A Social History of Indian Football: Striving to Score (Sport in the Global Society) 0415348358, 9780415348355

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Contents
Introduction
1 From Recreation to Competition: Early History of Indian Football
2 1911: A Revisionist Perspective
3 Race, Nation and Performance: Footballing Nationalism in Colonial India
4 Contesting Neighbours: The Years of Turmoil
5 Brothers Turn Rivals: Communal Conflict in Indian Football
6 Photo Essay: A century old journey
7 Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan: Subregionalism, Club Rivalry and Fan Culture in Indian Football
8 Regionalism and Club Domination: Growth of Rival Centres of Footballing Excellence
9 A Sporting Colony of Growing Global Capital: Globalization and Indian Soccer
10 The Gendered Kick: Women's Soccer in Twentieth Century India
11 Looking Beyond the Sleeping Giant Syndrome: Indian Football at Crossroads
Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

A Social History of Indian Football

Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandyopadhyay

A Social History of Indian Football Striving to Score

Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandyopadhyay an informa business

ISBN 978-0-415-34835-5 www.routledge.com

,!7IA4B5-deidff!

Sport in the Global Society

A Social History of Indian Football Striving to Score Soccer 10.1080/ FSAS_A_Prelims.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622006 0000002006 -3 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Ltd (online)

A Social History of Indian Football, Striving to Score covers the period 1850-2004. It considers soccer as a derivative sport, creatively and imaginatively adapted to suit modern Indian sociocultural needs – designed to fulfil political imperatives and satisfy economic aspirations. The book is concerned with the appropriation, assimilation and subversion of sporting ideals in colonial and post-colonial India. The book seeks to assess the role of soccer in colonial Indian life, to delineate the inter-relationship between those who patronised, promoted, played and viewed the game, to analyse the impact of the colonial context on the games evolution and development and sheds light on the diverse nature of trysts with the sport across the country. Throughout this book, soccer is the lens that illuminates India’s colonial and post-colonial encounter. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Soccer and Society. Boria Majumdar, a Rhodes scholar, is currently research fellow at Latrobe University in Melbourne. Executive Academic Editor of the journals Soccer and Society and Sport in Society, he is also General Editor of the Sport in the Global Society series along with Prof. J. A. Manga Author of the classic Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom-A social history of Indian Cricket, he has written extensively on sports and culture for publications across the world. Kausik Bandyopadhyay, an Academic Editor of Soccer and Society, teaches Modern Indian History and the History of Sport at the Department of History, North Bengal University, India.

Sport in the Global Society General Editors: J. A. Mangan and Boria Majumdar

A Social History of Indian Football Striving to Score

Sport in the global society General Editors: J. A. Mangan and Boria Majumdar

The interest in sports studies around the world is growing and will continue to do so. This unique series combines aspects of the expanding study of sport in the global society, providing comprehensiveness and comparison under one editorial umbrella. It is particularly timely, with studies in the aesthetic elements of sport proliferating in institutions of higher education. Eric Hobsbawm once called sport one of the most significant practices of the late nineteenth century. Its significance was even more marked in the late twentieth century and will continue to grow in importance into the new millennium as the world develops into a ‘global village’ sharing the English language, technology and sport.

Other Titles in the Series Disreputable Pleasures Less Virtuous Victorians at Play Edited by Mike Huggins and J.A. Mangan Italian Fascism and the Female Body Sport, Submissive Women and Strong Mothers Gigliola Gori Rugby’s Great Split Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football Tony Collins

Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players A Sociological Study of the Development of Rugby Football Second Edition Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard Capoeira The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art Matthias Röhrig Assunção British Football and Social Exclusion Edited by Stephen Wagg

Terrace Heroes The Life and Times of the 1930s Professional Footballer Graham Kelly

The First Black Footballer Arthur Wharton 1865–1930: An Absence of Memory Phil Vasili

Soccer and Disaster International Perspectives Paul Darby, Martin Johnes and Gavin Mellor

Sports, Civil Liberties and Human Rights David McArdle and Richard Giulianotti

A Social History of Indian Football Striving to Score Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandyopadhyay

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2006 Taylor and Francis Group Ltd

Typeset in Minion by Genesis Typesetting Ltd, Rochester, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd., Chippenham, Wilts All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0-415-34835-8 ISBN13: 978-0-415-34835-5

For Mamoni and Rochona Boria & For Baba, Maa Kausik

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Soccer 10.1080/ FSAS_A_ackno.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622006 0000002006 /3 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Ltd (online)

Thanks to all who have enriched Indian Football and who have made it the passion it is. Without these architects – players, administrators, support staff, coaches, sportsreporters, and above all the fans, this history could never be conceived leave alone written. Many have helped us in our rather difficult investigative journey for sports literature in India is still a weak corpus in comparison to its Western counterparts. Special thanks must be accorded to the IFA and its Secretary Subrata Dutta for giving us unlimited access to its records. The AIFF and its President Priya Ranjan Das Munshi have also helped us by giving us at every step the information we needed. P.K. Banerjee has had many informal conversations with us, discussions which have enriched us immensely. Our professors at the Department of History, University of Calcutta have read numerous earlier drafts. Our special thanks to Professors Bhaskar Chakrabarty and Arun Bandyopadhyay. Thanks are also due to colleagues at different other institutions where we have worked and especially to Prof. J.A. Mangan, Prof. Brian Stoddart and late Prof. Ranjit Roy. The feedback we received at various seminars presented at the department and elsewhere in the world helped clarify our concerns and have enriched the manuscript immeasurably. Mona Chowdhury deserves a special thank you for the fantastic photographs he placed at our disposal. Journalist friends Suman Chattopadhyay, having covered multiple world cups in his illustrious career, Gautam Bhattacharyya, Sports Editor of the Anandabazar Patrika and one of the finest writers in the vernacular, Rupayan Bhattacharyya, the most perceptive football writer in recent years, Rupak Saha-whose sports journalist avatar we miss within our midst, Debashish Dutta-whose interviews in the pages of Khela are strikingly illuminating – have been treasure troves of information. Staff at the British Library, Regenstein Library, Chicago, National Library, Kolkata, North Bengal University Central and Departmental Libraries, Darjeeling, Udayan Memorial Sports Library, Siliguri and the CAB Library, Kolkata have pampered our unreasonable requests. Thanks to all of them. Srinjoy (Tumpai) Bose and Nitu (Debabrata) Sarkar – actively involved in Mohun Bagan and East Bengal Club administration respectively – have been friends throughout. Novy Kapadia, one of contemporary India’s finest football writers, has helped us all along. Our discussions with him during his IFA Shield broadcasts for ESPN were especially helpful. Our friends at Kick-Off, Sabayasachi and Kausik, must be thanked for bringing to light information and photos, which have added value. Finally, the book would have been incomplete without the support we received from Sharmistha and Tania, partners forever.

FOREWORD

Whether sport has replaced religion as the ‘opiate’ of the people or as a stimulant to their passions must remain an open question. But few engagements have been more passionate than that of Bengali society with soccer, as the following pages clearly and delightfully illustrate. From the early twentieth-century, Bengalis—especially in Calcutta—made the game very much their own and pursued it with an enthusiasm previously reserved only for worship of the goddess, Durga. On leisure-days, the Maidan—Calcutta’s celebrated ‘park’—became covered with throngs of spectators and players alike celebrating the glories of ‘the game’. Soccer wove itself into the fabric of Calcutta social life and, over time, also reproduced many of its distinctive colours Betimes these clashed—and social divisions, created by differences of religion and ethnicity and exacerbated by experiences of migration, came to the fore. But betimes, they also blended to supply new and original tints and tones. Calcutta expressed its social history through ‘the game’; and ‘the game’ itself patterned part of that social history. But the Bengali love affair with soccer has also, and always, raised a range of intriguing questions. Some of these are provided by the general paradigms of colonialism and culture. Why should ‘colonial subjects’, demeaned on a daily basis by their white ‘masters’, have sought to imitate the latter’s life-styles and leisured-pursuits? But why, no less, should ‘the masters’ have allowed them and even encouraged them to do so? The answers supplied to these questions from both sides never quite met. For many of the British, sport was part of the civilizing mission: it expressed and upheld the values for which they stood; and inculcated virtues of ‘manliness’ and ‘fair play’ among ‘Orientals’, otherwise specifically characterised by effeminacy and deviousness. That ‘natives’ should take it up, visibly demonstrated the transformational power of British civilization—and that imperialism was ‘right’. However, viewed from the other side, flattering colonial rulers and validating their beliefs was never more than a small part of the issue. Rather, sport provided an arena (extremely rare in colonial contexts) in which ‘natives’ could confront and compete with their would-be ‘masters’ and challenge their claim to superiority, even on its own terms Beating the Englishman at his own ‘game’ provided a means to recover self-belief and restore a sense of dignity. However, the binaries of colonialism/nationalism provided only one of the parameters within which soccer in Bengal came to develop, and progressively a less important one. The social dynamics of the game took it off in other directions where the British, themselves, were frequently mere spectators or else, in the role they most loved, were brought in as referees: supposedly to act as unbiased judges, but (as in many other contexts of empire) actually to have their ignorance manipulated by interested claimants and appellants—‘fakers’, ‘divers’ and ‘whingers’ alike. Soccer was rapidly taken over and ‘indigenised’ in Bengal: its club-structures and competitions used to express identities and rivalries more meaningful in every-day life than any generated in relation to the pompous strangers, who chose to set themselves apart. As the following pages

make vividly clear, soccer wrapped itself around and was moulded by the many and diverse social movements and cleavages, which gave the region its own distinctive history. But why it should have been soccer, in particular, that played this role opens up another series of intriguing questions. Cricket was, more obviously, the imperial game and its success across the sub-continent more clearly marked. And, as recent research has shown, it was not that cricket was not also played in Bengal: while Bombay has usually been seen as the natal home of Indian cricket, Calcutta has claims to this honour no less strong. However, Bengal was virtually alone in picking up and popularising ‘the other’ game—and one, which in Indian circumstances, was never very likely. The strenuous nature of the sport, which invites vigorous physical contact, scarcely suits it to a blazing tropical climate and to peoples reduced (not least by the economics of colonialism) to a physical size well below international norms. There is something very unlikely about soccer in India and almost nowhere outside Bengal ever became seriously engaged with the game. So why Bengal? Several answers are essayed in the pages below. One, admittedly speculative, might draw attention to the significance of political culture. The only other region of India to take up soccer on any scale was Kerala, at the other end of the sub-continent. What Bengal and Kerala share, over the last half-century and uniquely, is an extremely strong tradition of Communist politics. Cricket is, by nature, an aristocratic and hierarchical game. It is also much more expensive to set up and play. Could it be that the popularity of soccer has something to do with its more plebeian character and openness to ‘the people’? Even a ‘proper’ ball is scarcely necessary to play it—anything that rolls will do—and children can play it anywhere, anytime. Did soccer’s character as a ‘people’s sport’ endear it to societies more influenced by ideologies of egalitarianism? However, that might be placing rather too much emphasis on the inherent egalitarianism of Bengal society—which elsewhere, and not least inside the Politburo of the West Bengal Communist Party of India (Marxist), is not entirely self-evident. Rather, perhaps, we need to go back to colonialism and the very particular nature of the challenge made to Bengali ‘manliness’ after the Indian Mutiny. It was, of course, specifically the Bengal army which mutinied in 1857 and, thereafter, Bengalis were virtually excluded from recruitment to the military, the core institution of the British Raj. They were replaced, particularly, by Punjabis who were said to be physically stronger and more hardy. This shift in patterns of exclusion and inclusion was justified by, and helped to harden, a ‘martial race’ ideology, which came increasingly to discriminate against the ‘Bengali Babu’ as the most physically enfeebled (and, by late nineteenth-century implication, morally degenerate) of all god’s creatures. Bengali nationalism, from its inception, was strongly characterised by the desire to challenge this absurd caricature ‘Terrorist’ attacks on post-Mutiny British authority

were extremely rare: given the imbalance in available military force, they had little chance of success. But Bengal was the major centre of ‘terrorist’ resistance, giving rise to local societies, among students and the like, which took the cultivation of physical strength and prowess as the key to achieving ‘freedom’. And what sport beyond soccer invited better opportunities to develop this strength and prowess and even, at least occasionally, deploy them in direct ‘combat’ with the enemy? But, as noted earlier, while this may help to explain the origins of soccer in Bengal, it does not account for its subsequent development—which came to leave the British trailing in the distance. Very soon, this became a game played between, and for, Bengalis themselves. However, given the tensions of their society, it may not be wholly irrelevant that expressing identities and passions in this form did give players the periodic opportunity ‘to kick the living daylights out of each other’. Sport, and especially soccer, has always been a surrogate means of expressing national, regional, tribal and ethnic rivalries. The tragedy in Bengal’s case is, perhaps, that this surrogacy only went so far in suppressing alternative, and even more violent, forms of conflict. Yet it was scarcely that other regions of India did not also possess social tensions and conflicts. While it may have been the distinctive regional flavour of colonialism in Bengal that drew it towards soccer, once the game was established and set on an indigenous course, it is not entirely clear why it should not have expanded more widely: certainly in late- and post-colonial contexts where (pace the United States) soccer has become the game of the world and national pride and status are heavily at stake in the ability to play it. What might the reputation of Brazilian society be, if it were not for soccer? In this context, India has come to stand apart from the rest of the world: absence of a ‘national’ soccer tradition one of the few remaining hall-marks of its exceptionability. The game continues to be played in Bengal: but even that is a mark of its own exceptionability within India. The closing chapters in this book look at soccer in the wider national and global contexts. Poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of definable ‘leisure-time’ come readily to mind as reasons for the failure of the game to develop—although they must surely apply also to countries in ‘soccer-mad’ Africa and even Brazil itself. Slightness of physical stature is perhaps another reason. The game, as played in Bengal even today, emphasises quickness of foot and brilliance of ball skills. But these can carry players only so far when they compete against others who stand many inches taller and weigh tens of pounds more—as will be attested by anyone who saw Bengali sides play against regular visiting teams from the old Soviet ‘bloc’ countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus far, in these days of global transfers, only one Indian born-and-raised player has ever made it to the professional soccer leagues in contemporary Britain, and he to a thirddivision club. But physical size may not be the only issue. Even in Britain (and among sturdy Punjabis), soccer has yet to attain the same appeal—and provide the same pathway to fame and fortune—for Asian immigrant communities as it has done for AfroCaribbean.

The answers may lie elsewhere. One of them, perhaps, in the problem of organising anything on a ‘national’ level in India: where regional jealousies and particular vested interests have a habit of getting in the way. As revealed below, one reason for the failure to develop a national soccer league was the reluctance of Bengal’s patrons to share their game with anybody else, lest they lose control. However, problems of commercial sponsorship may provide yet other answers. And also, ironically, reveal the less fortunate impacts of television and globalisation—supposedly meant to disseminate sport and make it available to everybody, but actually strengthening existing structures of advantage and disadvantage. Why sponsor Indian soccer when Indian cricket already dominates the nation’s consciousness and television screens? Why, when it is possible to sit at home and watch Manchester United or Juventus from the comfort of one’s living room, trudge outside into the heat (or cold) to stand, be jostled and pay to watch Mohan Began (or Shrewsbury Town) on the Maidan (or at Gay Meadow)? Contemporary processes of commercialisation and globalisation may divide the world between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ even more deeply than ever did the British Empire itself. The local game in Bengal is coming under increasing pressure these days to secure financial survival. The essays gathered here explore the ‘peculiar’ phenomenon of soccer in India from a wide variety of angles. While the subject may not be an obvious one, it throws light on important, and frequently neglected, contours in the social histories of Bengal, India, Britain and the world over the last century. The essays also brilliantly exemplify a common feature about soccer and social history, which is also frequently forgotten: that both exist, essentially, for pleasure and to be enjoyed. David Washbrook St Antony’s College, 24 September 2005

Contents Soccer 10.1080/ FSAS_Prelims.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 000000June/September /3 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Acknowledgements

ix

Foreword by David Washbrook

xi

Introduction

1

1 From Recreation to Competition: Early History of Indian Football

6

2 1911: A Revisionist Perspective

24

3 Race, Nation and Performance: Footballing Nationalism in Colonial India

40

4 Contesting Neighbours: The Years of Turmoil

53

5 Brothers Turn Rivals: Communal Conflict in Indian Football

67

6 Photo Essay: A century old journey

80

7 Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan: Subregionalism, Club Rivalry and Fan Culture in Indian Football

92

8 Regionalism and Club Domination: Growth of Rival Centres of Footballing Excellence

109

9 A Sporting Colony of Growing Global Capital: Globalization and Indian Soccer

139

10 The Gendered Kick: Women’s Soccer in Twentieth Century India

152

11 Looking Beyond the Sleeping Giant Syndrome: Indian Football at Crossroads

167

Conclusion

185

Index

190

Introduction [email protected] 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106287 FSAS110611.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 000000June/September /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Whether Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikary was the one to ‘kick off’ the century old match has been a subject of debate, but no referee will ever doubt the implication of the first kick. That this ‘kick’ was loaded with political significance and that it set in motion a subtle reworking of the relationship between the super-ordinate ‘colonizer’ and the subordinate ‘colonized’ is today an accepted fact of Indian history. Yet, the relationship between politics, economics and soccer in colonial and post-colonial India has hardly ever been a subject of serious scholarly inquiry. This journal is such an attempt – it aims to pave the way for further inquiry into the politics, economics and culture of soccer in the sub-continent. There has been in recent years major development in this field in Europe, Latin America and Australasia, where soccer is recognized as a phenomenon of growing significance in society. Football, arguably the most popular global game, has attracted the attention of distinguished scholars internationally; and it is entirely proper that the sport, which boasts a rich legacy in the sub-continent, should be the focus of intelligent, informed historical investigation.

2

A Social History of Indian Football

This journal seeks to explore the relationship between soccer and the imperial order, socialization and cultural replication or ‘cloning’ in the interests of Pax Britannica. In view of the limited coverage given elsewhere to the subject, Striving to Score in the first three essays gives due attention to the association of soccer with burgeoning anticolonial nationalism. It also explores the role of soccer in the formation of a distinctive, Indian identity in the face of self-assured imperial rule. Was soccer the unique Indian answer to the imperial charge of effeminacy, labelled against the educated Indian male in the late nineteenth century? How significant ‘masculinity’ was in late-nineteenthcentury India becomes evident from the following anecdote, which describes an interaction between Dukhiram Majumdar, one of the best coaches of football in colonial India and Santosh (Choney) Majumdar, his nephew and favourite student: One of his (Dukhirambabu’s) promising trainees was his own nephew, Santosh (Choney) Majumdar. Once Choneybabu had refused to play against booted footballers. Dukhiram tied his nephew to the bed post, put on his boots, and kicked his nephew with deliberation in the leg several times stating calmly: ‘It can’t hurt more than this.’ Later, as he lovingly applied the Bengali home remedy of a hot mixture of lime and turmeric on his nephew’s leg, there were tears in his eyes. Softly he told his nephew that the first thing a football player must sacrifice is fear. Choney Majumdar bloomed into a real all rounder – equally at home in football, cricket and hockey.[2]

In trying to document the relationship between soccer and anti-colonial nationalism, we have relied heavily on vernacular sources. These sources, largely ignored by earlier analysts, are fundamental to an understanding of the role soccer played in the formation of an Indian identity. Their use, in conjunction with little-consulted Indian English language sources, has helped us analyse the relationship between the Maharajas and the middle class, between class, caste and gender, and between the imperialist and the Indian subject. No monograph can cover every inch of ground in its defined field of interest – there is never enough space. However, we have tried to achieve the next best thing. We have tried to pave the way for further and fuller coverage of the significant issues revealed through attitudes to soccer in Indian society. Among these are: gender relations (the presence and absence of women within the ambit of the sport); the limits of access to the game (for the lower classes and castes); the role of the sport within the imperial educational establishments and their ‘Anglo Saxon’ educators in the implication of the ‘values’ deemed important in metropolitan middle-class public schools; the increasing importance of commerce and its interaction with nationalism; and, internecine political and personal conflicts between Indians themselves. The journal started as yet another of those eternal Ghati-Bangal (West Bengali Hindus-East Bengali Hindus) rivalries, highlighted in the fifth essay, ‘Brother Turn Rivals: Communal Conflict in Indian Football’. While one of us is the faithful Ghati and watched almost every match played by Mohun Bagan in the 1980s and 1990s, the other, although Ghati by origin is surprisingly the radical ‘torch’ bearer Bangal in character, who still claims that his footballing passion is more than the other. Having failed to resolve this conflict after years of discussion as to which of us have had the more interesting experiences – running away from police lathi charge while queuing up for

