imperial, and English game; the construction of a public culture around cricket by promotion of a sense of place and people; the involvement of politicians as spectators and the political implication of team selection; the specificities of the culture-politics nexus in the sport press; the representation of gendered spectatorship; and the dialectical interplay of the local and the global around cricket. From this premise it claims to add a new dimension to the existing historiography of sport by integrating the histories of mediation, circulation and consumption. Resume Cette thèse cherche à explorer les relations entre les médias, les lecteurs et les spectateurs, pour comprendre les différentes manières de consommer le cricket à Calcutta entre 1934 et 1999. Cette recherche se base sur l’idée que la médiatisation du cricket constitue une clé essentielle pour en appréhender sa circulation. De fait, si le rôle de la télévision est mieux connu, c’est un média relativement récent à l’échelle de l’histoire du cricket. Or, la littérature, les journaux écrits ou les émissions de radio ont aussi joué un rôle clé dans la diffusion du jeu. De fait, le contexte culturel de cette thèse est appréhendé dans le cadre des textes médiatiques eux-mêmes, lesquels permettent de comprendre bien plus que le jeu, notamment les traditions impliquées ou les conditions de son appropriation. Si les éditoriaux, les lettres ou les articles consultés construisent ce sport comme une institution, les rapports sur les violences dans les stades, la misogynie des spectateurs, les facettes plus « sombres » ou les scandales témoignent aussi de sentiments négatifs à l’encontre du cricket. Sur le plan méthodologique, cette thèse ne prend pas en considération les aspects plus épistémologiques de l’utilisation des textes médiatiques, mais elle reconnaît l’importance de la médiatisation dans la création d’audience et de communauté autour d’un sport. Elle se compose de six chapitres qui considèrent successivement le cricket comme une activité étrangère, impériale et britannique, la construction d’une culture autour du cricket par la promotion d’un sens commun à la fois entre individu et dans un espace déterminé, l’implication des hommes politiques comme spectateurs et dans le cadre de la construction des équipes, les spécificités de la culture du jeu dans la presse, les représentations de « genre » dans les groupes de spectateurs et enfin la dialectique entre local et global qui se joue autour du cricket. Dès lors, elle ambitionne d’entamer un renouveau de l’historiographie de ce sport, notamment en ce qui concerne la médiatisation, la circulation et les formes de consommations du jeu considéré comme un spectacle. Contents Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations iii Introduction 1 1 Occupying the crease: debates over the imperial game 26 2 The right length: mediated spectatorship and collective history 59 3 Two-paced: politicians, cricketers, and conspiracies 96 4 Standing up: press doctrines of stadium violence 135 5 Miss-field: female spectators, authenticity, and legitimacy 169 6 Outside edge: the home and the world 203 Conclusion 228 Appendix Run up: cricket on the radio 237 Bibliography 246 i Acknowledgments I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Harald Fischer-Tiné for his guidance and support towards my research. My co-supervisor Christian Koller has been very generous and his suggestions immensely helped in structuring the thesis. Some of the ideas presented in this thesis materialized during my MPhil research, for which I am ever indebted to my supervisors, Radhika Singha and M.S.S. Pandian. My teachers at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and Presidency College deserve special mention for the good will tutoring. I am grateful to the Swiss Government for funding my doctoral research through its Excellence Scholarship scheme, and to Sandra Zweifel for taking care of countless administrative tangles. Librarians and archivists in ETH Zurich Library and the Zentralbibliothek Zurich; the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford; the British Library and the Marylebone Cricket Club Library in London; the National Library, the Chaitanya Library, and the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Library in Calcutta; and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi tremendously helped to access resources. Much appreciation for the academic audience at various conferences in Barcelona, Bochum, Calcutta, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Leicester, Oxford, Paris and Zurich for their useful comments. Conversations with Gopal Bose and Gautam Bhattacharyya greatly helped. Thanks to Aniket, Animeshda, Ankit, Aparup, Arindam, Ashisda, Bernhard, Grégory, Isha, Milindada, Philippe, Sarbajit, Soumik, Subhransuda, Swapnanil, Yury and friends in Calcutta, Gothenburg, Lausanne, New Delhi, Oxford and Zurich who kept me going. Boria Majumdar ceaselessly motivated and helped in many ways. Kausik Bandyopadhyay has been ever affectionate and encouraging. Anirban Bandyopadhyay never left my side. Avipshu Halder batted along. I will miss Mamma, Chhotodadu, Soumyenkaku, Chhotomamadadu, and Lebu, forever. Words cannot adequately acknowledge what Ma and Baba did to ensure I stayed on course; they lived for me to write this thesis. I am much obliged to my relatives and my father’s colleagues, who are too numerous to individually thank, for overwhelmingly supporting us during my absence. The unconditional support of Kaku and Kakima kept the wheels rolling. Chintu has been an incredible accomplice, and KK breathed life into my array of sojourns. Finally, thank you Manikarnika for partnering me in every leap, step, and stumble, and making life happen to us. ii Abbreviations ABP Anandabazar Patrika AmBP Amrita Bazar Patrika BCCI Board of Control for Cricket in India BJP Bharatiya Janata Party CAB Cricket Association of Bengal CPI (M) Communist Party of India (Marxist) DB Dainik Basumati DM Daily Mirror ECB England and Wales Cricket Board HT Hindustan Times ICC International Cricket Council IWI The Illustrated Weekly of India KA Khelar Asar MCC Marylebone Cricket Club MLA Member of Legislative Assembly MP Member of Parliament ODI One Day International SKA Sharadiya Khelar Asar TG The Guardian TOI The Times of India TS The Statesman TT The Telegraph iii Introduction ‘Is cricket a sport or a pastime?’, asked an advertisement of the Central Tea Board in 1951.1 The copywriter certainly knew his cricket; it is hard to find a pithier one line summary of cricket’s chequered public history in India. A sport is by definition a structured, goal-oriented, competitive activity, whereas a pastime is freewheeling indulgence, presumably devoid of conflict, politics, and struggle.2 It would be sheer naiveté to think of cricket in India as either a pastime or a sport, on account of the multiple meanings the sport has gone on gathering since its introduction in 1721 by British sailors. Over the next three centuries or so, cricket in India has built up a nation- wide spread and mobilized an immensely large and diverse popular following, finally emerging as a network of meaning, crisscrossing the dynamics and domains of colonialism, nationalism, communalism, race, caste, economy and