Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Cricket, syndicated Englishness, and postcoloniality; 2. Narratives of cricket and collective history; 3. The making of a city of cricket; 4. Politicians, patronage, and centre-state relations; 5. Spectators, gender, and public space; 6. The moral economy of violent 'gentlemen'; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
This book expands our historical understanding of postcolonial India by examining how cricket has shaped Indian society and politics.
Souvik Naha is senior lecturer in imperial and post-colonial history at the University of Glasgow. Prior to joining Glasgow, he held the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship at Durham University. He has published extensively in colonial and postcolonial history and has co-edited several journal special issues including FIFA World Cup and Beyond: Sport, Culture, Media and Governance (2017), Global and Transnational Sport: Ambiguous Borders, Connected Domains (2017), Ethical Concerns in Sport Governance (2018), Moments, Metaphors, Memories: Defining Events in the History of Soccer (2019), and Cricket in the 21st Century (2021).
'Imaginative, well-researched, and well-argued, Naha's book makes
an original contribution to the burgeoning field of sports history
in South Asia and to cultural criticism in general. His deliberate
eschewal of methodological nationalism and his skillful exploration
of the “public culture” produced in Calcutta around the game of
cricket - by media reports, sports commentaries, literary writings,
gendered spectatorship, and policing and political practices -
offer insights that will stay with all students of postcolonial
histories. A remarkable achievement.' Dipesh Chakrabarty, The
University of Chicago, Illinois
'This fascinating cultural history of cricket in post-colonial
Calcutta breaks new ground both in the depth of its research and in
the subtlety of its analysis. Souvik Naha uses an array of literary
and periodical sources (many in Bengali) to portray a vivid picture
of the dimensions of spectatorship, the role of the media, the
influence of politics, and the divisions of gender and of class.
This fine book shall garner a wide readership within and beyond the
academy.' Ramachandra Guha, Author of A Corner of a Foreign Field
and The Commonwealth of Cricket
'Souvik Naha's insightful, carefully researched and elegantly
written monograph on the public perceptions of cricket in
postcolonial Calcutta is a timely and highly welcome addition to
both the social and cultural history of modern South Asia as well
as to the global history of sport.' Harald Fischer-Tiné, ETH Zurich
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