Introduction 3

hours for 2 rupee tickets, begging gatekeepers to allow us to enter having forgotten our membership cards, messing up examinations on days of Mohun Bagan-East Bengal matches, buying Chingri (prawn) and Ilish (Hilsa) after victories that we will always cherish, we finally decided to have our readers arbitrate. Not that we can promise, however, that we will accept their verdict without protest. After all, our loyalties to our clubs are at stake here! However, we have taken care not to ascertain the pre-eminence of one region’s football over that of others, knowing full well that there are friends elsewhere in Goa, Kerala, Punjab, Manipur et cetera, whose footballing passions are no less than ours. Rather, Striving to Score tries to make the point that claims to understand the social history of Indian soccer by simply looking at the history of a game in one province or region are simplistic and short sighted. Further, we have attempted to demonstrate that it is too limited to interpret soccer in terms of the exigencies of the colonial state. Should that have been the case, soccer would not have outlived colonialism to generate the mass following it has done, and one point of this extensive historical, cultural and socio-political inquiry is to understand the currency of the sport in present day Indian national life. We have drawn upon arguments in earlier studies while trying to fundamentally challenge, and rework, existing paradigms of sports history writing in India. In the Prologue to The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society, J.A. Mangan had commented: It is wise to appreciate that there was no culturally monolithic response to attempts to utilize sport as an imperial bond. A major problem that the analyst of ideological proselytism and its cultural consequences should confront is the nature of interpretation, assimilation and adaptation and the extent of resistance and rejection by the proselytised – in a phrase, the extent and form of ideological implementation.[3]

He added, ‘Any analyst worth his salt should be aware of cultural discontinuities as well as continuities. The unanticipated consequences of stated intentions are neither unusual nor unreal.’[4] He also contended that, ‘The inclusion within our consideration of the nature of sport as an imperial bond of cultural encounters between dominant and subordinate groups certainly provides the opportunity “to place the grand and theatrical discourses of colonial knowledge and control in the context of their often partial and ironic realizations”.’[5] And, finally, he remarked: It has been claimed that cultural analysis breaks up into a disconnected yet coherent sequence of broader sorties with studies building on other studies, not in the sense that they take up where others leave off but in the sense that, stimulated by earlier stumbling, better informed and better conceptualized, they penetrate deeper into the same things.[6]

Throughout Striving to Score soccer, it is acknowledged, provoked diverse political responses across the sub-continent. Recognition of this fact will help scholars and others understand the complexities of colonial and postcolonial South Asia better, while bringing to light the role played by ‘soccer’ in shaping nineteenth- and twentiethcentury South Asian societies. We start from the premise that social histories of South Asian sport can only be meaningfully written by looking beyond the sports field, and it attempts to appeal not only to those interested in the histories of sport in the region but also to those who might be

4

A Social History of Indian Football

uninterested in sport per se, but are interested in the broader themes of South Asian history. It is our claim that Indian history and society have transformed sport in the region while sport has simultaneously helped shape the histories and societies of the sprawling Indian nation state. To offer merely an illustration: existing histories tell us that the Indian middle class and the aristocracy were at loggerheads at all stages during the nationalist struggle. The history of Indian soccer, as is the case with early Indian cricket, indicates otherwise. For purposes of resistance on the sports field, to meet and beat imperial sides at their own game literally and figuratively, the middle class and the aristocracy made common cause in colonial Bengal. From the closing years of the nineteenth century both took the lead in promoting soccer among the masses of the province. Furthermore, while communalism has been depicted as one of the worst evils that plagued Indian public life, soccer in Bengal actually profited from its communal organization. It was communal competition, not simply between the Hindus and the Muslims, but also between the Hindus of West and East Bengal – the Ghati and the Bangal respectively – that accounted for the tremendous popularity of soccer in colonial and post-colonial Bengal. This journal too is proof! From its very inception, Bengali soccer, organized along religious and sub-regional lines, was a success story, so much so that noted literary figure Sajani Kanta Das commented in the 1930s that Subhas Chandra Bose, Mohun Bagan and New Theatres were the three personifiers of the colonial Bengali identity.[7] Despite this, soccer hardly finds mention in works of Indian social history. In the preface to Baseball, America’s Diamond Mind, 1919–1941, Richard C. Crepeau has written: What was American about baseball? Those in baseball needed to answer this, but the question implied another: What was American? The way in which baseball people answered the first question provided an indication of what they perceived to be the answer to the second. A study of baseball, therefore, should reveal what the people connected with the game saw as important personal and national characteristics, beliefs and values … Concepts like democracy, opportunity, and fair play permeate the literature of baseball, identified both with the game and with those who played it.[8]

Whether the above can be said about Indian soccer is what Striving to Score seeks to examine. To draw on what Keith Sandiford has argued elsewhere in the context of Victorian cricket,[9] it is only by pursuing the themes mentioned above that the historian can place soccer within the broader socio-cultural context. Soccer is the lens that helps us understand the complexities of colonial and post-colonial India, to place in proper perspective the changing social circumstances, economic realities and political needs that compelled Indians to redefine their involvement with sport. Commenting on Indian sport, the ESPN magazine (December 2003) states, But that’s India, a place where numbers, and most everything else, can make your head spin. From 20 million or so temples to 3 million or so Hindu gods; from hundreds of millions of desperate poor people to hundreds of thousands of free ranging cows; whatever you count, big numbers abound. But there are much smaller numbers, more precise and no less bewildering, especially to sports fans. Olympic medals won by India: 16. Medals won at the 2000 games: 1. And here’s a round number for you: Indian Athletes most Americans could name on Jeopardy! If the category was Indian Athletes you have heard of even once: 0.[10]

Introduction 5

India’s current FIFA ranking, a dismal 135, strengthens the author’s position. Even amidst this picture of gloom, however, the author describes a Mohun BaganEast Bengal encounter thus: The next morning I fly to Calcutta to experience India’s biggest domestic rivalry, a soccer match between two professional clubs, Mohun Bagan Club and East Bengal in Salt Lake Stadium. In Calcutta, England’s first colonial capital in India, cricket and soccer are equal passions. Mohun Bagan, whose traditional supporters are the region’s wealthy, and East Bengal, whose fans are working class, have more than 80 years of history, and their rivalry runs deep and angry – think Yankees-Red Sox, but add cultural and economic hostilities. The match begins at 3 p.m. and the sky is heavy and gray. Fans clog all the roads to the hulking stadium, waving flags and lighting fireworks that sound disturbingly like small arms fire. Some 125,000 people show – a ticket costs about $2 US – with supporters of each club seated on opposite sides of the concrete oval. East Bengal is favored, as it owns the services of Baichung Bhutia, India’s best native player. Two of Mohun Bagan’s best (one African, one Brazilian) are injured. More Bengal fans have turned up, I’m told, because conventional wisdom says Mohun Bagan doesn’t stand a chance. ‘Why waste money to see your team lose?’ a Mohun Bagan fan says. When I ask why he’s there, he says, ‘I’m a fool’.[11]

He concludes saying: In fact, I realize I might have stumbled onto India’s sports next. Although the national team is ranked 128th in the world, soccer here has the look of a growth industry: history, passion, low cost infrastructure (feet + ball = game). Plus, Salt Lake Stadium is already the largest soccer venue in Asia, and soccer is closing on cricket as the country’s most popular sport.[12]

Indian soccer, thus, remains an enigma for observers from round the world. It is this mystery that we have attempted to unravel as cultural historians who are also passionate soccer enthusiasts. Notes [1] Surapriya Mookerjee, ‘Early Decades of Calcutta Football’, in An Economic Times Special Feature Calcutta 300 (Calcutta: Bennett and Coleman and Co Ltd, 1990), p.146. [2] Ibid., pp.147–8. [3] J.A. Mangan (ed.), The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1992), p.8. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid. [7] Das, the Editor of Sanibarer Chithi, a well-known literary journal of colonial Bengal, was one of the noted intellectuals of the time. [8] Richard C. Crepeau, Baseball, America’s Diamond Mind, 1919–1941 (Orlando: University Presses of Florida, 1980), p.1. [9] Keith Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians (London: Scolar Press, 1994), p.13. [10] Zev Burrow, ‘None in a Billion’, The ESPN Magazine, 6, 26 (Dec. 2003), 100. [11] Ibid., 101. [12] Ibid., 102.

From Recreation to Competition: Early History of Indian Football [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106295 FSAS110612.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Beginnings To ascertain precisely who introduced the game in India and how it was first played and in what form is impossible. Records simply do not exist. It is reasonably clear, however, that soccer came to India with the East India Company. Football’s early pioneers were officers and men of Trading Farms and Regimental Battalions, European professors of educational institutions, and naval officers who used to play at ports of call like Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Karachi. Available records indicate that one of the earliest football matches in the country was played in Calcutta in April 1854 between the ‘Calcutta Club of Civilians’ and the ‘Gentlemen of Barrackpore’.[1] This match was followed by a hiatus of more than a decade, which was finally broken in 1868 when the Etonians played the Rest, and in 1870 when the Public Schools of Eton, Harrow and Winchester played the Private Schools, composed of Miss Tina’s pupils.[2] Football received institutional foundation in India in the 1870s when the Dalhousie Club (1878), acknowledged as the oldest football club in India, was established in Calcutta.[3] Other important soccer creations of the time included the Naval Volunteers, the Howrah United Club and the Armenian Club as well as the football teams of colleges like Presidency College, Sibpur Engineering College, Bishop’s College, Calcutta Medical College and La Martiniere. These colleges, from the 1880s onwards, played a significant role in promoting the game among Calcutta youth. However, despite the important innovatory role of these middle-class seats of learning, the role of the ‘public schools’ towards the introduction and promotion of football in India was limited. Despite football’s inclusion and importance as a form of moral training in the public school curriculum in the leading British educational institutions,[4] football’s popularity in India cannot solely be attributed to this process.[5] This was because the attitude and response of the public, especially in Bengal,[6] towards this mass spectator sport was rather different. Football’s appropriation by the general public was a calculated and incidental process. This mirrors, of course, the situation in England itself – the haven of association football. This is not to say that the early inspirational role of the Indian middle-class schools can be overlooked, nor indeed incorrectly minimized. But other key actors like the soldiers, businessmen and administrators might also have had an influence over the process, as will be evident in the second half of this chapter.[7]

From Recreation to Competition 7

‘Soccer as Moral Training’ North India While the role of public schools and missionary enterprise was of little significance in the growth of the game in Western India, their initiative was of major worth in introducing the game in parts of North and Eastern India around the same time. As has been rightly pointed out by J.A. Mangan, the so-called ‘games ethic’ inculcated in the Victorian public schools was a useful instrument of colonial rule.[8] In late-nineteenth-century India, the headmasters, teachers and missionaries who administered the public/missionary schools used football as a moral tool for reasons of governance. As Mangan argues: The game was considered by the colonizers to carry with it a series of moral lessons, regarding hard work and perseverance, about team loyalty and obedience to authority and, indeed, involving concepts of correct physical development and ‘manliness’. As such, it was used as a key weapon in the battle to win over local populations and to begin transforming them from their ‘uncivilized’ and ‘heathen’ state to one where they might be considered ‘civilized’ and ‘Christian’.[9]

The pre-eminent role of the muscular moral missionary in the introduction of football in India was most evident in Kashmir. In the early 1890s, Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe, a missionary of the Church Missionary High School of Srinagar, fought hard against indigenous religious customs and social habits to introduce soccer to his Hindu schoolboys. Despite overall initial resistance from the boys, he emerged successful in advancing the game among the local youth, who, for their part, were introduced to a new code of ethics. Soccer was for Tyndale Biscoe a moral means to serve a wider imperial end: It was his profound desire as a Christian to introduce his pupils to HIM who taught all men to love one another and show it by practice … talking would not accomplish this … bundles could not do this, therefore bundles must be turned into boys by athletic exercises and athletic boys turned into manly citizens by continued acts of kindness.[10]

As a result of his pioneering efforts, soccer soon gained currency in schools across Kashmir including the famous Srinagar High School. The game’s social significance is also noted by Eric Dallas Tyndale-Biscoe, Cecil Tyndale-Biscoe’s third son, in his biography of his father, ‘Now, not only is football played by the schoolboys, but the general public have taken to it with enthusiasm. They have a football league of various teams.’[11] At virtually the same time as Tyndale-Biscoe taught soccer to his Hindu schoolboys in Kashmir, Theodore Leighton Pennell, a medical missionary, posted at Bannu, a small military station on the North-West Frontier, introduced the game to Afghan boys of Bannu High School. For Pennell, like Tyndale-Biscoe, soccer was an effective instrument of character building. Later, Pennell was so impressed by the locals’ enthusiasm towards appropriating the game that he entitled one of the chapters in his autobiography as ‘An Afghan Football Team’.[12] In fact, he took his school football team on a tour to several mission schools and colleges in North India, one of the earliest football tours undertaken under colonial conditions. Importantly enough, the team represented ‘all classes, Moslims, Hindu, Christians and Sikhs’. The team’s display against their more reputed opponents at Bombay, Karachi, Hyderabad or Calcutta was phenomenal.

8

A Social History of Indian Football

On the team’s return to Bannu after the long tour, a civic reception was arranged to honour them.[13] Apart from the important contributions made by missionaries like Tyndale-Biscoe or Pennell toward the promotion of soccer, no less significant a proclamation of the ‘games ethic’ was noticed in the city public schools and the hill-based boarding schools established in the decades following the Revolt of 1857. Five major public schools, better known as the ‘Chiefs Colleges’ were: Rajkumar College (1870) at Rajkot, Mayo College (1872) at Ajmer, Rajkumar College (1872) at Nowgong, Daly College (1876) at Indore, and Aitchison College (1886) at Lahore. All of these colleges were modelled in the spirit and ethos of the English public school. As a natural corollary, the games field was looked upon as a moral tool for character training in these institutions.[14] The boarding schools of the Raj, situated mostly in the hill stations, did not lag behind in promoting soccer either. The Simla Public School, created at the instance of G.E.L. Cotton in 1863, integrated modern games like football into its curriculum. Other boarding schools set up in Nagpur, Bangalore, Naini Tal and Darjeeling were also moulded by the public school games-playing ethos. In all these schools, ‘soccer was a means to a moral end’.[15] For example, at the St Paul’s School for Boys, Edmund Cox, who joined as a classics teacher in 1877, worked hard to teach and organize football, cricket, swimming and riding. The result was, as Cox later noted in his autobiography, ‘order emerged out of chaos’.[16] The love for soccer cultivated at school had a much wider impact on local society. Soon, the British tea-planters and their Indian staff began to take an active interest in the game.[17] A few decades later, Leslie James Goddard, Principal of St Paul’s school (1934–64), stimulated the development of soccer ‘as he created new pitches and played in the school eleven’.[18] Turn to the East The ‘public school’ ethos was also, on occasions, replicated in the playing fields of Eastern India. Presidency College, Calcutta, the foremost educational institution of the province, witnessed active student involvement in soccer and cricket from the close of the nineteenth century. However, this involvement was of a different nature when compared to North India. Within the confines of Presidency College, the ‘games ethic’ was successfully subverted on occasions for purposes of resistance. Products of the exported public school system, who in subsequent stages of their careers became students and teachers in other colonial educational institutions, took the lead in initiating this process of subversion. To that extent, the history of the origin and flowering of European sports in colonial academic institutions can be seen as part of a nationalist enterprise. Origin of Sports at Presidency College Sporting activities at Presidency College started in 1856 when a Gymnasium was established for the students.[19] However, it was soon closed down, to be opened again in 1879.[20] From this year, a regular gymnastics class was started with professional training being imparted to interested students. Students who attended the class not only

From Recreation to Competition 9

went through ordinary gymnastic exercises but also played football and cricket. Around this time, Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikary, in collaboration with Professor Charles Henry Tawney of the college, took the initiative in organizing the Presidency College Corps, to train Indian students in rifle shooting.[21] He also took the lead in organizing the Annual Athletic Sports for the Indians in Calcutta from 1883 onwards.[22] Presidency students featured prominently in this annual competition. Under the superintendence of Professor Bipin Behari Gupta, college students set up a Cricket and Football Club in 1891.[23] Soon, a suitable plot of ground on the maidan[24] was granted for their use, the outcome of an application made to Calcutta’s Commissioner of Police.[25] In the same year, gymnastic exercises, earlier optional, were made compulsory for students for three days a week, unless their parents and guardians presented sufficient reasons for exemption.[26] The gymnastics class, the College Register published in 1928 asserts, had helped foster a spirit of camaraderie among students and had contributed to the formation of Athletic Clubs in the 1890s: A spirit of comradeship among students being thus encouraged, athletic clubs, which hitherto rested on an unstable basis, came gradually to stay. In 1894 an Athletic Club was attached to the college, the Government granted annually the same amount of money as the students raised by subscription from amongst themselves during the year. Students of the first year class were thereafter [1897] required to attend the gymnastic class regularly. Only those, who were physically unfit or had to come from a great distance were exempted. Subscription of 2 annas per month (or Rs1 annas 8 annually) to the Athletic Club was also made compulsory for all students. They began to realize the advantages of physical education and with the consistent progress of the Athletic Club, it was possible in five years’ time to purchase 2 large tents with the accumulated funds.[27]

Compulsory subscription was the result of the efforts of Professors Narendrakumar Basu, Satinath Roy and others.[28] Under their initiative, the college’s first annual sports meet was held at the Calcutta maidan in 1900.[29] A playing ground, as suggested earlier, was also secured, though it had to be given up during the Second World War.[30] By 1911, an athletics committee was in charge of all athletics activities. It consisted of captains, vice-captains, secretaries and class representatives, under the general guidance of a professor-treasurer. In 1933, Principal B.M. Sen set up a sports committee with himself as President.[31] The annual sports, reports published in the newspapers and college magazines attest, was a major affair with leading sporting patrons of the state present on most occasions.[32] From Recreation to Competition While it has been argued that the gymnastics class had helped foster a spirit of comradeship; that it did much more is not difficult to prove. The class was resumed in 1879, a year after the passing of the oppressive Vernacular Press Act.[33] In the 1880s, nationalist resistance in Bengal was gathering strength and in the absence of an armed uprising, the sporting field contributed in a large measure to challenging British supremacy. From the early years of the nineteenth century, the British had attempted to portray the Indian male as effete, a portrayal that had acquired a specific

10

A Social History of Indian Football

connotation by the late nineteenth century. By this time, it was directed almost exclusively at the educated Bengali middle classes.[34] Drawing upon Mrinalini Sinha’s analysis of political controversies over the Ilbert Bill (1883–84), the Native Volunteer movement (1884–85), recruitment to the Public Service Commission (1886–87), and the age of consent controversy of 1891, it is clear that the charge of effeteness continued to be directed against the Bengali middle classes well into the 1890s.[35] It is hardly surprising that the gymnastics class was made compulsory for all students of the college in 1891.[36] Rigorous physical exercise, it was thought, was a way to counter the British stereotyping of effeminacy. The move to playing football is not a coincidence either. The realization that the cultivation of masculine strength by participating in indigenous sports such as wrestling and bodybuilding was not enough, prompted the shift to football. The futility of the physical culture movement, in evidence during the age of consent controversy,[37] in establishing the Bengali’s physical strength vis-à-vis the British, had made it imperative for the educated Bengali middle classes to practice manly colonial sports such as football, cricket and tennis. Significantly, the first decade and a half of the twentieth century was the golden age of the Presidency College’s sporting history.[38] This was also the period of major nationalist resistance in Bengal. The Swadeshi movement, a concerted campaign against the partition of Bengal – which eventually led to its annulment in 1911 – and a phase of revolutionary terrorism marked the political life of Bengal of the period.[39] In the early years of the twentieth century, when nationalist resistance was at its peak, the college won the Elliot Shield, the premier inter-college soccer tournament, for five years in succession (1904–08).[40] In 1912, all major inter-college football competitions were once again won by Presidency.[41] The importance given to soccer is evident from the detailed reports published in the college magazines soon after the publication of the first edition in 1914. Early magazines carried detailed match reports, hardly ever seen in college magazines of the postindependence period. For instance, the Elliot Shield final between Presidency College and Medical College was reported thus: The day of the final dawned and there was no sign of the weather clearing up. This was unfavourable to the chance of Presidency College, because the Medicals play better on a wet ground. As the day advanced there was not much sign of rain and this inspired some little hope into the hearts of the supporters of Presidency College. The game started late as two of the medical players did not reach the ground on time. Presidency won the toss and decided to defend the Southern goal. The whistle blew and B. Ghose kicked off for the Medicals. From the start, our opponents took the aggressive, and S. Bose ran down the line and centred, but the shot proved abortive. The Medicals continued the pressure and were on the point of scoring, when Radhanath saved brilliantly though at the expense of a corner. The corner shot by S. Chatterjee was a marvellous one but Mukherjee fisted it out. This opening did not promise well for Presidency College’s chances. Presidency, however, rallied and quickly took the lead. Some up and down play followed and then the Medicals broke through and S. Bose after a fine individual run centred cleverly, but failed to score. Presidency replied to this with a combined rush of the centre and wings, and after some net

From Recreation to Competition 11 passing between J. Dutt and D. Das, Anam sent in a low angular shot and scored amidst loud cheers. Two minutes later the whistle blew for half time. After ends were changed, the Presidency forwards, who were much encouraged at their success, were playing a sound game and an individual run by P. Roy was much applauded. The Medicals tried hard to take the offensive but our centre half J. Sanyal and our back Banerjee, who were all along playing in brilliant style, were not to be beaten. When there was only ten minutes left for the game to close, our captain thought it wise to strengthen the defence. The Medicals none the less broke through and B. Ghose tried a good hard shot at goal, which Mukherji saved in equally good style. Presidency College was again pressing when the final whistle blew, leaving them the winners of the Elliot Shield for the eighth time. For the winners, J. Sanyal, U. Bannerjee and G. Mukherjee played well, while S. Bose of the Medicals was decidedly the best forward on the field. The Shield and the medals were then presented to the Captain and the players of the winning team by the Persian Consul.[42]

Even friendly matches were reported in detail. The college had once made a journey to Krishnanagar to play a game with a local college. The match, it was later reported, was watched by a huge number of spectators and had generated considerable enthusiasm among the residents of the area. This encounter, hardly one of significance, was described in detail in the magazine.[43] ‘The first fifteen years of the present century [read twentieth century] constitute the great period of college football. By 1914 the Elliot Shield had been won eight times including five consecutive wins from 1904 to 1908.’[44] In 1914 the college won the Hardinge Shield for the first time and in 1915 the college eleven ‘held the famous 10th Middlesex regiment to a draw’.[45] In 1918, Presidency won the six-aside Cossipore Shield by beating Kumartuli in the final and followed this up by wining the Hugli Gladstone Cup. The college won the inter-collegiate league in 1928, besides winning the Hardinge Shield again that year. When two of the college’s students played for the Mohammedan Sporting Club in the 1930s, it was a matter of great pride.[46] These facts make room for the argument that the educated Indian subjects had successfully appropriated the ‘games ethic’ to suit their needs. In fact, it would not be wrong to assert that the ‘games ethic’ was their only available means of competition with the ruling British, opposition that did not incur the wrath of the colonial state. Belief instilled on the sporting field that the Indians could defeat the British contributed in no small measure to challenging British superiority in the political realm. Notwithstanding the obvious role of the educationists and missionaries in introducing football in the public schools/colleges in North/Eastern India, the development of the game all over India within a short span of time cannot be fully understood in terms of the imperial mission rooted in the ‘games ethic’. Ultimately, the impact of the public school games-playing ethos seemed of limited significance in promoting the game among the Indian masses. In fact, the process by which the game was appropriated and assimilated by various Indian groups at various places is a much more complex story.[47]

12

A Social History of Indian Football

The Legend of the ‘Father of Indian Football’ Despite considerable debate among scholars, Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikary is acknowledged as the ‘father of Indian football’ for his pioneering role in introducing soccer among his fellow-mates at Hare School in North Calcutta[48] in 1877. Hence, this year goes down in history as the start of the Bengali’s, or rather the Indian’s, tryst with soccer.[49] With his unparalleled organizational acumen and sportsman spirit, Nagendraprasad almost single handedly led the Bengalis to pursue modern European sports. His lifelong effort to raise the physical/sporting prowess of the Indians can be located in the broader context of social reform and regeneration in India, which had started since the days of Raja Rammohun Roy. He looked upon European sports such as football as a viable cultural weapon to reassert Bengali masculinity and resurrect India’s sinking national prestige. That he extolled the virtues of physical prowess is evident from the following interaction at a social gathering in the Sovabazar palace: a young family member ridiculed Nagendraprasad’s powerful stature and stamina saying that a man only needed so much strength that he would be able to drink a glass of water by himself!! Surrounded by armed retainers the babus present broke into laughter at the comment. Nagendraprasad not amused in the least stunned everyone present by lifting the fellow off the ground and asking ‘now that I shall fling you down, what do you imagine you will require to escape that fate?’ It was only after the man apologized that Nagendraprasad set him down. He declared in disgust, ‘those who speak like this – they are the ones who are afraid to step out on the streets with their wives and daughters; and when they do (they) are unable to safeguard their honour. Muslim drivers intimidate them before their wife and daughter, extract double the money due to them, and walk away with a swagger while the babu humours himself saying I can’t stoop to being a chotolok with the chotoloks. Such behavior however is not becoming of a bhadralok but of a eunuch! The rate of female abductions from the homes of Bengali Hindus is unparalleled in any other community. Bengalis are effete, let them gain in physical strength,–with the return of masculine splendour, will come respect from others.[50]

While the legend of his kicking the football back to the English soldiers remains debatable, more mystery surrounds his sudden withdrawal[51] from sporting engagements in his youth and consequent disappearance into obscurity. Despite this, however, that he generated an unprecedented sporting spirit in urban Bengali society and organized sport as a bond of social unity is beyond doubt. It is, therefore, important to acknowledge his contributions to the growth and efflorescence of a football culture in the country and accord him his much-deserved place in the social history of modern India. It is often argued that Nagendraprasad rose to prominence when he kicked the football for the first time at the age of ten, the first such act by an Indian on the Calcutta Maidan, and followed it up by introducing the game among his friends at Hare School. It is of relevance here to reproduce this engaging story from his first biography: How the ten year old boy came to introduce football amongst Bengalees will be read like a romance … Nagendraprasad’s mother had the habit of going to the Ganges everyday for her bath … On one such day Nagendraprasad was driving with his mother to the Ganges and when the carriage approached the road on the north of the Calcutta F.C. Ground, the boy noticed a number of Europeans kicking and throwing

From Recreation to Competition 13 a pretty, roundish thing in the air and running to get it again. The boy was intrigued and soon after got down from the carriage to watch the Europeans at play. Suddenly, the big roundish thing came rolling near him. Without hesitation he picked it up and felt it and found to his astonishment that such a large thing wasn’t heavy at all. While he was holding it, a European soldier laughingly said, ‘kick it to me’. The boy was delighted and kicked the ball in the soldier’s direction. This was the first time a Bengali, and that a lad of ten, kicked a football. The boy was jubilant.[52]

This ‘kick off’ inspired Nagendraprasad to mobilize his classmates to play the game. He collected subscriptions from the interested ones and bought a football (in fact, a rugby ball as they could not distinguish between the two) from Messrs. Manton & Co., a renowned sports goods shop at Bowbazar, Calcutta. Next day the schoolboys started playing with the ball under Nagendraprasad’s leadership at the Hare School compound. A sizeable crowd enjoyed this unprecedented event from outside the fences. Among the crowd was a European teacher of the adjacent Presidency College, Professor G.A. Stack,[53] who watched the proceedings from the college balcony with great delight. Attracted by the boys’ enthusiasm, Stack offered to train them in the rules of the game. Another professor of the college, J.H. Gilligand, also took active interest in initiating the students in football. Both encouraged Nagendraprasad and his companions to promote the game among students in and around Calcutta. The Boys’ Club, founded by Nagendraprasad around this time, was the first Indian initiative at football organization. Professor Stack found in him a great aptitude for the game. The boy, he later suggested, picked up the rules of the game in no time. Indian football thus got a start under the initiative of a young lad, who, later on, became the best centre forward of his time. It was his honesty and sincerity that enabled Nagendraprasad to be the leader of the school team when he started football for the benefit of the schoolboys. The enterprise quickly caught the imagination of young men and spread to parts of Calcutta and its suburbs with speed. Establishing himself as the best player of the team, the ten-year-old boy became a true leader in every aspect. Even the students of Presidency College took the opportunity of playing football with the Hare schoolboys. Although considerably older, the college boys followed Nagendraprasad’s leadership. Nagendraprasad, though of tender age, thus managed to create an atmosphere that bound the school and college boys closely and helped in paving the way for the growth of football in Bengal. Nagendra Mullick, a boy from the famous Mullick family of Chorebagan was a classmate of Nagendraprasad. Enamoured by the game of football and keen to start a private club in the spacious confines of Rajendra Mullick’s house, Nagendra Mullick sought Nagendraprasad’s help. The latter greeted the offer in earnest and the Friends Club was founded forthwith with great aplomb. Soon, the popularity of football grew in leaps and bounds. Led by Nagendraprasad, a number of clubs were formed in and around Calcutta. Presidency, Wellington and Howrah Sporting were the foremost amongst them. While the first two emerged under Nagendraprasad’s direct leadership, the last one was the creation of Bama Charan Kundu, son of the famous Iswar Charan Kundu at the insistence of Nagendraprasad, his mentor.

14

A Social History of Indian Football

By the time the Wellington Club was formed (1884), Nagendraprasad was an undergraduate student at Presidency College, Calcutta. His contemporaries, Sir Pratul Chatterjee, Bhupendra Nath Mitter, Sir Binod Mitter, Sir Manmatha Nath Mukherjee, Surendra Nath Mullick, K.N. Chaudhuri and Jatindra Nath Basu, helped him in his efforts to improve the physique of the Bengalis and to bring them on par with the Europeans in the field of competition. After leaving college, this first generation of footballing Bengalis led by Nagendraprasad took an active interest in the formation of Bengali football clubs. Soon after college, Nagendraprasad concentrated on consolidating the Wellington Club, which had its ground on the Calcutta maidan. The membership of the club was open to all irrespective of class or creed. Amongst others, influential Mohammadans joined the club in large numbers. Apart from soccer, the club played rugby, tennis and cricket. From Sovabazar to IFA The foundation of the Sovabazar Club in 1887 was the culmination of Nagendraprasad’s efforts at club formation. Sovabazar was actually the outcome of a rift among the members of the Wellington Club on the question of entry of a low caste member into the club’s rank. Nagendraprasad was the first Indian to voice a critique against caste discrimination in the sporting realm. Although he belonged to an orthodox Hindu family, he chose to ignore all caste prejudices while establishing a series of sporting clubs. His position against the discriminatory actions based on caste is clearest in the incident surrounding the induction of a potter’s son into the Wellington Club. The club had a membership of nearly five hundred from all classes of society. In fact, wellto-do and middle-class young men of Calcutta prided themselves as members of the Wellington Club at the time. When Nagendraprasad wanted to induct Moni Das, a potter’s son,[54] the richer members protested vehemently. But Nagendraprasad refused to buckle before the pressure, arguing that a sporting association should be free of any prejudice and decided to dismantle the Wellington Club. He made no secret of the exact situation declaring, ‘I know sooner or later the matter will be asked to be put to vote. It will be a mean move on the part of those who call themselves sportsmen. I cannot allow myself to be a party to it.’[55] Greatly irked by the intrigues carried on behind his back, Nagendraprasad dissolved the Wellington Club and by combining the various sporting clubs he had earlier established – the Boys Sporting Club, Friends Club, Presidency Club and the erstwhile Wellington Club – founded the famous Sovabazar Club[56] in 1887 at the premises of the Sovabazar Rajbati.[57] Moni Das, whose proposed induction was the cause behind the dissolution of the Wellington Club, was one of the first members of the Sovabazar Club. He later distinguished himself as one of the best cricketers of the Mohun Bagan Club. This attempt by Nagendraprasad to free sport of all caste prejudices in the 1880s was the first of its kind in India. At the time, the Sovabazar Raj family could already boast of a Tennis club, established under the leadership of Kumar Jisnendra Krishna Dev Bahadur. Nagendraprasad, a son-in-law of the family, utilized his relations with the family to form the Sovabazar Club. Kumar Jisnendra Krishna along with Nagendraprasad became Joint

From Recreation to Competition 15

Honorary Secretaries of the Club and the Maharaja of Cooch Behar held the office of President. The club was unique in its policy to throw open membership to sportsmen irrespective of class, caste, community or religious affiliations.[58] Even the AngloIndians and the Europeans were welcome to join the club. It was Nagendraprasad’s vision that urged him to create sportsmen as ‘a class by themselves’.[59] As a result, the sporting prowess of Sovabazar increased quickly and it soon became the premier Indian club of the time. Sovabazar, under Nagendraprasad’s leadership, played a pioneering role in spreading football in Bengal. The first open football tournament in India was the Trades Cup played in Calcutta in 1889. Sovabazar was the first and only Indian team to take part in the tournament. The Lt Governor of Bengal was present to watch Sovabazar’s first appearance in the Trades Cup and ‘viewed the proceedings from his carriage’.[60] In fact, Sovabazar’s win over the military team East Surrey Regiment 2–1 in the 1892 edition of the Trades Cup was the first Indian victory of significance over the Europeans. Newspapers in England gave the result prominence, and concerns were expressed about the possible impact of an Indian win against a British Regimental team![61] Sovabazar, thus, set the trend for future Indian outfits to meet and defeat the British at their own game. The Trades Cup soon became popular and clubs of all communities and categories – Europeans, Indians, Armenians and students – competed for the title. Soon, the growing interest in the game brought to the fore questions of control and coordination. With the need for a well-constituted controlling body becoming obvious, the formation of the Indian Football Association (IFA) in 1892 was a mere formality. But the initiative for this was once again taken in earnest by Nagendraprasad. He invited the leading members of the two foremost European clubs – the Calcutta Football Club and the Dalhousie Club – to an informal meeting at the Sovabazar Club tent at the close of the 1892 football season. Mr A.R. Brown, Honorary Secretary of the Dalhousie Club, Mr B.R.C. Lindsay, a player of distinction of the same club, Mr Watson of the Calcutta FC and Nagendraprasad of Sovabazar attended the meeting and agreed to launch another tournament that would attract the strongest combinations from all parts of the country. Voluntary financial contributions, chiefly from their Highnesses, the Maharajas of Cooch Behar and Patiala, Sir A.A. Apcar and Mr J. Southerland, enabled them to place an order for a shield with Messrs. Elkington & Co., London through their Calcutta agents, Messrs. Walter Locke & Co. The IFA Shield tournament was thus started in 1893.[62] It was Sovabazar from among the Indian teams that represented the Indian cause against the European teams in the tournament.[63] The First Division Football League, confined to British teams only till 1914, was also started soon after in 1898. With the formation of the IFA, the management of the Trades Cup transformed it into a competition for junior clubs, and from 1893, the IFA Shield superseded the Trades Cup in importance. Around this time, in 1894, the Elliot Challenge Shield was started, named after the Lt Governor of Bengal, Sir Charles Elliot. It was a tournament for Indian school and college teams while the Cadet Cup was presented for the competition between the Anglo Indian school teams.[64]

16

A Social History of Indian Football

These facts were reiterated in the introductory speech by Mr H.E. Stapleton, IESMLC Director of Public Instruction, Bengal on the occasion of the opening of the Government Training Centre for physical education, Ballygunge, Calcutta. July 1932: I have been surprised to find how few facts are available as to the early development of interest in games and physical training. Prior to 1890 there seems to have been little public interest in the matter, even in Calcutta, and it is only during the twenty years between 1890 and 1910 that interest seems to have been gradually aroused. Taking football first, the earliest competition began in 1889 when the Trades Cup was presented. This was won by St. Xavier’s in 1893, by the Medical College in 1894 and 1895, 1903 and 1904 and on three subsequent occasions by the Shibpur Engineering College in 1896, 1901 and 1905. It was not however till 1893 and 1894 that football began to play a prominent part in the life of the City of Calcutta, the Indian Football Association being established in 1893, in which year also the Cooch Behar Cup for Indian teams was presented: while the Elliot Challenge Shield for Indian students of schools and colleges was presented in 1894. This proved to be of greatest use in encouraging the development of student interest in games and the names of nearly all the leading Calcutta colleges appear in the list of winners.[65]

Promotion and Patronage The birth of the IFA may be regarded as a milestone in the development of Indian football. However, when the opportunity of nominating the only Indian member in the IFA Council arose in 1900, Nagendraprasad, who could have easily grabbed the position, surprisingly nominated Kali Mitter, a senior sportsman of the Sovabazar Club to the post.[66] This action is testimony to Nagendraprasad’s indifference to the lure of either power or position. Nagendraprasad’s organizational efforts were emulated by enthusiastic Bengalis such as Sir Dukhiram Majumdar,[67] Kalicharan Mitter,[68] Manmatha Ganguly[69] and Haridas Seal.[70] As a result, football clubs emerged in different localities and suburbs of Calcutta in the late1880s – amongst them National Association, Town Club, Kumartuli, Chandannagar Sporting, Chinsura Sporting, Mohun Bagan and Aryan were the most notable. The early patrons of Bengali football included aristocratic families of Calcutta like Sovabazar, Bhukailas and the Lahas, and the Maharajas of Cooch Behar, Mahisadal and Burdwan. It may be noted in this context that Maharaja patronage of sport was an established practice in India by the middle of the eighteenth century. In colonial India, sports such as big-game hunting became a shortcut to being a gentleman, drawing the Maharajas into it. While promoting football and cricket, some Rajas also patronized wrestlers. Famous among the patrons were the Maharajas of Patiala, Jodhpur and Datia. The Raja of Datia patronized Aziz Pehlwan, father of Gama, one of the best-known wrestlers in Indian history. The Maharaja of Patiala was another major patron and arranged a bout between Gama and Zbysco, two well-known wrestlers in contemporary India, in 1928. In Bengal, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, who was a major patron of soccer, was also a leading patron of kushti and it was under his patronage that the world wrestling competition was held in Calcutta in 1892.

From Recreation to Competition 17

Muslim representation in Indian football too began in the last decade of the nineteenth century when Mohammaden Sporting Club gained prominence in Calcutta thanks to the efforts of some educated Muslim middle-class youth. In 1887 the Jubilee Club was established, a sporting organization for Calcutta Muslims. The club changed its name twice in the next few years, first to the Crescent Club and then to the Hamidia Club. Finally, in 1891, the Mohammedan Sporting Club was established. The origin of the club is thus described in the club’s Souvenir published in 1935: Like many other famous clubs Mohammedan Sporting of Calcutta, now the premier sporting club of India, had a humble beginning. Love of sport attracted a small group of Muslim youths to start playing outdoor games in Calcutta in the early 80s of the last century. Soon the need for some organization became apparent and in the year 1887 a band of young enthusiasts led by the Khan Bahadur Nawabzada Aminul Islam … Moulvi Abdul Ghani … and Moulvi Mohammed Yasin … started a club for Muslim youths under the name of the Jubilee Club. Unfortunately this club had a short and precarious existence owing to the inexperience of its founders. It was, however, soon revived under the name of the Crescent Club. This name was again changed to the Hamidia Club and finally in the year 1891 to its present name Mohammedan Sporting Club.[71]

The first significant Indian tournament win was achieved in 1893 when the Fort William Arsenal consisting of Indian employees of Fort William won the Cooch Behar Cup.[72] Sovabazar’s football prowess, it is worth noting, gradually subsided with the rise of Manmatha Ganguly’s National Association, which became the first Indian team to lift the Trades Cup in 1900.[73] National Association repeated the feat again in 1902. Finally came Mohun Bagan, an emblem of Indian self-esteem, sporting prowess and nationalism in the first half of the twentieth century. Mohun Bagan created history on the sports field when it defeated crack British military teams one by one in the qualifying rounds and the East Yorkshire Regiment in the final to lift the IFA Shield in 1911 as the first native Indian team. Socio-Cultural Indigenisation It is an interesting question as to why the Bengali, from amongst all Indians, readily appropriated the game of football. Swami Vivekananda’s[74] often-quoted remark ‘playing football rather than reciting the Gita will take one nearer to God’ might have had a far-reaching impact on the Bengali psyche. From a more pragmatic point of view, however, the affordable nature and simple laws of the game made it more admired than other sports. The Bengali youth, on the one hand, saw in football a worthwhile cultural weapon to reassert their hurt self-esteem and injured masculinity. On the other, the sensitive Bengali mind assimilated football as a means of crossing swords with the British imperialist on a cultural battlefield: It was a time when Bengal was caught in a surge of the nationalist movement. The social antagonism, the battle between the ‘whites’ and the ‘natives’ on the political plane transgressed its boundaries and entered the social sphere or more specifically the world of sports. Historically speaking, the ills of an unequal political structure threw up contradictions, which quite naturally had a deep impact on the social psyche. The age

18

A Social History of Indian Football

of Swadeshi had celebrated the brawn and cult of physical fitness through numerous festivals, rituals and physical culture clubs.[75] Failing to attain political power, the Bengali mind naturally searched for apolitical ways to avenge their socio-political humiliation at British hands. Football afforded them such an opportunity. The universality of football in colonial Bengal went hand in hand with its cultural indigenisation. It has been stated proudly that ‘Calcuttans and the rest of India in their trail, were the only people in the world to transform football skill and technique into their own indigenous ways, playing unshoed, as they did from the very beginning’.[76] The Bengalis imparted to the game a distinctive Indian touch. Except for a few individuals such as Dukhiram Majumdar, P.K. Bisaws, Sudhir Chatterjee and Choney Majumdar, Calcuttans generally played in bare feet. From the very beginning, Mohun Bagan played barefooted, keen on cashing in on barefoot speed and footwork, and despite abject failure against booted teams on rainy grounds, never thought of wearing boots. In fact, they were fortunate in having an unusually dry spell during the 1911 IFA Shield, allowing them to reap the fullest rewards of barefooted skill. The club and the supporters bewailing for Mohun Bagan’s failures on rainy grounds were mocked as coming to the battle with wet gunpowder. Still no one ever thought of taking to boots. In fact, the barefooted jugglery of Indian legends such as Gostho Paul, the Bhaduris, Samad and Umapati Kumar against booted European teams even on slushy surfaces was a constant source of pride for the Bengali nationalist. The barefooted genius of Indians made P.B. Clark, the captain of the visiting Islington Corinthians, an amateur British side, remark in 1938: ‘Indians alone play real football, what they call football in Europe is after all only bootball.’[77] By the end of the nineteenth century, football in Calcutta had come a long way. From being an occasional recreation of military men, a school sport and merely a leisure activity among Europeans, football had become an arena of competition between the British and the Indians.[78] To suggest that Bengali football clubs of the 1880s and 1890s from their very inception began to reflect a purely nationalist ethos on the sports field is perhaps incorrect. Football, however, at the turn of the century, had become a new and unique cultural nationalist force in Bengali society, although the approach of different clubs to the game in Calcutta was hardly uniform. Clubs that used soccer to give voice to distinct trends of socio-cultural expression were Sovabazar, National Association and Mohun Bagan. The Sovabazar Club, patronized by the Sovabazar Raj family, had its tent in the Calcutta maidan amidst those of the leading European Clubs of the time. ‘The grandeur associated with it was directed in showing the British that they also appreciated modern leisure activities. To them, football was more of a social factor, in trying to work with or against the British masters.’[79] In sharp contrast, the National Association founded by Manmatha Ganguly, a Kalighat schoolteacher, was more orderly and had a strict ideological motivation.[80] Ganguly was unwilling to field his team against Europeans unless his players were fully prepared to offer a satisfactory response to the European challenge. Though the club gradually attracted patronage from feudal aristocrats,[81] Ganguly’s ideology

From Recreation to Competition 19

continued to provide mental and physical strength to the members and players of the club. Unlike Sovabazar, National on all occasions may be credited with the fostering of a sense of national pride. It was Mohun Bagan among the Indian clubs that came to symbolize the true nationalist response of the injured ‘cultural self’ against the British. Originally founded in 1889 by a few idealistic North Calcutta gentlemen at Mohun Bagan villa, it was, from its very inception, much more than a club. It was an institution with the avowed objective to not only produce excellent sportsmen, but to impart in them impeccable moral and social values. The ideals that the founders had set before themselves were novel for Indians at the time.[82] The executives of the club saw to it that each member combined the development of the body with that of the mind. The principles governing the functioning of the Club bears testimony to this point: The ideals that the founders had set before themselves were high. At the inception, except for a limited few at the top it was the convention to accept only students as members. Each applicant for membership had to produce his guardian’s permission for joining the Club. There was a probationary period of six months. The executives of the Club saw to it that each member combined the development of the body with the development of the mind. They prescribed a high moral code for the members. Some of the old members recall how J.N. Basu would suddenly line up younger members of the Club and test their educational progress in their schools and colleges. A young member was expelled from the club because he was found smoking.[83]

Little did the pioneers envisage, however, that the club would, through its epic victory over the East York Regiment in the 1911 IFA Shield final, bring about a national reawakening!

Road to 1911 Within a span of three decades, football had become an inescapable part of the sociocultural realm in colonial Calcutta. However, it soon transcended the recreational boundary to become a cultural weapon in the fight against the British imperialist. At the turn of the century, Bengali youth came to look upon football ‘as an avenue through which they would be able to retrieve their sinking political prestige and establish their superiority over the power the Raj represented’.[84] The fact of the puny barefooted Bengali players matching the more heavily built, better-equipped and booted Europeans took on the form of a cultural battle against foreign rulers. Mohun Bagan’s glorious road to the 1911 victory began in 1904 when the club emerged as champions in the Cooch Behar Cup. The following year, they retained the Cup and also won the Gladstone Cup.[85] From 1906 to 1908 the club won the prestigious Trades Cup thrice in a row.[86] Equally sensational was its victory over the Calcutta Football Club in the Minto-Fete Tournament (1906)[87] and its Cooch Behar Cup (1907–08) and Gladstone Cup (1908) triumphs. People all over Bengal appreciated these victories in the context of a surge of anti-British sentiments in the political realm, stimulated by the partition of Bengal (1905). Soon, the masses rallied behind the Mohun Bagan Club, which had become an emblem of nationalist pride.

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A Social History of Indian Football

Finally, in July 1911, Mohun Bagan, comprising ten barefooted Indian players in its ranks created sporting history when it defeated booted European civil and military teams one by one to lift the coveted Indian Football Association (IFA) Shield. On its way to the final, the Club outplayed St Xaviers 3–0 in the first round; beat Rangers by 2–1 and Rifle Brigade 1–0 in the second and third rounds. In the semi-final, Mohun Bagan drew 1–1 with the Middlesex Regiment; and in the subsequent replay routed the Regimental team 3–0. When Mohun Bagan actually entered the final of the IFA Shield, signs of a great mass awakening in Bengal were quite visible. People had become obsessed with the dream of beating the ruling British. The European residents too became conscious of this psychological collision. The dream became a reality when Mohun Bagan defeated the East Yorks 2–1 in that historic final of 29 July 1911. Shibdas Bhaduri and Abhilas Ghosh scored the goals for the victorious team while Jackson netted one for East Yorks. Following the victory, The Empire noted: ‘All honours to Mohun Bagan! Those eleven players are not only a glory to themselves and to their club but to the great nation that they belong.’[88] It is to the historical significance of this famous Indian sporting victory that we turn to in the next essay.

Notes [1] The Englishman, 10 June 1854. [2] IFA Shield Souvenir, 1945 (Calcutta: IFA, 1945). Most existing works on Indian football mention these matches in some detail. For example see: Moti Nandy, ‘Football and Nationalism’, in Geeti Sen (ed.), The Calcutta Psyche (Calcutta: Rupa and Company, 1990–91), pp.241–2. [3] The Calcutta Football Club (1872), devoted to playing rugby football initially, predated the Dalhousie club by over half a decade and is technically the oldest Indian football club. [4] The accepted definitive study of public school games as moral training is J.A. Mangan’s Athleticism in Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981 and London: Frank Cass, 2000, with a new introduction). [5] For an instructive discussion on soccer as a means to an imperial end, see J.A. Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training: Missionary Intentions and Imperial Legacies’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation and Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp.41–56. Paul Dimeo, in his ‘Football and Politics in Bengal: Colonialism, Nationalism and Communalism’ in the same volume (pp.61–6), employs a similar premise to explain the growth of the game in late-nineteenth-century Calcutta. [6] It is important to note that football was initially more popular in Bombay and was subsequently picked up in Calcutta by the late 1870s and 1880s. From the 1870s onwards Bengal gradually established itself as the home of Indian soccer. [7] An excellent example of the impact of the imperial administrator’s enthusiasm for association football is to be found in Burma and Beyond by Sir J. George Scott, which deals with his introduction of the game in Burma in the late nineteenth century. The account of his years in Burma was first published in London by Grayson and Grayson in 1932. Scott was a serious and sympathetic student of the Burmese cultural panorama in its various elements and took great pains to understand and record it in the clear knowledge that modernization would restore much of it. To catch merely a flavour of his admiration of the country and its people, see J. George Scott, Burma: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London: Fischer Unwin, 1924). The opening lines in his Preface encapsulate the approach: ‘The country of Burma and the Burmese people are as attractive as any in the world’, p.v.

From Recreation to Competition 21 [8] J.A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London: Frank Cass, 1998), p.18. [9] Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training’, p.41. [10] Mangan, The Games Ethic, p.187. [11] E.D. Tyndale-Biscoe, Fifty Years against the Stream (Mysore: Wesleyan Missionary Press, 1930), p.20, quoted in Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training’, p.52. [12] T.L. Pennell, Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier (London: Seeley, 1909), Dedication, pp.153–67. [13] Ibid., p.167, quoted in Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training’, p.44. [14] For an in-depth discussion of ‘games ethic’ in these colleges, see Mangan, The Games Ethic, especially Chapter 5, ‘Eton in India’, pp.122–41. [15] Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training’, p.52. [16] Sir Edmund L. Cox, My Thirty Years in India (London: Mills & Boon, 1909), p.28, quoted in Mangan, ‘Soccer as a Moral Training’, p.51. [17] Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training’, p.51. [18] Ibid. [19] Presidency College Centenary Volume (Calcutta: Presidency College, 1955), p.191. [20] Presidency College Register (Calcutta: Presidency College, 1928), pp.27–8. [21] Saurindra Kumar Ghosh, Krida Samrat Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikary 1869–1940 (Calcutta: 1964), p.165. [22] Ibid., p.122. [23] Presidency College Register, pp.27–8. [24] Term used to describe a sporting field. The Calcutta maidan is the vast expanse of land used for sporting activities in Central Calcutta. Most of this land belongs to the military. [25] Presidency College Register, pp.27–8. [26] Ibid., pp.30–1. [27] Ibid. [28] Presidency College Centenary Volume, p.191. [29] Ibid. [30] Ibid. [31] Ibid. [32] Reports of the college’s annual sports were published in leading dailies such as the Amrita Bazar Patrika, Anandabazar Patrika and The Statesman. Leading sports patrons of the state such as the Maharaja of Santosh often attended this annual event as chief guest. [33] The Vernacular Press Act, passed in 1878 by Lord Lytton, was one in a series of oppressive acts passed by the colonial state to curb nationalist tendencies among the Indians, the other being the Arms Act. Under the terms of the Vernacular Press Act the freedom of the press was seriously threatened. [34] John Roselli, ‘Self Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal’, Past and Present, 86 (Feb. 1980), 121–48. Also see Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity, The Manly Englishman and the Effeminate Bengali in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). [35] Sinha, Colonial Masculinity. [36] Presidency College Register, p.27. [37] Sinha, Colonial Masculinity. [38] For details, see Presidency College Centenary Volume, pp.191–202; Presidency College Register, pp.27–32. [39] For details on the political climate of Bengal in the first decade of the twentieth century, see Sumit Sarkar, Swadeshi Movement in Bengal – 1903–1908 (New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1973). [40] Presidency College Centenary Volume, pp.191–202. [41] Ibid.

22

[42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47]

[48]

[49]

[50] [51] [52] [53]

[54]

[55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67]

[68]

[69]

A Social History of Indian Football Presidency College Magazine, 1914/15, pp.57–8. Ibid., pp.58–9. Ibid., pp.195–6. Ibid. Ibid. J.A. Mangan, among European historians, hinted at this reality. As he rightly observes, ‘An assessment of the impacts of these [colonizers’] intentions and programmes is a different matter altogether … it is no easy matter to begin untangling the responses of Indian communities to the introduction of football’. Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training’, p.54. Hare school, a prestigious secondary school of nineteenth-century Calcutta, was established in 1834 under the initiative of David Hare, a Scotsman, who devoted all his energy and wealth for the betterment of education in contemporary Bengal. Nagendraprasad’s biographical sketches, one in English and the other in Bengali, are compulsory reading in this regard. These are: P.L.Dutt, Memoir of ‘Father of Indian Football’ Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikary (Calcutta: N.P.Sarbadhikary Memorial Committee, 1944) (hereafter Memoir); and Saurindra Kumar Ghosh, Krira Samrat Nagendraprasad Sarbadhikary 1869– 1940 (Calcutta: N.P. Sarbadhikary Memorial Committee, 1963) (hereafter Krira Samrat). Krira Samrat, pp.180–1. Nagendraprasad suddenly withdrew from most of his engagements in sports organization in 1902 when he joined the Calcutta High Court as an Attorney. Memoir, pp.6–7. According to the Jubilee Number of the Presidency College Magazine, football was introduced in the college at the initiative of G.A. Stack, a Professor of History in 1883. For further details, see Presidency College Centenary Volume, 1955 (Calcutta: Presidency College, 1956), pp.195–7. There is a controversy over Moni Das’s actual caste identity. P.L. Dutt mentions Das as a confectioner’s son, Memoir, p.17. Saurindra Kumar Ghosh, on the other hand, describes him as a potter’s son, Krira Samrat, pp.118–19. Be that as it may, that Moni Das was from a low caste family is beyond doubt. Memoir, p.18. For details of how the club was actually formed, see Memoir, pp.17–18; and also Krira Samrat, pp.118–21. Rajbati means the massive housing premises of the royal family of Sovabazar in north Calcutta. Memoir, p.19. Ibid. The Englishman, 12 July 1889. J.N. Basu, ‘My Reminiscences’, in Pankaj Kumar Gupta (ed.), IFA Golden Jubilee Souvenir (Calcutta: IFA, 1943). IFA Shield Souvenir (Calcutta: IFA, 1945), pp.10–11; The Statesman, 1 Dec. 1937. Sovabazar, however, had a very early exit from the tournament as it was defeated by the St Xaviers College 0–3 in their first round match. The Statesman, Calcutta, 8 July 1934 St Xavier’s Magazine (Calcutta: St.Xavier’s College, 1932), p.70. Krira Samrat, pp.145–6. Dukhiram Majumdar, the revered ‘Sir’ of Bengali football, was the greatest football coach and recruiter of footballers from the late 1880s. His original name was Umesh Chandra Majumdar. He founded the Aryan Club in 1888. Kalicharan Mitter, son of a respectable aristocratic family of north Calcutta, was a close friend of Nagendraprasad. An ardent football lover and a fine player himself, Mitter became the first Indian Joint Secretary of the IFA. Manmatha Ganguly was a very popular teacher of Kalighat High School in south Calcutta during the 1880s and 1990s. He was founder member of the National Association. A strict

From Recreation to Competition 23

[70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75]

[76]

[77] [78]

[79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85]

[86] [87]

[88]

disciplinarian as a teacher, Ganguly trained his students to play football in boots. It was under his able coaching that National lifted the Trades Cup as the first Indian team in 1900. Seal had been a close friend of Nagendraprasad since his school days. In his youth he always stood by Prasad in the latter’s efforts to promote football in and around Calcutta. For details see, Mohammedan Sporting Club – Calcutta League Champions, 1934–1935: A Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohammedan Sporting Club, 1935), pp.27, 35–9. ARBI, Kolkatar Football (Calcutta: East Light Book House, 1955), p.100. Indian Daily News, 11 Aug. 1900. Swami Vivekananda was Bengal’s most celebrated spiritual leader of worldwide renown. Soumen Mitra, ‘Babu at Play: Sporting Nationalism in Bengal, A Study of Football, 1880–1911’, in Nisith Roy and Ranjit Roy (eds), Bengal: Yesterday and Today (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1991), pp.45–6. ARBI, ‘Calcuttans Showed the Way’, in IFA Shield Souvenir 1973 (Calcutta: IFA, 1973). This contention of ARBI, however, is not totally correct, as the Africans had also started playing football without boots. Cited by ARBI, in ‘Indian Football and Boots’, in IFA Shield Souvenir 1977 (Calcutta: IFA, 1977). This transformation of football’s social dimension has been discussed at length by Soumen Mitra in his unpublished M.Phil dissertation, ‘Nationalism, Communalism and Sub regionalism: A Study of Football in Bengal, 1880–1950’ (Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1988), Chapter 3. Mitra, ‘Babu at Play’, p.49. Ibid., pp.91–3. The most important of these aristocrats were the Rajas of Bhukailash, viz. Satyadhenu and Satyabhanu Ghosal, and the Raja Jagadindranath Ray of Natore. Mohun Bagan Club Platinum Jubilee Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohun Bagan A. C., 1964), pp.1–5 (hereafter Mohun Bagan Souvenir). Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.4. Mitra, ‘Babu at Play’, p.46. The Gladstone Cup was an annual competition held at Chinsurah, Hoogly. Mohun Bagan participated in it for the first time in 1905 and emerged champions by beating the formidable Dalhousie A.C., that year’s IFA Shield winner, by six goals to one. For details, see Mohun Bagan Souvenir, pp.10–11. Ibid., p.5. This tournament had been specially organized under the patronage of Her Excellency Lady Minto, wife of then Viceroy Lord Minto, in aid of a fund for providing nurses to India. It was a very creditable victory for the club as it beat the giant European civilian team Calcutta FC in the final. For details, see Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.11. Quoted in Mitra, ‘Babu at Play’, pp.53–4.

1911: A Revisionist Perspective [email protected] 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106329 FSAS110615.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 000000June/September /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Situating 1911 in Indian History Mohun Bagan’s epochal IFA Shield victory of 1911 is one of the most commented upon events in Indian sporting history. From scholars to enthusiasts, learned to laity, every Indian takes a legitimate pride in reckoning that this sporting success was a historic milestone not only in the history of Indian sport but in that of Indian nationalism as well. Existing historiography of this event describes it in terms of nationalism, racism, commercialism and culture. While European scholars[1] seek to analyse its nationalistracist significance in the context of imperial mission of the ‘games ethic’[2] and consider it to be a success story of British ‘cultural imperialism’, most Indian historians[3] see it as the culmination of the Swadeshi[4] celebration of brawn and the cult of physical fitness and hail it as an indigenous nationalist reaction with potential repercussions on society, culture and economy. There is yet another line of interpretation that looks at the event from purely a footballing angle stressing the club’s professional attitude towards the game. Despite all this, much remains to be explained so far as the true historical significance of this much-commented upon sporting event in Indian history is concerned. To be more specific, none of the available works seek to analyse the character and pattern of sporting nationalism and specific forms of nationalist sporting culture in the wake of the victory, the story of racist discrimination that followed in its aftermath, the moral impact of the event on Bengali social psyche or the enduring commercial implications of the success. This essay intends to offer a major corrective to the conventional historical interpretations of the Mohun Bagan victory of 1911 and attempts to reconstruct its nationalist, racist, social, cultural and economic significance in proper historical perspective. Historiography of 1911 A good deal of literature has cropped up around Mohun Bagan’s 1911 victory, deemed to be the most glorious success of an Indian team under colonial rule. Soumen Mitra,[5] one of the early scholars to have researched the social history of Indian football, explained the 1911 victory both as a Bengali martial reaction against the British charge of effeminacy as well as a nationalist response to British ‘cultural imperialism’. Mitra concluded saying, Mohun Bagan represented Bengal with its obsession for physical strength and the yearning to cast aside the stigma of feebleness by beating the colonial power at its own game … The 1911 victory reflected the image of the Bengali society surging in anger

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 25 against colonial rule. While sports became a symbol around which anti-colonial consciousness developed, football became an instrument for establishing ‘native’ superiority over the ‘whites’.[6]

He also elaborated on the cultural and economic impact of the event in contemporary Bengali society. Tony Mason, on the other hand, while admitting the nationalist, racialist and political significance of the event, emphasized its importance as a triumph of the British imperial mission to promote sports for moral training of the natives.[7] He remarked, ‘It clearly injected some confidence into some of the native peoples of Calcutta and convinced them that they were as good as their masters. But it also seems to have reinforced admiration for those masters. Perhaps that is the essence of the mystery of hegemony.’[8] Paul Dimeo, following Mason, has recently offered a more refined Euro centric argument.[9] While he, like Mason, concedes that the ‘1911 victory was a moment of nationalist resistance when the ideological underpinnings of colonialism, the belief in innate British superiority and in Indian physical frailty, were dramatically and publicly undone’,[10] he categorically declares the celebration of this sporting prowess as ‘the acceptance of the British moral system introduced through the Anglo-Indian colleges’ and ‘a submission to the cultural imperialism of the British’.[11] Some of our earlier writings on this subject have already hinted at some major revisions of the Euro-centric view offered by Mason and Dimeo.[12] In these works an attempt has been made to situate the Mohun Bagan victory in the context of a psychological head-on collision and in terms of a masculine confrontation with the British.[13] The point was to highlight the fact that the Bengalis, not only anglicized in manners and dress but also inspired by the English ideals of nationalism and liberalism, overturned the very ‘games ethic’ of a colonial sport (football in this case) to articulate novel cultural nationalist resistance.[14] In the context of politicization alias nationalization of Bengali sports journalism in early-twentieth-century India, the reliance of European scholars like Mason on English press reports and their neglect of vernacular sources in the wake of the 1911 victory has been considered a decisive limitation of their exercise.[15] ‘The fact that a triumph against the English on the sporting field had the potential to inspire similar feats in other arenas of state and politics has hardly merited consideration in the writings of Mason and the like.’[16] Dimeo too, however, has admitted this varied significance of 1911 in his work, albeit in a limited way.[17] Of late, Jaydeep Basu, an eminent Indian sports journalist, has argued that the importance of the victory needs to be judged from purely a footballing angle.[18] According to him, since Mohun Bagan was a team with limited ambitions and since the team management had no declared political leanings, its triumph having a political twist might be more of a coincidence. Going by records, Basu attributes Mohun Bagan’s victory to its success in fielding a professional side in the wrap of amateurism. The formation of such a winning combination was, to him, a direct result of the decision of a ‘technically sound’ team management to hail skill and performance as the sole criteria for selecting players in the team, instead of family background or social status. In fact, considering the strict social taboos of contemporary India, Basu finds Mohun Bagan of 1911 to be a ‘strange combination as also “a common man’s” team’.[19]

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It seems clear from the above survey of existing literature that the difference between European and Indian scholarship on the significance of the event emanates not only from differences in perspective, but also from a lack of utilization of vernacular sources. Even this essential difference in emphasis and interpretation apart, existing scholarly literature has had several flaws and gaps, which subsequent sections of this essay will try to locate, clarify and bridge. Nationalism in the Wake of Shield Victory It has become commonplace and fashionable to interpret Mohun Bagan’s victory in terms of an anti-colonial nationalism on a backdrop of a political nationalist upsurge against British rule. Football in Bengal since the 1880s had already become a worthwhile medium of social intercourse between the rulers and the ruled. The Bengalis, from the close of the century, began to appreciate success in the game as proof of their revitalized physical prowess. In fact, the change in the political climate of Bengal at the turn of the century had effected a change in Bengali attitude towards European sports like soccer. In the context of the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, soccer assumed the form of a cultural weapon to reassert hurt Bengali masculinity and fight British imperialism. It was in this particular historical context that Mohun Bagan’s victory was hailed as a blow struck not only by Indian football but also by Indian nationalism. Football, thenceforth, came to represent a unique cultural nationalism in colonial Bengal. Nationalist significance of 1911 has indeed become an over emphasized and perhaps overburdened historical cliché in the social history of modern Indian sport. Yet, some very interesting questions regarding this epochal triumph remain unanswered by the scholars concerned. None have tried to clarify whether the ‘nation’ appealed to was Bengal or India. Most of the press reports, in celebrating the victory, used the terms ‘Bengali’ and ‘Indian’ interchangeably, at times almost as synonyms.[20] This only points to the ambiguous nature of footballing nationalism in colonial Bengal. However, it becomes clear from these reports that when Mohun Bagan actually entered the final of the IFA Shield signs of a great mass awakening were visible.[21] People irrespective of class, caste or community were attracted to the dream of beating the ruling British at their own game. Bengali emotion surged high at the sight of Bengalis being repressed, humiliated and branded as inferiors in all spheres of life. Defeating the best European civil and military teams in their game of soccer lifted Mohun Bagan like a colossal nationalist Himalaya[22] on the sporting horizon. The Indians were mentally prepared to see the British Raj humiliated and brought to its knees, a measure of what Mohun Bagan achieved on the football field. For a brief moment, the inner craving in the subconscious of the Indian people to come out winners in the struggle for self-assertion became a tangible reality. The status of Mohun Bagan as the national soccer team made them a major fighting unit in India’s battle against the imperialists. Mohun Bagan had become synonymous with the national battle cry for Vande Mataram (‘worshipping the mother’).[23] Their matches against European teams were

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 27

perceived as battles against the Raj and the match between Mohun Bagan and Calcutta Football Club came to be seen in that light. Thus, Bengali nationalist instinct in the wake of a perceived national victory on the sports field converged with the broader stream of Indian nationalism. That it created tremendous stir among nationalists all over India lends strength to this argument. The victory fired the imagination of the whole nation. The Englishman’s comment on Mohun Bagan’s win sums up its political importance: ‘Mohan-Bagan has succeeded in what the Congress and the Swadeshiwallas have failed to do so far to explode the myth that the Britishers are unbeatable in any sphere of life.’[24] Mohun Bagan’s success thus indirectly highlighted the political failures of the Indian Association and the Congress: There are no players today in the playroom of the Indian Association. The Congress playroom has been blown off by one blast like a house of cards. Revered leaders like Surendranath have not been able to unite their adherents by the tie of unity. In a country where union takes place only to dissolve, where repulsion is more powerful than attraction, you have been able to knit together so many hearts.[25]

A few years before this victory, Ranjitsinhji’s extraordinary success in cricket in England had provided Indian political leaders with a ‘hero’. Dadabhai Naoraji commented that a ‘rediscovery of India’ had taken place through Ranji’s performances.[26] Mohun Bagan’s victory was greeted in the same spirit in the country. It destroyed the myth of British invincibility not only in the eyes of the Bengalis but in that of the Indians in other provinces as well. People all over began to appreciate the victory in the light of anti-British nationalist resentment and rally behind the club as an emblem of national pride. That the spectator culture in colonial Calcutta was moulded by nationalist sentiments becomes most discernible in the context of Mohun Bagan’s winning run against British teams in 1911. The massive Indian crowd,[27] which had gathered to watch the action, went berserk with pleasure when the unthinkable happened. The press reports of the final bear testimony to this fact. While the Reuters News Agency noted in its cablegram of 30 July 1911 to England about the final, ‘When it was known that the East Yorkshire Regiment had been defeated by two goals to one the scene beggared description, the Bengalees tearing off their shirts and waving them’, The Mussalman wrote, ‘The members of the Muslim Sporting Club were almost mad and rolling on the ground with joyous excitement on the victory of their Hindu brethren’.[28] The Race Factor in 1911 Since the inception of colonial rule in India, the British portrayed the Bengalis as a ‘non-martial’ race and continued to ridicule him as ‘feeble’ and ‘effeminate’.[29] This was best exemplified when T.B. Macaulay, Law member for India in the 1830s, gave the following description of Bengalees, ‘The Castillians have a proverb that in Valencia the earth is water, and the men women, this description is at least equally applicable to the vast plane of the lower Ganges. Whatever the Bengali does he does languidly, his favourite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from bodily exhaustion … seldom engages

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in personal conflict and scarcely even enlists as a soldier’.[30] For Macaulay this feebleness had important implications for the moral character of the inhabitants of Bengal.[31] This was evident when he declared, ‘the physical organization of the Bengali is feeble even to effeminacy … Courage, independence, veracity are qualities to which his constitution and his situation are equally unfavourable.’[32] The practical repercussions of the colonial construction of Bengali effeminacy and racial inferiority were visible in the everyday social life of the province. Bengalis had become used to bearing the brunt of British discrimination, condescension and physical assault in all walks of life. Even as late as 1928, as fervent an admirer of the British Empire and culture as Nirad C. Chaudhuri noted that he was told off for walking on the wrong side of the Eden gardens, the side reserved for Europeans.[33] The Bengali always awaited opportunities to return the compliment. The football maidan assumed significance as one such apolitical space to hit back against the masters.[34] 1911 was such a ‘hit back’ or palta mar against British racism. Both Mason and Dimeo find a self-contradiction in the victory celebrations, arguing that it reinforced the success of the public school spirit. However, as demonstrated earlier, they fail to understand that 1911 threatened the colonial ideology rooted in the games ethic itself. On this occasion, their inferiors surpassed the cultural-racist superiority of the west on their own terms. This was more so because Mohun Bagan played barefeet and still managed to outclass booted regimental teams. The nineteenth century colonial construction of Bengali effeminacy was thus subverted in the context of football’s cultural indigenisation in Bengal. The depiction of the victory in racist terms was not, of course, uniform in the contemporary press. Though both English and vernacular press reports alluded to the event as having nationalist and political significance, they differ strongly on the question of its racist implications. The Anglo-Indian press – the European-owned newspapers – while handing out accolades to Mohun Bagan for the victory, strongly denied any racist implication in the adulation. The Reuters News Agency in its cablegram to England commented: ‘The absence of all racial spirit was noted. The European spectators were good humoured and the Bengalees cheered the loosing team.’[35] Similarly, the Basumati affirmed: ‘They are greatly mistaken who seem to find race antagonism in this national victory. Race-antagonism had nothing to do with it. There is nothing of meanness in the tide of patriotism that had rushed into the silted-up life stream of the Bengali.’[36] The Telegraph, too, sang from the same hymnbook: ‘the victory of the former was well taken by the English population of Calcutta … this is as it should have been for it was a fair contest, fairly and gallantly fought on both sides in a friendly spirit, without anything like race-hatred and rancour finding any place in the hearts of the combatants’.[37] Most of these newspapers highlighted the English quality of ‘magnanimous equanimity’[38] even in the face of defeat and urged the Bengalis to show gratitude to their masters for providing this rare opportunity to better them.[39] The Anglo-Indian press certainly showered praise on the victorious Mohun Bagan team. Nevertheless, the defeat produced, it appears in hindsight, widespread European dejection. It was reported in one vernacular newspaper that in the immediate aftermath

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 29

of the match the European parts of the city wore a dark and deserted look reflecting something mournful.[40] The Englishman, too, reported that the ‘Saheb’ localities of Calcutta were engulfed by gloom after the defeat.[41] Some Europeans, however, appeared to respond with bitterness. The humorist of the Hitavadi, writing under the nom-de-plume of ‘an old man’ reported that, ‘On the semi-final day, when an Englishman and a native Christian were traveling together in the same railway compartment, the latter, in all innocence, enquired of his companion the result of the day’s contest, to which the only reply he received was a slap on the cheek’.[42] There were reports galore in contemporary newspapers that point to a consistent attempt on their part to valorize the Mohun Bagan victory as a triumph of Bengali physical prowess over that of the Europeans and thereby dispel doubts about the effeminacy of the Bengali race. The Amrita Bazar Patrika pointed out that mental and physical strength was ‘an integral quality of the Bengalees’ and urged the Europeans not to consider them ‘non-martial’ any more. The newspaper also drew the attention of the Government to this victory and asked the Government to do something ‘to give full play to the development of the physical prowess of its countrymen’.[43] The Mussalman’s comment too was revealing, ‘The victory of Mohun Bagan … has demonstrated that Indians are second to none in all manly games’.[44] The Nayak appreciated the unique feat of the Mohun Bagan team in particular and the Bengali race in general. It pointed out that this victory would fill ‘every Indian with joy and pride to know that rice-eating, malaria-ridden bare-footed Bengalis have got the better of beef-eating, Herculean, booted John Bull in that peculiarly English sport’.[45] The paper acknowledged that the ‘Bengalis have proved themselves to be possessed of uncommon power of success in every department of life’.[46] The joyful and proud celebrations of the Bengalis in the streets of Calcutta and its suburbs seemed understandable and befitting in the light of this famous victory. The Times of India Illustrated Weekly had noted just before the final: On Thursday and Friday every Bengalee carried his head high and the one theme of conversation in the tramcars, in offices and in those places where the Babus congregate most, was the rout of the King’s soldiers in boots and shoes by barefooted Bengali lads.[47]

Social Impact of the Victory The 1911 victory proved to be of immense significance towards the popularization of soccer in the Indian subcontinent. The victory and its immediate social aftermath point to the game’s importance as a potential bond of social unity and communal amity in Bengal. Post 1911, football was looked upon as a cultural idiom and Mohun Bagan as a cultural institution capable of challenging British hegemony. Football, a common language of the Bengali people irrespective of class, caste, creed, community or religion, thus introduced a unique means of cultural self-expression in contemporary society. The gathering of massive crowds on the days of the semi-final and final pointed to football’s new social role as a mass mobilizer. Although most people had very little idea about the game, what brought them to the maidan was ‘a sense of oneness, a feeling of

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concern aroused for a fellow team pitted against the British Regimental teams in an unequal competition for strength’.[48] The Mohun Bagan victory also resulted in communal amity. When the victory procession of the team was on its way to the Thanthania Kali Temple in North Calcutta, the Muslims rushed to Dharmatala with a band party to join the procession. In fact, they even led the rally beating drums and other musical instruments. Commenting on the victory, The Mussalman declared: ‘although Mohun Bagan was a team composed of Bengali Hindus, the jubilation in consequence of its success was in fact a sense of universal joy, which pervaded the feeling of the Hindus, the Mohammadans and the Christians alike. The members of the Muslim Sporting Club were almost mad and rolling on the ground with joyous excitement on the victory of their Hindu brethren.’[49] Another Muslim journal, The Comrade, of which Maulana Mohammed Ali was the founder editor, stated, ‘We hereby join the chorus of praise and jubilation over the victory of Mohun Bagan. The team did remarkably well throughout the tournament and won the Shield by sheer merit.’[50] Recounting Mohun Bagan’s status as a team dear to both communities, Achintya Kumar Sengupta wrote: Till then communalism had not entered the sports-field. Mohun Bagan then belonged to both the Hindu and the Muslim. The green galleries that burnt in the football stadium of Calcutta that day carried the mark of both Hindu and Muslim hands. One brought the petrol and the other the match.[51]

More important, however, was the impact of the triumph on social power relations in contemporary Calcutta. During the two decades that preceded the event, Bengali football clubs failed to display the unity necessary to fight British discrimination on the sports field. With the growing number of Bengali clubs, unfortunate trends of jealousy, conflict and humiliation raised heads over questions of control, organization and competition. Mohun Bagan, especially, had to bear the brunt of jealousy and anguish of other Bengali outfits during its early years of success. When the club obtained a plot of land and a tent on the maidan, the Bagbazar Club resorted to the age-old doggerel: ‘Ants fly only to die’.[52] When Mohun Bagan secured entry into the IFA Shield in 1909, previous Indian participants like Sovabazar, Town, Chinsurah Sporting and Hare Sporting sneered at her progress and began to ridicule the club when it lost 0–3 to Gordon Highlanders in the second round. They even distributed handbills full of derogatory remarks about the club’s efforts among the sporting public of Calcutta.[53] This selfish and uncompromising attitude of Indian clubs on the eve of the 1911 IFA Shield illustrates the divisive and competitive nature of social power relations – a unique feature of contemporary Calcutta urban society. In this sense, elite conflict or daladali[54] came to be reflected in the organization and maintenance of Calcutta’s Bengali football clubs, a point ignored in the social histories of modern India. Mohun Bagan reacted to this insult in great style when it lifted the Shield in 1911. This victory, however, radically altered the power equation in Calcutta’s footballing society. It acted as a great leveller for all people associated with the game. The new status of Mohun Bagan as a national sporting institution wiped out all previous trends of jealousy and ill feeling among Bengali clubs of the province. The club became an emblem of a unitary social identity. The victory also inspired other Bengali clubs to

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 31

fight spiritedly against the colonizers on the sporting fields of Calcutta. Mohun Bagan, however, remained for the next two decades the undisputed leader in this cultural battle. Again, the psychological and moral impact of the event in Bengali society is overlooked in prevalent interpretations. The win certainly ‘played a vital role in injecting confidence in the ‘native’ and disproving the invincibility of the British race’.[55] But what is completely ignored is the moral impact of the victory on the social psyche of the Bengali people. Mohun Bagan’s success gave birth to a redefined status of the game in society. Public image of players, club members and spectators underwent a dramatic change overnight. It led to a rise in the social respectability of the footballing public and provided momentum for the emergence of many new clubs all over Bengal. Football began to be identified with something akin to fighting the colonial masters. The game was henceforth preferred by Bengali parents and guardians as a viable means for the youth to associate with nationalist activism and show anti-colonial resentment, rather than to indulge in Swadeshi or revolutionary activities, which ran the risk of intimidation, repression and even death. Cultural Significance of 1911 1911 also sent ripples through the cultural world of colonial Calcutta. The most enduring effect was felt in the field of sports journalism. The historic final stimulated what was then a novel kind of journalistic enterprise.[56] The entire tournament, especially Mohun Bagan’s winning run, was covered widely by the leading newspapers of Bengal[57] while the final accounted for a massive usage of newsprint in newspapers from other Indian states and abroad.[58] The event, as suggested earlier, provided a real boost to the development of vernacular sports journalism in Bengal. The day-to-day build-up to the final reversed the pre-1911 insignificance of football reporting in the sports pages of the contemporary press. In the aftermath of the victory was born a new genre of nationalist sports journalism. In fact, the discrepancy between English and vernacular reports on the significance of the victory in 1911 ‘lay at the root of a concerted move on the part of the Bengali intelligentsia to establish Bengali sports journalism on a firm footing from the 1930s’.[59] Press reports after the final clearly show that sports pages of newspapers had become divided on nationalist and imperialist lines.[60] Tony Mason, using English newspaper reports published in the aftermath of the event, has argued that while it was clearly indicative of native sporting prowess in a colonial sport, it was also reflective of the success of the imperial mission behind promoting these sports in the colonies. He sees the victory as a success story of ‘cultural imperialism’,[61] a fruition of the colonial endeavour in spreading to the colony sports deemed essential for character building in Britain. That it was symbolic of a nationalist awakening against colonial policies and practices hardly finds mention in the writings of Mason.[62] His views seem justified when the reports published in the English press are taken into account. Such understanding, however, undergoes a radical revision when vernacular sources are referred to.

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The victory celebrations in the vernacular brought in their wake poems and songs nationalist in tone. In describing the build-up to the final, noted sports journalist Rupak Saha states that the contest was clearly accorded a racist overtone. According to him, some of the players of the Mohun Bagan Club together with a few of its administrators had links with revolutionary terrorist societies of Bengal.[63] The nationalist connotation attached to the Mohun Bagan performance is evinced from the following interaction that had taken place at the house of Bhupendranath Basu, the President of the Club, after Mohun Bagan had qualified for the quarter-finals of the tournament. Krishnakumar Mitra, a noted moderate politician had ridiculed Jadupati Chatterji’s assertion saying that failure in the mutiny of 1857 was proof enough that a flaunt of armed strength was not enough to dislodge the English. He also asserted that such actions would only lead to the loss of innocent lives. Sighting the case of Khudiram Basu, he went on to emphasize that a similar plight could have confronted Aurobindo Ghose had it not been for Chittaranjan Das. Surrounded by other like-minded men, the comment seemed to evoke considerable support from the gathering. Jadupati not upset in the least stunned everyone present by stating that if the Russians could be humbled by Japan why couldn’t the Indians achieve a similar feat against the British? He stated that Mohun Bagan’s victories against English sides amidst all odds were proof enough that the Indians were capable of similar feats. Finding that his statements had attracted the attention of many he went on to declare ‘those who go to see the matches – they do this simply to see English sides humbled by the natives. It is this result that pleases them to a level hitherto unmatched by any political rally or meeting.[64]

Echoing similar sentiments, Santipriya Bandyopadhyay argues that the news of Mohun Bagan’s win in the semi finals had spread like fire in the province. It resulted in the generation of an unparalleled interest in soccer in colonial Bengal.[65] People from all parts of the province and some even from other states had come to Calcutta to watch the final encounter. All other activities had become secondary in this state of euphoria. Offices and shops owned by Indians were closed on the day of the final. Prayers were offered all round the city in the hope of a native victory. They were all inspired by a dream – the ambition of defeating the English at their own game. Failing to challenge British supremacy in the political sphere, the sporting field had suddenly emerged as the site for a struggle for supremacy. The sight of Sahibs losing to the Bengalis, men often denigrated as ‘niggers’, evoked untold satisfaction. Writing of the victory on the occasion of the Club’s centenary in 1989–90 Kamalendu Sarkar argues, ‘Mohun Bagan was then no ordinary football team. It was a symbol of Black resurgence against the repressive White regime.’[66] He compared the victory to an Indian revival in Bengal, following the ignominy of defeat on the fields of Plassey. Finally, commenting on this victory Charuchandra Mitra writes that in the early 1880s the English were supportive of native efforts to play soccer. This attitude, however, underwent a transformation following the attainment of native sporting prowess. Upon realizing that the natives had become capable of defeating the British, the leading English sides, Calcutta FC and Dalhousie, refused to play against Indian teams. Discrimination reached a height when Indian sides were barred from competing in the major tournaments of the day. Mohun Bagan’s victory, Mitra asserts, was a befitting

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 33

reply to the English policy of discrimination.[67] Even Bengali periodicals, which had hitherto attached little importance to sport, began to accord football considerable significance.[68] It was this discrepancy between English and vernacular reports that lay at the root of a concerted move on the part of the Bengali intelligentsia to establish Bengali sports journalism on a firm footing from the1930s. Commenting on the origins of sports journalism in Bengali, Brajaranjan Ray writes, In the early years of the twentieth century English dailies only reported the feats of leading white and Anglo Indian sportsmen. Even when Indians/Bengalis achieved similar feats they were not given any importance in the English dailies. In many cases such feats went unreported. This was more so if the natives were from the rural areas. Despite having achieved success in sport in my student days, I could not pursue a career in sport in the absence of incentives and support. This absence had dampened my spirit and had forced me to give up all kinds of sporting activity. Even when I displayed my talents in the sporting fields of Calcutta, I found to my utter surprise that my feats were reported as those of an Anglo-Indian. My name was changed into an Anglo-Indian name and thereby native achievement in the sporting field went unnoticed. The Amrita Bazar Patrika was the only daily that made attempts to report native sporting feats. But it was unable, due to financial constraints, to compete with its rivals, the Statesman and the Englishman, which recruited sports journalists from Britain.[69]

This led him to take up the job of sports journalist for the Anandabazar Patrika in the late 1920s, though remuneration was nominal. His incentive was to inspire among the natives a love for ‘manly’ sports, which would lead to increased native participation in course of time. The literary world of Calcutta, however, remained somewhat indifferent to the victory. Although victory celebrations brought in their wake poems and songs[70] nationalist in tone, the victory could not excite eminent litterateurs of the age including Rabindranath Tagore and Satyendranath Dutta to write anything about it. However, a rich genre of Bengali sporting literature[71] has cropped up around Mohun Bagan’s historic victory in post-independence Bengal. The reception of the victory and its immediate impact on the cultural world remains an unnoticed phenomenon to date. Emotional outbursts and cultural effusion characterized the post-victory reaction. The prize-giving ceremony after the final was followed by an impressive victory procession through the heart of the city with women blowing conch shells and showering flowers. The procession ended at the Club Secretary’s house at Shyambazar where celebrations continued throughout the night with a public banquet, magic show and musical performances. The Adi Arya Saraswat Samaj staged an open show of their contemporary theatre ‘Vismavijaya’ in honour of the club.[72] The Club soon began to receive offers of felicitations from numerous quarters. It was but natural that supporters and admirers of the Club would have wanted to honour the players and requests to that effect, both directly to the Club and through the press, were not few. The Times of India invited the Club to play a friendly match with the Harwood League champions in Bombay to promote football. There were

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those who offered to send the team to England at their own expense.[73] But the Club, while appreciating the enthusiasm, was unwilling to accept such offers. In fact, it did not entertain the idea of being lionized for a victory. Even so, requests were persistent. In the end, S.N. Bose, the Honorary Secretary and one of the chief architects of the Club, wrote to The Statesman to the effect: it is the decision of the Management of the Club that it is not desirable to make a fuss over last Saturday’s success, as the Club in general and the players in particular look upon it as the result of practice and study of the science of the game under the guidance and with the help of their numerous friends both European and Indian.[74]

Despite the sentiments expressed by the Club Management, invitations continued to pour in from all quarters and at last the Club had to accept a few that included ones from Mr Eardley Norton, Barrister-at-Law and from Dr Thornhill, Chief Judge of Small Causes Court.[75] A rumour, though baseless, had spread suggesting that Mohun Bagan players would receive precious monetary rewards from the Indian princes. The Amrita Bazar Patrika even conducted an enquiry into the potential of such rewards in their columns.[76] On a similar vein, The Bengalee had started collecting contributions from people to offer substantial monetary rewards to the players. This venture, however, was aborted when the club voiced strong sentiments against it.[77] Numerous proposals were mooted to greet the victorious team. One such proposal desired to start a competitive football tournament in the name ‘Mohun Bagan Challenge Shield’. The replica of the eleven players of the victorious team was to be engraved in the middle of the shield. Another proposal offered to name a ‘great recreation park’ in north Calcutta the ‘Mohun Bagan’ Park. A group of North Calcutta intelligentsia also suggested arranging a grand public reception at the Town Hall to honour the Club and install a group photograph of the eleven players who played the final. Commercial Implications of the Victory Commercial importance of the victory has been no less fascinating. Black marketing of tickets may be said to have begun with the historic IFA Shield final of 1911. As an Allahabad-based newspaper noted, the demand for tickets was such that a two-rupee ticket fetched as much as fifteen.[78] The commercial world of Calcutta too could not remain unaffected. Calcutta-based businessmen and commercial firms widely used the magic of the Club’s name as a brand to promote their businesses. The Standard Cycle Company (59, Harrison Road) distributed halftone photographs of the victorious team in collaboration with the Amrita Bazar Patrika with the latter’s issues on 31 July 1911. The firm later distributed a further 1,000 photographs from their shop. Messrs. Hald & Chat (79, Ahiritolla Street), the leading dealers in musical instruments in Calcutta, declared on the occasion of an Indian team’s Shield victory to offer their harmoniums at 10 per cent discount for two months. Messrs. S. Roy & Co., another renowned Calcutta firm of sports goods, offered footballs at a cheaper rate from twelve rupees to four to encourage the youth to play football and thereby get a chance to play for Mohun Bagan. In fact, the sports goods industry received a major fillip from Mohun Bagan’s

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 35

success. The most attractive commercial utilization of Mohun Bagan’s victory was accomplished by the Great National Theatre (9/3, Beadon Street) that advertised its latest production ‘Baji Rao’ with the by-line: ‘Mohun Bagan has won the Shield! Baji Rao has gained the victory’.[79] The commercial implications of 1911 clearly point to the sound business sense of Bengali entrepreneurs to utilize the potential of a sporting success even under colonial rule. This equation of sporting success and commercialism again became operative after a break of more than two decades when commercial concerns began to use individual players of Calcutta League leaders Mohammadan Sporting Club and their rival the East Bengal Club for endorsements.[80] This trend of commercialization of sport in the first half of the twentieth century in Bengal disproves the existing notion that commercialization of Indian soccer is a 1980s phenomenon.[81] Moreover, it also challenges the conventional contours of economic history of colonial India, which regard sport as unimportant, as mere leisure or entertainment pursuit. The Final Position Mohun Bagan’s historic Shield victory had thus not only transformed football into an inseparable part of Bengali popular culture, but in the aftermath of the victory, soccer came to represent a novel nationalist idiom for the Bengali people. Its effects played a vital role in infusing self-confidence into depressed Bengali hearts. A reconstruction of the historical significance of Mohun Bagan’s victory, as has been attempted in this essay, brings to light the importance of colonial sport as a cultural and political tool, social instrument and economic force. As was evident, for a mature appreciation of these implications of 1911, both English and vernacular sources need to be analysed in the context of contemporary social and political realities. In the unmasking of the character and pattern of footballing nationalism in the wake of this win, one is also struck by the apparent invisibility of a large section of nationalist Bengali working men and students who could freely express their pent-up anti-British nationalist sentiments on the maidan through specific cultural acts. The racist implications of the victory on the other hand need not be over dramatized. But the importance of the racist factor in the context of post-victory jubilations should not be overlooked either. The English press reports strongly denied any racist overtone in the victory celebrations that followed. But vernacular reports, as well as the series of discriminatory measures meted out to the Bengali clubs in general and Mohun Bagan in particular after 1911, radically challenged this view. Finally, the moral and psychological impact of the victory takes us to a more crucial aspect of football’s growing significance in Bengal after 1911. The Mohun Bagan victory contributed to football’s intensive massification not only as a unique cultural identity, but also as a unitary social force, and transformed its status from a relatively unimportant leisure pastime to an important cultural institution with redefined socio-political meanings. Despite relative neglect of the event in contemporary Bengali literature, 1911 has thus become an immortal and momentous event in the social history of Indian sport.

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Notes [1] European scholars who have worked at length on Calcutta football are Tony Mason and Paul Dimeo. [2] For an instructive analysis of the concept of imperial games ethic, see J.A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1998). [3] This group of Indian historians include Soumen Mitra and Moti Nandy. [4] The Swadeshi movement was launched in Bengal to protest against Lord Curzon’s decision to partition Bengal in 1905. Since then, Swadeshi became synonymous with a spirit of patriotism all over India. [5] Soumen Mitra, ‘Babu at Play: Sporting Nationalism in Bengal: A Study of Football in Bengal, 1880–1911’, in Nisith Roy and Ranjit Roy (eds), Bengal: Yesterday and Today (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1991), pp.45–61. This article was actually an outcome of his M. Phil dissertation entitled ‘Nationalism, Communalism and Sub-regionalism: A Study of Football in Bengal, 1880–1950’, submitted to the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1988. [6] Mitra, ‘Babu at Play’, pp.56–7. [7] Tony Mason, ‘Football on the Maidan: Cultural Imperialism in Calcutta’, in J.A. Mangan (ed.), The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society (London: Frank Cass, 1992), pp.142–53. [8] Ibid., pp.150–1. [9] Paul Dimeo, ‘Football and Politics in Bengal: Colonialism, Nationalism, Communalism’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp.57–74. Also see Paul Dimeo, ‘Colonial Bodies, Colonial Sport: “Martial” Punjabis, “Effeminate” Bengalis and the Development of Indian Football’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 19, 1 (March 2002), 72–90. [10] Dimeo, ‘Football and Politics in Bengal’, p.69. [11] Ibid., p.71. [12] Kausik Bandyopadhyay, ‘Race, Nation and Sport: Footballing Nationalism in Colonial Calcutta’, Soccer and Society, 4, 1 (2003), 1–19; Kausik Bandyopadhyay ‘Unis sho Egaro – Fire Dekha: Samajik Itihaser Prekhhite Ekti Krira Bijoyer Tatparjer Punornirman’, in Aniruddha Roy (ed.), Itihas Anusandhan-18 (Calcutta: Firma KLM, 2002), pp.665–75. Also see Boria Majumdar, ‘The Vernacular in Sports History’, Economic and Political Weekly, 37, 29 (20 July 2002), 3069–75. [13] Bandyopadhyay, ‘Race, Nation and Sport’, 9–12. [14] Ibid. [15] Majumdar, ‘The Vernacular in Sports History’, 3072. [16] Ibid. [17] Dimeo admits ‘by 1911 football had been embraced by Indians as an activity with far broader social and cultural meanings than that of simply a pastime activity’. Dimeo, ‘Football and Politics in Bengal’, p.69. [18] Jaydeep Basu, Stories from Indian Football (New Delhi: UBSPD, 2003), pp.1–16. [19] Ibid., p.14. [20] Newspapers that stressed ‘Bengali’ identity were Amrita Bazar Patrika, Nayak, Times of India Illustrated Weekly and Basumati. On the other hand, London Reuter, The Englishman and The Mussalman reckoned the victory to be an ‘Indian’ one. [21] For an instructive narrative of this mass awakening-like situation on the eve of the final, see Kausik Bandyopadhyay, ‘Das Bidroho’, Robibasariyo, Ananda Bazar Patrika, 25 Aug. 2002. [22] The great mountain range that borders the Indian subcontinent in the north. [23] Achintya Kumar Sengupta, Kallol Yug (Calcutta: S.C. Sircar & Sons, 1357 B.S., 1950), p.66. [24] The Englishman, 31 July 1911. [25] Basumati, 5 Aug. 1911.

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 37 [26] Moti Nandy, ‘Football and Nationalism’, in Geeti Sen (ed.), The Calcutta Psyche (New Delhi: India International Centre, 1990–91), p.243. For the most recent consideration of Ranji’s cricketing prowess and its relations to his political ambition, see Mario Rodrigues, Batting for the Empire: A Political Biography of Ranjitsinhji (New Delhi: Penguin, 2003) as well as its review by Boria Majumdar, ‘On a Political Pitch’, Biblio – A Review of Books, 8, 7–8 (2003), 21–2. [27] The Singapore Free Press correspondent reported the crowd to be near 1,000,000; while The Manchester Guardian noted that the crowd amounted to at least 80,000. The Statesman, on the other hand, claimed it to be between 50,000 and 60,000. [28] Quoted in Mohun Bagan Platinum Jubilee Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohun Bagan A.C., 1964), pp.17–25 (hereafter Mohun Bagan Souvenir). [29] This stereotype of the effeminate Bengali as a ‘race’ found most prolific expression, as suggested in this essay, in Thomas Macaulay’s critique. For details see Thomas Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays (London, 1843), Vol 3, p.56. Again, G.W. Steevens, a British journalist, wrote in 1899: ‘By his legs you shall know the Bengali. The leg of a free man is straight or a little bandy, so that he can stand on it solidly … The Bengali’s leg is either skin and bones; the same size all the way down, with knocking knobs for knees, or else it is very fat or globular, also turning in at the knees, with round thighs like a woman’s. The Bengali’s leg is the leg of a slave.’ Cited by I. Chowdhury-Sengupta, ‘The Effeminate and the Masculine: Nationalism and the Concept of Race in Colonial Bengal’, in Peter Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p.298. [30] John Strachey, India: Its Administration and Progress (London: Macmillan and Company, 1911 [first published 1888]), pp.449–50. [31] Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The Manly Englishman and the Effeminate Bengali in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). [32] Ibid., p.15. [33] Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand, Great Anarch! India: 1921–1952 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987). Subhas Chandra Bose, too, depicts a neat picture of this daily British racial discrimination against the Indians in his unfinished autobiography An Indian Pilgrim: An Unfinished Autobiography and Collected Letters, 1897–1921 (London: Asia Publishing House [ed. by Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta], 1965), pp.22–3, 64–6. [34] Subhas Chandra Bose succinctly sums up the essence of this ‘reverse hit’: In conflicts of an inter-racial character the law was of no avail to Indians. The result was that after some time Indians, failing to secure any other remedy, began to hit back. On the streets, in the tram-cars, in the railway trains, Indians would no longer take things lying down. The effect was instantaneous. Everywhere the Indian began to be treated with consideration. Then the word went around that the Englishman understands and respects physical force and nothing else.’ Bose, An Indian Pilgrim, pp.65–6. [35] Reuter News Agency’s cablegram to England on Mohun Bagan’s success on 30 July 1911, quoted in Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.17. [36] Basumati, 5 Aug. 1911. [37] The Telegraph, 5 Aug. 1911. [38] Nayak, 30 July 1911. [39] Indian Mirror, 30 July 1911. [40] For a lively narrative of this situation, see Paresh Nandy, Mohunbagan 1911, (Calcutta: Karuna Prakashani, 1976), pp.3–4, 132. Also see Amrita Bazar Patrika, 30 July 1911. [41] The Englishman, 31 July 1911. [42] Report on the Native Newspapers in Bengal for the weeks ending 5th and 12th Aug. 1911. Available in microfilms in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. [43] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 31 July 1911.

38

[44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54]

[55] [56] [57]

[58]

[59] [60]

[61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66]

[67] [68]

[69]

A Social History of Indian Football Quoted in Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.25. Nayak, 30 July 1911. Ibid., 4 Aug. 1911. Cited by Mitra, ‘Babu at Play’, p.54. Ibid., p.56. Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.25. Ibid. Sengupta, Kallol Yug, p.66. Santipriya Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam Mohun Bagan (Calcutta: New Bengal Press, 1979), p.45. Ibid., p.53. S.N. Mukherjee has elaborated on the nature and forms of ‘daladali’ in nineteenth-century Calcutta in his Calcutta: Myths and History (Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 1977), pp.60–85. However, he does not take into consideration the sporting dimensions of this particular conflict in his work. Mitra, ‘Babu at Play’, p.59. Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.25. Almost all the Newspapers published from Bengal covered the tournament. To mention a few: Amrita Bazar Patrika, The Statesman, The Englishman, The Telegraph, Nayak, Hitavadi, Basumati, The Mussalman, Comrade, The Empire, Bengalee and Bandemataram were the most important. The reports of The Pioneer of Allahabad and The Times of India Illustrated Weekly of Bombay testify to the immediate impact of the event on sports journalism in other Indian states. Among foreign press reports worthy of mention are the Reuters News Agency, Daily Mail, Manchester Guardian, London Times and The Singapore Free Press. Majumdar, ‘The Vernacular in Sports History’, p.3073. The Amrita Bazar Patrika, Bengalee, Bandemataram, Manasi, Prabasi and Hitavadi reflected the nationalist ethos of the sports-page. Gajen Mallick, the renowned sports-journalist of The Amrita Bazar Patrika was the most fervent protagonist of this nationalist spirit. British-owned newspapers like The Englishman, The Empire, The Statesman, Nayak and Basumati on the other hand represented the imperial line of sports-reporting. Mason, ‘Football on the Maidan’. Ibid. Rupak Saha, Ekadase Surjodoy (Calcutta: Karuna Prakashani, 1990). Ibid., pp.26–8 Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam Mohun Bagan. Kamalendu Sarkar, ‘Shield Joy aitihasik’, in Mohun Bagan Pratham eksha Bachar, Anandabazar Patrika, 24 Nov. 1990, This special supplement published on the occasion of the centenary of the Club also contains a series of articles that celebrates the victory of 1911. Manasi, August 1911. Bengali periodicals like Probasi, Manasi and Masik Basumati started to publish pieces on sports matters after 1911. Two new Bengali periodicals, viz. Balok and Bharatvarsha which emerged respectively in 1912 and 1913, used to have regular columns on sports especially football from their first issues. Brajaranjan Ray, Banglay Krida Sangbadikatar Adiparba, unpublished. In this piece he describes in detail the hazards of sports journalism in Bengali. The lack of finances, the lack of co-operation from the English language dailies and the apathy among the native entrepreneurs were major obstacles that he had had to overcome. In the initial stages he worked without a salary and only a few years later did he start earning from this profession. He also narrates how difficult it was to coin terms to report on sport in Bengali. For this purpose he had even met Rabindranath Tagore who advised him not to bother much about terminology.

1911: A Revisionist Perspective 39 [70] One such poem published in The Bengalee on 31 July 1911 is as follows: Thanks my friends of football renown, For bringing the British teams down. A victory grand to behold Serene and noble – bright and bold The Mohan-bagans. A captivating popular song composed by Karunanidhan Bandopadhyay was published in the September-October (corresponding to Bengali month of Aswin) 1911 issue of Manasi. The first few lines of the song go like this: Jegechhe aaj desher chhele pathe loker bhir (The sons of the soil have awaken: the streets are crowded) Antapure futlo hasi Banga rupasir (The Bengali women have broken out in smiles) Goal diyechhe gorar gole Bangalir aaj jit (We have scored against the whites; it’s a triumph of the Bengalis) Akash chheye uthchhe udhao unmadonar geet. (The air is filled with songs of rejoicing) Aajikar ei bijoy bani bhulbe na ko desh (The motherland will never forget today’s victory) Sabash sabash Mohun Bagan khelechho bhai besh (Hail! Hail! Mohun Bagan; you have played very well).

[71]

[72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80]

[81]

For a translated version of the full poem, see Majumdar, ‘The Vernacular in Sports History’, p.3074. Most notable contributions in this regard are: Paresh Nandy, Mohunbagan 1911 (Calcutta: Karuna Prakashani, 1976); Sibram Kumar (ed.), Mohunbagan Omnibus (Calcutta: Prabhabati Prakashani, 1983); Santipriya Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam Mohun Bagan; Jayanta Dutta, Victorious Mohunbagan (Calcutta: Sahitya Prakash, 1979); Karuna Sankar Bhattacharyya, Videshe Mohunbagan (Calcutta: Prabartak, 1964); Rupak Saha (ed.), ‘Mohunbagan: Prathom Eksho Bachhar’, in Ananda Bazar Patrika, 24 and 28 Nov. 1990; Saha, Ekadase Surjodoy. Nandy, Mohunbagan 1911, p.149. Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.27. The Statesman, 2 Aug. 1911. The newspaper appreciated Mr Bose’s point of view in its editorial paragraph on 3 Aug. 1911. Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.27. Ramesh Ghoshal, ‘Calcutta’s Frenetic Night of History: Soccer Victory that Galvanised a Nation’, Mohun Bagan Souvenir, p.204. Ibid., pp.204–5. The Pioneer, 31 July 1911. Mohun Bagan Club Records. See also Nandy, Mohunbagan 1911, pp.149–50 and Ghoshal, ‘Calcutta’s Frenetic Night of History’, p.205. In 1939, the Indian Tea Market Expansion Board used Jumma Khan, a Mohammaden Sporting fullback, to endorse their product. The advertisement was published in The Statesman, 31 July 1939. Similarly, P. Chakraborty, an East Bengal player, was used by the same concern in 1948 in the inside page of Satya Kumar Roy (ed.), Illustrated Olympic Number: Indian Footballers, n.d. Commercialization of Indian soccer since the 1980s has been dealt with in the essays ‘A Sporting Colony of Growing Global Capital’ and ‘Looking Beyond the Sleeping Giant Syndrome’, this issue.

Race, Nation and Performance: Footballing Nationalism in Colonial India 2000000June/September /3 Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106337 FSAS110616.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 62005 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Sport as Cultural Nationalism ‘National liberation is necessarily an act of culture.’ Amilcar Cabral[1]

In the modern world sport in its political implications is perhaps more significant than sport as an integral component of leisure. Colonial India was no exception to this rule. British imperialism in India was not merely a political or economic venture; it was more a social and cultural one. Anti-colonial Indian nationalism, too, in the same vein, was not simply political in origin or character. Rather, sociocultural nationalism may be said to have predated its political variety. An atypical representation of such unconventional cultural nationalism[2] was reflected through the Indian pursuit of football as an everyday cultural activity in late-colonial India, especially in Bengal. In the early twentieth century, as demonstrated in the previous essay, football became the rallying point of Indian anti-colonial consciousness and an instrument by which to establish oriental superiority over the occidental imperialist. Thus, the Indian cultural battle against the British on the football maidan went hand in hand with confrontational political nationalism against the colonial government. Each victory of an Indian team over a European military team was celebrated as a triumph of the noble spirit of nationalism over the ignoble spirit of colonialism. Such victories and their psycho-nationalistic impact played a vital role in infusing confidence into Indian hearts by demolishing the myth of invincibility of the Raj. The articulation of this footballing nationalism in its entire vicissitude was visible in the football maidan of late colonial India. The massification of Indian football and the sub-cultures that grew out of it gradually came to be intertwined with the rising tide of nationalism. By 1947, the year India won independence, football was not only the most popular of Indian sports but also an inescapable part of Indian popular culture. This essay seeks to explain how football as a mass-spectator sport came to represent an unconventional type of cultural nationalism in colonial India against the background of strong anti-colonial nationalist feeling and in a time of comparatively high sociopolitical tension. It also seeks to analyse the character, pattern and forms of this nationalism.

Race, Nation and Performance 41

Racism and Imperialism at Play In tracing the roots, forms and character of Indian cultural nationalism on the playing field, it is of value to examine the dialectic between a colonial set-up imposing a wide array of constraints on the cultural regeneration of a colonized people, and an exceptionally gifted band of Indian players continually encouraged by thousands of die-hard spectators but struggling against the odds to establish the credibility of the indigenous involvement in the game. While some British officials and missionaries took the game to the locals, many others organized it so as to exclude them, using ‘sport as a means of establishing “Indian” separateness or inferiority and of offering British-style strategies for improvement’.[3] Thus the British did not ignore the sports field in their efforts to assert imperial hegemony and racist discrimination, and imposed over-arching constraints on the organization and control of the game. Since football’s inception in Calcutta as an organized sport, the British had owned, managed and dominated the game. Like other walks of socio-political life, in sport, they followed a systematic policy of discrimination against Bengali clubs. This practice began with the IFA which, from its foundation in 1893, was completely non-Indian. An Indian had been recruited as Joint Secretary at the turn of the century but he was nothing better than the European Honorary Secretary’s ‘personal clerk’. The affiliated clubs were classified as European and Indian, the former enjoying predominance on the IFA Governing Body and in the Council. The Indian teams always felt cornered and suffered numerous disadvantages at the hands of the European majority in the first four decades. On the other hand, Bengali teams were allowed limited participation in the IFA Shield from its inception to maintain its ‘open’ character in comparison to tournaments such as the Durand Cup (Simla) and the Rovers Cup (Bombay) that remained totally confined to, and dominated by, British Regimental teams until the mid-1920s. Membership of the IFA League from its start (1898) was denied to Bengali clubs and the same was true of the Second Division, which was added to the League in 1904. The Calcutta Football League remained a more or less ‘white’ competition until 1914 when only two Bengali teams were allowed to join. Even in the so-called open IFA Shield tournament, Bengali teams other than Sovabazar had a restricted entry. The Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Raja Rajendranarayan Bhup Bahadur, aggrieved over the proscription of Indian teams, organized an open football tournament called the Cooch Behar Cup. Besides a few open tournaments, apartheid was implemented through institution of separate tournaments. At college level, the British introduced two tournaments – the Cadet Cup for European and Anglo-Indian students and the Elliot Shield for Indian students. It was Mohun Bagan who reacted to this repressive sporting imperialism in style. The injured self-esteem of Bengali club-officials, players and spectators found ready expression in the determined struggle of Mohun Bagan against European sides on the football field. It is important to note that Mohun Bagan’s entry into the IFA Shield was unbelievably hard-earned. However, the real force of European discrimination against the Bengali teams commenced after the shock-victory of Mohun Bagan in 1911. Surprisingly the series of discriminations in the aftermath of Mohun Bagan victory

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mostly go unnoticed in the writings of European scholars such as Mason and Dimeo. In the 1912 competition, the European referee of Mohun Bagan’s first round match against Calcutta Football Club (CFC) disqualified two genuine Bagan goals on grounds of off-side.[4] Well-known historian Hiren Mukherjee recorded an unhappy incident involving Mohun Bagan in 1923, when the club was forced by the referee to play in impossible monsoon conditions and lost the IFA Shield to CFC in 1923 by three goals to nil.[5] The Bengalis firmly believed that biased refereeing was frequently to blame for defeats. Bengali views about the football injustices in the 1920s and 1930s are made explicit in Achintya Kumar Sengupta’s autobiographical Kallol Yug: In those days, the ruling British had a monopoly over referees and obdurate referees repeatedly caused trouble for Mohun Bagan. An indisputable goal by Mohun Bagan – and the whistle blows for offside. The CFC is guilty of a foul – it is ignored or blamed on Mohun Bagan. When there is no other way to undermine Mohun Bagan, like a bolt from the blue, without a warning, comes a penalty charge.[6]

A concession was made to the Bengali teams in 1914 allowing participation in the Second Division League to two teams, Mohun Bagan and Aryan. It was, however, ruled that even if promotion were won, not more than two native sides would be accommodated in the First Division League. Mohun Bagan earned a promotion in 1915 and Aryan the next year. But even when Kumartuli qualified for the First Division for the next three years, and in 1919 was the first Indian team to win a League championship, the First Division remained barred to them. Kumartuli’s enthusiasm was sustained until the following year when they qualified for the IFA Shield final. However, on this occasion, they were victims of racial discrimination. Kumartuli, which could have become a frontline team in Calcutta soccer, in consequence, remained only a junior team. Footballing Nationalism: Patterns and Forms In summary, football in late colonial India came to be looked upon as an apolitical avenue for expression of the colonized against the colonialist. Playing and watching the game cut across affiliations of caste, class or community in Indian society and provided a social bond for the nationalist-minded Indians. Football as a cultural weapon to fight and defeat the British added a new dimension to the anti-British national consciousness of the Indians, particularly in Bengal. Thus, parallel to the political struggle against an oppressive colonial power, there began a social struggle of national liberation over a specific cultural component. In that context, the football maidan as a national cultural territory began to reflect an Indian nationalist impulse that found heroic expression in the effort of the footballers. In the aftermath of the Mohun Bagan success, elaborated upon in the previous essay, football as an outlet for antagonism gradually came to reflect the ‘pent-up nationalism’ of Bengali professionals and students. A large section of the Bengali community were affluent, educated, practical and decent, but were hesitant to take part in an active freedom struggle. Reluctant to participate in the politics of direct confrontation, they considered the football field an ideal place to confront the British. Hence football

Race, Nation and Performance 43

became a potent nationalist symbol and beating the British produced immense emotional satisfaction. The urban and suburban middle-class Bengalis, who served the British as officials, clerks or professionals, could not show their anti-British resentment in public, and the working-class people, who were not drawn into the fold of nationalist politics until the late 1920s, could express their nationalism freely only at the maidan. Moreover, on the football field it was considered to be an act of great courage to shove an elbow or a fist into the face of a Sahib or a soldier, or kick him under the guise of tackling. Those who could get away with it were respected as great players. Footballers like Gostho Paul, Abhilash Ghosh and Balai Chatterjee earned glamour and fame in Bengali society for their reputation to execute successfully this ‘reverse hit’ or palta mar. In sporting encounters, it is also said, some Bengali spectators would deliberately pick quarrels with the ‘superior’ British. Sometimes these encounters would turn violent and afford the Bengalis the opportunity of giving the gora Sahibs a ‘sound beating’. Thus, what the politicians and native representatives in the British Indian administration could not do, the footballers were expected to accomplish. They were required to be ideal cultural nationalists and, in this role, de facto freedom fighters, who would achieve success, which had eluded others in politics and economy, the more crucial spheres of national life. Football heroes like the Bhaduris and Abhilash Ghosh,[7] became, for the disorientated Bengalis, the ultimate remedy for all failures – moral, economic and political – of the country. If India, according to these sporting Bengalis, was constantly losing to its imperial rulers in politics, football was to ameliorate the nation’s feelings of inefficacy and emasculation.[8] The relationship between football and nationalist politics in late colonial India requires greater attention from scholars. Future research into the organization, control and social composition of the clubs can throw more light on this relationship. However, it may be safely argued on the basis of available evidences that the Indian footballing community was always responsive to the call of nationalist movement. During the intense political awakenings of 1920–21, 1929–31 and 1942, the Calcutta football maidan did not remain indifferent. Direct expressions of nationalism were discernable in the maidan when the football league had to be abandoned due to the political boycott of lady picketers in 1930.[9] In 1935 Mohun Bagan led by Gostho Paul waged a unique satyagraha[10] on the field by ‘throwing untypical tantrums and inviting goals’ during the course of a league match to protest against the deliberate partiality of the European referee,[11] which was seen as a political stance. Football as a novel instrument of cultural nationalism had managed to establish a distinctive domain, free from colonial interference, in early-twentieth-century Bengal. This spirit of nationalism affected the patterns of spectator culture and fan sub-culture in colonial Indian football to a great extent. It was an age neither of great stadia nor of radio or televised sport. Hence ‘being in the maidan’ was the soul of spectatorship. The nationalist element of the football culture was most obvious in maidan-spectatorship. Spontaneous effusion of nationalist feeling found prolific expression in specific forms of behaviours – pitch-side language, jokes and doggerels, erratic vocal outbursts, peculiar physical gestures, skying umbrellas, tearing shirts, throwing sandals and stones into the ground, torching papers and clothes – and spectator-violence. These forms of

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nationalist spectator culture had their beginnings in the 1911 Shield finals. A pen picture of the spectators’ behaviour at the maidan on 29 July 1911, that is, the day of the final, was vividly depicted two years later by the correspondent of a renowned Bengali periodical.[12] The most commonplace forms of nationalist spectator culture at Calcutta maidan in the 1920s and 1930s are brilliantly delineated in Achintya Kumar Sengupta’s autobiographical Kallol Yug. Excerpts from Sengupta’s writing deserve reproduction here: No age-bar prevailed in those youthful days. Mohun Bagan’s match proved a great leveler for Bengalis; young and old, father and son-in-law … An enthusiastic pat on a man’s back in the gallery, the gentleman turning back proved to be a respectable professor. This did not matter! All sailed in the same boat, equal partners in joy and sorrow … If Mohun Bagan scored a goal by dint of spectators’ incarnated good work, that very professor would be delighted, shouting and making eccentric gestures and about to hug his student in joy. All were water of the same river. In fact, none could have imagined how one sitting on an eight-anna iron chair and pretending to be a ‘bhadralok’ might witness a football match. It was not cricket where one had to await a ‘glance’ or ‘drive’ once in five or more overs. Every moment in football was filled with anxious excitement. The ball at a close shave of the opponent’s goal might suddenly be kicked towards one’s own heart, i.e. at his team’s goalmouth in a twinkle of an eyelid. One could not really lean on his seat even for a moment. ‘Come on, centre, centre it’, ‘pass him, pass him the ball’, ‘buck up, buck up’, ‘make a through’ – plenty of such advices and instructions to the players were the norms of real/good spectating. And even that is not all. Rebuking a player was no less important: ‘Hey! Why are you playing without any ability’; ‘Don’t fuss, nambypamby guy!’; ‘Are you drunk and still playing the match?’; ‘Come on, fall abreast upon the goal’; ‘Injured legs, don’t worry, if amputated, would be framed in gold in the museum’. Then, if one missed an open sitter, more desperate and orderly comment could be heard: ‘Get out; it’s not your place! Just get out of the ground and take refuge in the shadow of your wife’s sari.’ And if the referee gave any unwanted decision one could easily hear the heat of the beat: ‘Beat, beat the referee black and blue and thrash him unto his mouth!’ …

…

…

Our shirts used to be frayed and sandals torn thanks to the heat of the game. Not a single drop of rain, yet the ground was found full of knee-deep mud on the eve of the match. Why? The explanation came from a more learned spectator: ‘Sweat of the brow made the maidan so slushy’. No umbrella, no waterproof, managing the spectacles became an arduous job. No speculating about how many spectacles fell off the noses by typical elbow pushes! … Many used to crowd outside the gallery penniless, bare head in the sun and barefoot to see their coveted barefooted footballers. …

…

…

Each of us had to subscribe to every act, convention and tradition of joyous excitement even to the extent of skying forced umbrellas from side sitters … At noon, under the scorching sun-rays, the only respite was to chew ground-nut if pieces of ice or cucumber or shaddock were not available. Then, the fun lay, of course if you would have liked, in transferring the dry jackets of those ground-nuts into someone’s pocket casually.

Race, Nation and Performance 45 …

…

…

You must stand up when Mohun-bagan would score a goal. The outburst was often said to have been heard from Bally to Ballygunj. You can’t expect to watch such a feat without standing on your feet. Despite all these efforts, Mohun-Bagan could not win on all occasions. It used to get beaten by weaker teams like Aryan, Kumartuli or Howrah Union when it really mattered. The boat thus drowned just before reaching the shore. It’s pathetic to remember those fateful days. Powerless to move on, the situation became so desperate that the only face-saver was to board a second class tram compartment at the expense of luxurious evening travel on a hootless Walford double-decker. A supporter’s dejection, which had led him to commit suicide at Mohun-Bagan’s defeat, becomes understandable in this light. …

…

…

To skip the daily heckle of entering the ground through a terrible rush, acquiring a Mohun-Bagan membership won’t be a bad idea. However, members are often the most ignorant of the lot. Once during a very important match, we found a few important members smoking outside the gallery during the match with a small gathering encircling them. It was quite unbelievable in view of the mind-blowing match and roaring crowd inside the ground. Someone from the crowd asked in surprise: ‘Hey! Why don’t you enter the ground?’ One of the gentlemen replied: ‘We never enter to see the match, rather always stay off. We are the non-seeing members of this club.’ ‘What do you mean?’, another exclaimed! ‘It means, since we have proved ominous for our team and since our presence in the gallery only results in the defeat of Mohun Bagan, we never see the matches; rather scratch grass with our teeth and listen to the outbursts.’ Such selflessness certainly deserves to be written in golden letters. Staying home won’t work during the match. Even when they are eligible to witness the match, they will sit outside to ensure Mohun Bagan’s victory. One more instance about a lame gentleman to which I myself was an eyewitness deserves mention here. Enquired as to how his legs were cut off – whether due to a car run-over or not, he said with a grave smile: ‘No sir, it’s football run-over.’ ‘What?’ I just exclaimed! ‘Please, no more words’, he stopped me and continued, ‘work has been fully extracted from me. It’s my plea not only to you but to all our countrymen. All of you instructed to leave the legs on the football ground. I have done accordingly. Don’t you feel the obligation to frame my legs in gold in the museum?’[13]

Breaking off Shackles In the face of British domination and racism in Indian football, Mohun Bagan always staged a spirited fight. The club came close to winning the Calcutta Football League a number of times after 1911 (1916, 1920–21, 1925, 1929, 1934 and 1940). It also came close to winning the Shield in 1923 but lost to Calcutta on a rainy ground. When it was invited as the first Indian team to play in the Rovers Cup in Bombay in 1923, Mohun Bagan displayed its mettle against top military teams and reached the final to end runner-up. In 1926, in its first appearance as an Indian team in the Durand Cup, it reached the semi-final. The trend of British racism on the soccer field came to a head in 1925 on the issue of East Bengal Club’s promotion to the First Division of the Calcutta Football League.[14]

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In 1924, the club shared a controversial first position in the Second Division League with Cameron Highlanders B.[15] Since the latter’s A team was already in the First Division, it could not claim a promotion. Hence, it was East Bengal’s turn to earn a promotion to the first division. However, according to the existing rule, not more than two Indian teams could be allowed to play in the First Division. The club initiated a movement to do away with this practice of injustice and partiality. Manmatha Nath Roy Chowdhury, the Maharaja of Santosh and President of the club, played an important role to press East Bengal’s cause before the IFA Governing Body. As a result, despite the IFA Secretary Medlycott’s strong opposition, the club obtained majority support in the IFA Council and earned a much-deserved promotion.[16] Medlycott subsequently resigned from his post. East Bengal’s victory to break the organizational shackle in the IFA led, in the next few years, to the abolition of a series of biased conventions and rules that had been used as bulwarks against the rise of Indian clubs.[17] On the football field, however, it was the Mohammaden Sporting Club that finally broke the domination of British teams in both local, as well as, national tournaments. The club had a meteoric rise to fame in the 1930s when it became the first-ever Indian team to win the Calcutta League in 1934 and achieved that feat for five years in a row from 1934 to 1938. The club completed a proud double in 1936 when it also lifted the IFA Shield beating Calcutta 2-1. With a break of one year, it won the League twice in succession in 1940–41. In 1940, the club won both the Durand and the Rovers Cups, a distinction never achieved by any Indian team under colonial rule. This remarkable success of Mohammaden Sporting in the 1930s was mainly due to its policy of fresh recruitment of impressive players from all over India as well as its employment of the technique of donning light studded boots on slushy grounds. Apart from Mohammadan, East Bengal too challenged British monopoly in League football. It became runners in the League four times in the 1930s (1932–33, 1935 and 1937). Aryan Club, on the other hand, became the proud winners of the IFA Shield for the first time in 1940. On the national stage, the Bangalore Muslims created a sensation when it became the first Indian team to bag the prestigious Rovers Cup in 1937 and repeated the feat in the following year as well. The last British team to win a Shield title was Police A.C. in 1939, which may be regarded as the swan song of British success in the Blue Ribbon tournament of Indian football. It was only in the Rovers Cup that the military teams retained their supremacy till 1946. Thus, when the Second World War began, British monopoly on the soccer field was a thing of the past. This was of course precipitated by the withdrawal of most of the mighty British regimental teams from the maidan to serve military duties on the battlefield. But this does not at all minimize the importance of the native upsurge in football led by Mohammaden Sporting club in the 1930s. The fight against British hegemony on the soccer field in these decades was led by a band of classy and skillful Indian footballers, a list which included legends such as Shibdas Bhadury, Abhilas Ghosh, Gostha Paul, Samad, Bolai Chatterjee, Umapati Kumar, Noor Mohammed, Jumma Khan, Murgesh, Laxminarayan, Apparao, Rahim and Rashid, to name a few. The Indian footballers, mostly playing barefeet, were hardly qualitatively inferior to their European counterparts in boots. Rather, barefooted jugglery of Indian players used to mesmerize

Race, Nation and Performance 47

contemporary spectators, both Europeans and Indians alike. The results of the IndiansEuropeans matches from 1920 to 1947 bear testimony to this statement. Results demonstrate that most of these matches were keenly contested encounters.[18] In 1921, 1924–27, 1929, 1932–33, 1935, 1937, 1940–42, and 1945, Indians defeated the Europeans. In 1929, the Indians inflicted a crushing 3-0 defeat over the Europeans while both in 1932 and 1935 it trounced the Europeans 5-0. In the 1940s, Indian teams like Mohammaden Sporting, East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, Hyderabad Police, Bangalore Muslims, Aryan and B.N.R. came to dominate the football scene. The outcome was India’s qualification for the 1950 World Cup held in Brazil (although India could not participate possibly due to FIFA’s disallowance of its players to play without boots as well as the Indian Government’s lack of foreign exchange), its spirited display in the 1948 London Olympics (barefooted Indian team lost to France 1-2 on a wet and cold surface) and her winning the gold medal in the first Asian Games held at Delhi in 1951. Subversion and Resistance on the Maidan John Plamenatz, in one of his most influential, yet less-celebrated articles, has considered nationalism as ‘primarily a cultural phenomenon’.[19] In his discussion of the types of nationalism, ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’, Plamenatz stresses the importance of a common set of standards to measure the state of development of a particular national culture. For him, as for Benedict Anderson,[20] it was the West that provided this common set of standards to the East. However, he finds an inherent contradiction in the attempt of ‘Eastern’ nationalism to ‘re-equip’ nations culturally for transforming them. As he goes on to suggest: ‘It is both imitative and hostile to the models it imitates’. Partha Chatterjee clarifies the first projection neatly: ‘It is imitative in that it accepts the value of the standards set by the alien culture.’[21] But it is the hostility to that model involving two ambivalent rejections, which seems to attract larger attention: ‘rejection of the alien intruder and dominator who is nevertheless to be imitated and surpassed by his own standards, and rejection of ancestral ways which are seen as obstacles to progress and yet also cherished as marks of identity’.[22] Plamenatz’s conceptual model of ‘Eastern’ cultural nationalism is useful in understanding the character of footballing nationalism in late colonial India. The football field provided a cultural space where the Indian appropriated the British game and then tried to beat the master at a standard set by him. This of course necessitated and in fact resulted in downplaying (if not complete rejection) of traditional Indian games while football was indigenised through an essentially Indian style of play without wearing boots. For European scholars like Mason and Dimeo, Indian victories over the colonial master on the football field were nothing but success stories of British cultural imperialism.[23] They read in such football victories Indians’ unwitting admiration for, acceptance of, and submission to, such imperialism. Richard Cashman raised a pertinent question as to whether we can analyse the spread of colonial sports solely in terms of the ideology of colonialism and the games ethic.[24] Subsequently, we have also emphasized this potential of indigenisation and subversion of a colonial sport in course of time, and on its ‘becoming’ ‘an area for the articulation of an indigenous

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brand of nationalism’.[25] ‘Inverting the colonial ideology on its head, resistance and subversion were often dominant in the second phase of the histories of these games in the colonies.’[26] In fact, what most European scholars miss out completely in analysing the relational complexities of football, imperialism and nationalism in colonial India is the conscious indigenous attempt to overturn the imperial ideology to suit an overtly nationalist purpose of shattering the so-called British cultural/racial/masculine superiority. Nothing could provide greater satisfaction to the masses than the fact that the allegedly inferior natives would defeat the racially proud imperialists in direct physical/masculine confrontation. Ashis Nandy’s analysis comes very closer to deciphering the psychological underpinnings of this cultural nationalism in a colonized society. He talks about the victim’s construction of the West, a West that would make sense to the non-West in terms of the non-West’s experience of suffering. ‘However jejune such a concept may seem to the sophisticated scholar’, says Nandy, ‘it is a reality for the millions who have learnt the hard way to live with the West during the last two centuries’.[27] This ‘Non-West’ of Nandy constantly invites one to be Western and to defeat the West on the strength of one’s acquired Western-ness. Beating the West at its own game is the preferred means of handling the feelings of self-hatred in the modernized non-West.[28] Thus footballing nationalism in colonial India was not only a subversion of colonial games ethic or cultural imperialism. But, arguably, it informed a more serious subversion of colonial masculinity. And here also Nandy’s construction of the psychology of the colonized for an entirely different context is succinctly applicable.[29] They [read Indian footballers and spectators] sought to redeem the Indians’ masculinity by defeating the British, often fighting against hopeless odds, to free the former once and for all from the historical memory of their own humiliating defeat in violent power-play and ‘tough politics’. This gave a second-order legitimacy to what in the dominant culture of the colony had already become the final differentiae of manliness: aggression, achievement, control, competition and power.[30]

From Nationalist Unity to Fragmented Identities Football thus provided a potential source of coalescence for the Indians irrespective of caste, class, religion or community affiliations. A player’s or a spectator’s identity had the capacity to cut across social categories. Despite this potential for cultural unity Indian football, however, could not establish a lasting unitary identity. Differences and conflicts based on social, religious, political and regional affiliations split this identity into fragments. As in the case of Congress politics, characterized by ideological, personality or power conflicts, the early Indian clubs, especially in Bengal, failed to display the unity necessary to successfully fight the discrimination exercised by the British on the sports field in the first quarter of the twentieth century. With a growth in the number of Indian clubs, conflict and confrontation assumed pre-eminence over the question of control and organization of clubs. Self-serving and uncompromising attitudes typified

Race, Nation and Performance 49

competitive power relations within indigenous Indian society. For example, conflict or ‘daladali’,[31] characteristic of the Bengali elite, came to be reflected in the organization and control of Calcutta’s Bengali football clubs. On the other hand, football administrators from southern and western India came to seriously challenge the hitherto-enjoyed supremacy of the Indian Football Association of Bengal in the 1930s. This led to a bitter and long-term regional power rivalry over the administrative control of the game in India, dealt with at length in the next essay. More regrettably, India’s anti-British footballing nationalism came to be fractured from the mid-1930s along communal and sub-regional lines. With the meteoric rise of the Mohammaden Sporting Club to football fame in the early 1930s, rivalry in Indian football was no longer confined to Briton versus Indian, but embraced the Hindu versus the Muslim, adding specific communal tensions to sport.[32] The Bengali’s footballing identity, too, suffered a blow struck by the social conflict between the Ghati and the Bangal,[33] which was an extension of the sub-regional tension as a consequence of partition and large-scale immigration of East Bengali Hindus into Calcutta and its suburbs. The result was the creation of an intense rivalry between the Mohun Bagan club, the club of the Ghatis and the East Bengal club, the club of the Bangals, often leading to violent repercussions on the maidan.[34] These divisive tendencies became markedly visible in Indian football in the middle decades of the twentieth century. As a sequel to this unfortunate fragmentation of sporting nationalism, regional and club loyalties became both more prominent and all-embracing, assuming an importance transcending the national significance of the football team in post-colonial India. In seems that Indian football could not cope with the requirements of a post-colonial nation-state. Football’s changing role in post-colonial India produced a gradual but sharp conflict between club, region and nation. In the peculiar amateur set-up of Indian football, the increasing clash of interests between India’s leading regional clubs and the national team resulted both in football’s intensive popularization and declining standard at the same time. This increasing club-based regionalism, which sharply minimized football’s nationalistic potential, will be discussed in subsequent sections of the journal.

Notes [1] Amilcar Cabral, ‘National Liberation and Culture’, Return to Source: Selected Speeches (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), p.43; italics in original. [2] In this essay, nationalism has been considered primarily as a cultural phenomenon. [3] Paul Dimeo, ‘Football and Politics in Bengal: Colonialism, Nationalism, Communalism’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp.57–74. [4] This match was of particular interest because it was the first football match in India of which motion pictures were taken by the pioneers of the film industry in India, Messrs. J.F. Madan & Co. It may be noted here that one or two Mohun Bagan goals that had been disallowed on the plea of offside were, according to the film, found not to be so. Mohun Bagan Platinum Jubilee Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohun Bagan A.C., 1964), p.29.

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[5] Hiren Mukherjee writes, ‘Just out of school, we had waited for victory which normally should have come but for over two days it rained – not cats and dogs but “lions and tigers” – and while all expected postponement of the fixture, the powers that be (mainly British) decided, on the report, expectedly, of the referee R.R. Clayton, enormously competent but unashamedly partisan, that the slushy, still inundated ground, was fit for football’. ‘Playing for Freedom’, The Statesman, 9 Aug. 1997. [6] Achintya Kumar Sengupta, Kallol Yug (Calcutta: S.C. Sircar & Sons, 1357 B.S., 1950), pp.66–7. [7] Sibdas Bhaduri and Abhilash Ghosh were the goal scorers for Mohun Bagan in the Shield final. [8] We have taken this particular construction from Ashis Nandy, who speaks of a similar role cricket might have played in the last few decades in post-colonial India, though in a different context. See Ashis Nandy, The Tao of Cricket: On Games of Destiny and the Destiny of Games (New Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 2000), Preface, p.xix. [9] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 25 May 1930. [10] Satyagraha was a unique means of political passive resistance propagated and employed successfully by Gandhi first in South Africa and later in India. Literally meaning the ‘force of truth’, it implied, in Gandhian terms, a non-violent non-cooperation involving peaceful violation of specific laws. [11] The Statesman, 11 May 1935. [12] Nagendra Nath Gupta, ‘Football Final’, Bharatbarsha, 1, 4 (1913). [13] Sengupta, Kallol Yug, pp.66–72. [14] For an authentic narrative of this episode, see Paresh Nandy, East Bengal Club, 1920–1970: 50 Bochhorer Sangram o Safalya (Calcutta: Bichitra, 1973), pp.1–24. [15] The controversy arose from a misrepresentation of the final League table published by Messrs. S.K. Lahiri & Co. Ltd. on behalf of the IFA. According to this table, Police A.C. and Cameron B were placed at the first and second positions while East Bengal occupied the third spot. However, most contemporary newspapers published from Calcutta maintained that East Bengal and Cameron B shared the first position with equal points, and on goal average East Bengal came second. For a complete League table, see The Statesman, 3 July 1924, p.4. [16] While the IFA’s annual general meeting of 15 April 1925 approved East Bengal’s promotion, a special sub-committee formed to revise the legal formalities to that effect cancelled the approval a week later. Amidst this constitutional crisis within the IFA, the big European four of Calcutta football, viz. CFC, Dalhousie, Rangers and Cameron A withdrew from the League in protest against this injustice meted out to East Bengal. They demanded East Bengal’s promotion, a permanent revision in the act that restricted Indian teams’ entry into the First Division League and Medlycott’s resignation. Even Medlycott’s own team, Customs, followed suit leaving him in utter disgrace. It is interesting to note that the Indian teams including Mohun Bagan and Aryan vehemently opposed East Bengal’s promotion throughout the entire episode of negotiation and conflict. However, the crisis was averted when the IFA on the proposal of Mr Tony Lamb of CFC annulled the black act and approved East Bengal’s promotion. For this final verdict of the IFA, see The Englishman, 2 May 1925. [17] For instance, in 1929 over the question of spectator violence during a League match between Mohun Bagan and Dalhousie, the European-dominated IFA Council put the entire blame on the hooligan behaviour of rowdy Indian spectators and suspended the Mohun Bagan custodian Santosh Dutta for two years for foul play. The Indian clubs protested against this unjust verdict by withdrawing from the IFA and threatening to form their own Indian Sports Association. Finally, a compromise was reached at the mediation of Nripendranath Sircar, then Advocate General of Bengal. Under his initiative, the suspension was annulled. More importantly, the composition of the IFA Council was completely changed. It was decided that henceforth both European and Indian clubs would have equal representations in the Council. Thus a longstanding domination of British authority in Indian football’s premier controlling body was mitigated.

Race, Nation and Performance 51 [18] The Indian-European annual international matches used to attract large crowds every year and thereby became financially viable. To give one example, The Englishman (9 July 1929) reported on the match in 1929: ‘Scenes of wild enthusiasm were witnessed in the Annual Soccer International match between Indians and Europeans, which the former won by three clear goals. A record crowd turned out, and the venue was packed to its utmost capacity long before the start. There was a tremendous rush at the gates … The receipts, Rs. 18,800, without outside collections, were a record for the match.’ [19] John Plamenatz, ‘Two Types of Nationalism’, in Eugene Kamenka (ed.), Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea (London: Edward Arnold, 1976), pp.23–36, quoted in Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986), p.1. [20] Anderson, in his seminal work Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), also talks about a set of ‘modular forms’ provided by the historical experience of nationalism in the West and in Russia for the nationalist elites of Asia and Africa to choose and adopt. [21] Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, p.2. [22] Plamenatz, ‘Two Types of Nationalism’, quoted in Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, p.2. [23] Tony Mason, ‘Football on the Maidan: Cultural Imperialism in Calcutta’, in J.A. Mangan (ed.), The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society (London: Frank Cass, 1992), pp.150–1; Dimeo, ‘Football and Politics in Bengal’, p.71. For a most authoritative discussion of British cultural imperialism on the sports field see Allen Guttman, Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). [24] Richard Cashman, ‘Cricket and Colonialism: Colonial Hegemony and Indigenous Subversion’, in J.A. Mangan (ed.), Pleasure, Profit, Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad, 1700–1914 (London: Frank Cass, 1988), pp.259–60. [25] Boria Majumdar, ‘The Vernacular in Sports History’, Economic and Political Weekly, 37, 29 (20 July 2002), pp.3069–75. The only European scholar who has hinted at the complexity of interpreting indigenous responses to imperial projects of the games ethic is J.A. Mangan. That he is unsure of the reality and character of indigenous response is evident when he says, ‘the legacy of the game in the region [Kashmir] hints at a more complex story once the game has been adapted and adopted by Indian groups’. J.A. Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training: Missionary Intentions and Imperial Legacies’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp.49, 54. [26] Majumdar, ‘The Vernacular in Sports History’, p.3071. [27] Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp.xiii. [28] Ibid. [29] Nandy specifically referred to ‘many pre-Gandhian protest movements’ in that context. [30] Nandy, The Intimate Enemy, p.9. [31] For an instructive elaboration of this concept, see S.N. Mukherjee, Calcutta: Myths and History (Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 1977), pp.60–85. [32] A brief but useful discussion on the relation between football and communalism in colonial Calcutta has been attempted in Kausik Bandyopadhyay, ‘Sporting Culture and Cultural Nationalism: A Study of Football in Late Colonial Calcutta’, Occasional Paper, presented at the Department of History, North Bengal University, August 2002, pp.13–15. Also see Kausik Bandyopadhyay, ‘Barnabaisamya, Sampradayikata o Krirasatta: Oupanibeshik Kolkatay Football Samskritir Ekti Chalchitra’, in Gautam Chattopadhyay (ed.), Itihash Anusandhan-17 (Calcutta: Firma KLM, 2003), pp.554–64. [33] People of west Bengal were regarded as the Ghatis while those of east Bengal were designated Bangals. Consequently, Mohun Bagan was known as the ‘club of the Ghatis’ while East Bengal as the ‘club of the Bangals’.

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[34] Paul Dimeo has provided an elaborate analysis of the origin, nature and expression of this rivalry in his article ‘“Team Loyalty Splits the City into Two”: Football, Ethnicity and Rivalry in Calcutta’, in G. Armstrong and R. Giulianotti (eds), Fear and Loathing in World Football (Oxford: Berg, 2001). For a brief introduction to the issue of Ghati-Bangal conflict on the maidan, see Bandyopadhyay, ‘Sporting Culture and Cultural Nationalism’, pp.15–16.

Contesting Neighbours: The Years of Turmoil [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106352 FSAS110618.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

In sharp contrast to the above views, this chapter will demonstrate that British recognition and support was pivotal in shaping the development of Indian soccer in the 1930s and 1940s. It will also show that the Indian Football Association (IFA) was not happy with its role as a regional institution and aimed to govern the development of football in the whole country, posing as the governing body for soccer in India. It was as a mark of protest against such intentions of the IFA that other state associations for soccer formed the All India Football Association (AIFA) in the 1930s.[4] The formation of the All India Football Association in September 1935 triggered the commencement of a bitter struggle between the Indian states, Bengal on the one hand and the Western and Northern Indian states on the other, for assertion of supremacy over the control of the game.[5] In this struggle, Bengal, at every stage, drew upon British support, a factor that

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eventually contributed to the success of the Maharaja of Santosh, the President of the IFA, in combating efforts to establish a parallel governing body, the All India Football Association, to rival the IFA with its head quarters in Calcutta.[6] Recognition granted by the British Football Association to the IFA was garnered by the Maharaja of Santosh to impress that the IFA was the only internationally recognized governing body for soccer in India.[7] This essay aims to locate in context the troubled relationship between the various state soccer associations by the middle of the 1930s.[8] Till the 1920s, Bengal’s dominance over the sport was unquestioned, a state of affairs that underwent a transformation from the close of the decade. At the root of this transformation lay the changes in the status of the sport in the rest of the country, when other provinces, averse to soccer, shunned their earlier repugnance and emerged conscious patrons of the sport. This in turn marked the onset of a phase of crisis in Indian soccer that was to culminate with the formation of the All India Football Federation in 1937.[9] In bringing to light regional conflicts in the tussle for the control of soccer in the country, this essay also throws light on the transformed political equations in Bengal in the 1930s. As Joya Chatterji has argued,[10] Muslim political ascendancy in Bengal in the 1930s led the bhadralok,[11] leading patrons of sport, to look favourably upon British rule. Muslim rule, she argues, ‘came to be regarded as the great and immediate threat to Hindu society, the bhadralok reappraised their past and gave the British the role of liberators who freed Hindu Bengal from Muslim tyranny. Loyalism once again became a respectable badge for the Bengali babu: indeed the inglorious history of bhadralok collaboration with British rule was now proudly recalled.’[12] Consequently, the Bengali bhadralok did not resist the exclusively European Calcutta and Ballygunge Cricket Clubs wielding power over the Cricket Association of Bengal in the 1930s and early 1940s.[13] In soccer, faced with challenge from other Indian states, the bhadralok, trying to retain their supremacy over the control of the sport, fell back on the support of the British Football Association.[14]

The Tussle in Infancy By the early 1930s, Bombay, which had already taken a lead over Bengal in cricket, was gradually shifting its interest to soccer. Bombay was encouraged to do so in the absence of a proper stadium for soccer in Calcutta.[15] Without a stadium, the sport, despite being hugely popular with the masses in Bengal, would have declined in course of time. This realization prompted Bengali sports patrons to espouse the cause of the stadium, which by this time had come to denote a stadium for soccer only:[16] I want the stadium in Calcutta because I cannot any longer suffer my heart to see the misery of Indian spectators at big football matches. At times, our football crowds struggle hard, from midday right up to the scheduled time of a game, to make their way to the venue of play. There are occasions when they have to dolefully wait for long hours in their uncomfortable seats, huddled together on ill constructed public stands, which afford shamefully meager and scanty accommodation.[17]

Contesting Neighbours

55

However, these statements did not lead to any drastic action, and by July 1933, the local media was anxious that Bombay would open a soccer stadium before Calcutta.[18] Such a move, it was argued, would allow Bombay to challenge Calcutta’s supremacy over the control of the sport. Bombay, already considered the home of Indian cricket, it was felt, could also emerge as the new arbiters of the fortunes of Indian football:[19] ‘And if Bombay proceeds with its usual hustle, the stadium will be erected and opened, probably by the Viceroy, long before Calcutta has decided whether and where our sports arena will be prepared.’[20] Growing apprehension among the Bengali sports patrons about a possible challenge from Bombay led them to formulate a series of proposals to restructure the IFA, in an attempt to make it more representative.[21] This scheme, guided by the assumption to safeguard Bengal’s supremacy over the control of soccer in the country, proposed the setting up of an All India body, one that would still be controlled by the IFA: The present situation has given rise to two things. Time has come to form an All India Federation – the name of which must be the IFA and Bengal must take the lead in the matter being the home of the best football in the country. The present administrative body in Calcutta should clearly define their jurisdiction as in the coming federation the areas have to be settled in a manner by which Bengal’s interests may not be side tracked as is now the case in the Indian Hockey Federation, Indian Olympic Association and Board of Control for Cricket.[22]

Birth of AIFA To implement the scheme, the President of the IFA, the Maharaja of Santosh, convened a conference of the provincial soccer associations of the country at Darbhanga in September 1935.[23] The conference, newspaper reports indicated, would mark the formation of a new All India governing body for soccer in India. However, upon arrival at Darbhanga, the Maharaja, designated to chair the proceedings of the conference, was informed by delegates representing Delhi and Bombay about their unwillingness to accept him as chairman.[24] On hearing this, and on knowing from reliable sources that the delegates representing Bombay, Delhi and other states determined to keep Bengal out of the body, and had already drafted the constitution of the All India body, the Maharaja decided to abandon the conference and return to Calcutta.[25] Before his departure for Calcutta, he expressed his disappointment over the actions of the delegates in the following words: I am going away from Darbhanga sorely disappointed over the question of the formation of an All India Federation. I found the provinces of India hopelessly divided on this front. Internal suspicion and provincial jealousies retarded progress of the country in almost every department of public life. I find that even the field of sport is unable to rise above these elements. There is no chance for a federation worth the name until we grow more patient and tolerant and learn to set high premium on co-operation and premium trust. Bengal had stretched out the hand of friendship and had come with an open mind but found it curtly refused.[26]

Despite Bengal’s non co-operation, the All India Football Association was born at Darbhanga on 21 September 1935:

56

A Social History of Indian Football The twenty first of September 1935 will go down to history as a memorable day in the formation of the AIFA despite efforts by the IFA to complicate matters at Darbhanga. Different provincial delegates excepting Bengal held a meeting this morning at the Raj Guest house under the Presidentship of Mr Moinul Haq, OBE (Bihar) and unanimously resolved that an All India body be formed to control Association football in India and it be named the All India Football Association.[27]

Commenting on the formation of the AIFA, S.N. Banerjee of Mohun Bagan Club,[28] one of the delegates representing the IFA at Darbhanga, declared that the conference had turned out to be a farce.[29] He also alluded that delegates representing Delhi and Bombay had joined hands, determined to keep Bengal out of the new body.[30] ‘Unfortunately, so far as I could judge, the idea of the so called delegates from other provinces was to have a federation, if at all, by either keeping Bengal out altogether, or at any rate in a position of sub-ordination.’[31] Echoing similar sentiments, Pankaj Gupta, who had represented the IFA at Darbhanga, stated that the decision to form the AIFA excluding the IFA was improper. As the IFA was the biggest and oldest soccer association of the country, and was the only association affiliated to the British Football Association and FIFA, it was natural for the President of the IFA to chair the proceedings of the convention.[32] IFA vs. AIFA As fate would have it, the newly formed AIFA could not function smoothly for long. With Bengal opposed to the body, it was difficult for the AIFA to raise the necessary funds for its maintenance. Further, with the Maharaja of Santosh leading the opposition against it, other princes, allies of the Maharaja, stayed away from according patronage to the newly formed body:[33] All is not working smoothly for the new association. We have received a letter from the private secretary of the Maharaj Kumar of Darbhanga to the effect that the Maharaj Kumar has received no formal request for accepting the office of President of the new association and it is therefore premature to say that he has become the first President of the All India football body. Mr B. Magnoni, Joint Secretary of the IFA, has announced that he was authorized on behalf of the Maharaj Kumar to say that Ray Bahadur J.P. Sinha, the new association’s secretary had no authority to use the Maharaj Kumar’s name in connection with the unofficial conference at which the association was formed and the Maharaj Kumar had no intention of being President.[34]

It was also declared that the Maharaj Kumar intended to maintain his connection with football in India solely through the IFA.[35] Growing tension between the delegates of the Western India Football Association further compounded problems for the AIFA. Mr J.C. Moitra, representing the Indian Football League of Bombay at the Darbhanga convention, alleged that the Western India Football Association led by Mr Turner at Darbhanga could at best represent European opinion of Bombay.[36] He also mentioned that some of the provinces had attended the conference with the sole objective of ousting the IFA from the All India

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body. Though some of these men were representatives of either mushroom growths or non-existent associations, they insisted on equal representation with the greatest and largest association in India, the IFA.[37] Having garnered support in Western India, and strengthened by the growing financial crisis facing the AIFA, the IFA denounced the authority of the new association, arguing that it incorrectly claimed to represent soccer associations of the country.[38] Having done so, the IFA, led by the Maharaja of Santosh, proceeded to offer a compromise settlement in March 1936.[39] The IFA’s position was consolidated by media reports, which described the formation of the AIFA as ‘the staging of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark’:[40] The Indian Football Federation was formed last year after the Darbhanga convention. But it has ever remained an isolated organization in which the IFA, the oldest and greatest corporate soccer body of India and the only Association which has been recognized by the FA of England, never joined. In fact the whole procedure can be compared to the staging of Hamlet without the prince of Denmark.[41]

Expressing such sentiments, the emerging Indian sports media[42] offered the IFA complete support in its proposal to form the All India Federal Council under its aegis, a compromise that aimed to unite the soccer associations of the country. The IFA has given away over 15 lakhs (1.5 million) of rupees to charities and the fact confirms their great organizing capacities. Already there has been good response from some of the football centers of India and they promise to build up an efficient football federation in active co-operation with the IFA. They realize that the new body will be splendidly equipped with the solid experience, reputation, and funds of the IFA for the purposes of All India inter provincial and international football.[43]

The object of the federal council, it was declared, was to promote soccer in India by the organization, management and control of inter-provincial football leagues, tournaments and matches. It also aimed to create football zones in the country and exercise control over the provincial associations affiliated to the IFA.[44] The federal council was to be constituted on an All India basis, consisting of two representatives from Bengal proper, two representatives from the erstwhile province of Eastern Bengal, and two representatives each, from all the other provinces. The Army Sports Control Board and the Indian railways were also to be represented in the council.[45] The headquarters of the body was to be at Calcutta with a permanent office maintained by the IFA. It was also stipulated that all meetings of the Federal Council were to be held at the headquarters.[46] However, the new scheme, which clearly established the supremacy of the IFA over the control of soccer in the country, did not meet with approval from the AIFA.[47] At a meeting of the AIFA at Delhi on 12 April 1936, the association rejected the proposals advanced by the IFA. The association found the scheme unacceptable on several counts, the primary reason being that the federal council appeared to be a mere offshoot of the IFA.[48] While rejecting the proposed scheme, the AIFA also tried to strike a chord of compromise, urging the IFA to join hands with the AIFA.[49] It was agreed that the IFA would be allowed to retain its name and the AIFA would alter its name to the All India Football Federation as suggested by the IFA. ‘The AIFA realizes

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the necessity for the affiliation of the IFA for the good of football as a whole in India and is prepared to offer them such weightage in keeping with Bengal as a premier provincial body.’[50] It was also agreed that the IFA would be invited to put forward their suggestions about necessary amendments to the draft rules of the AIFA, as they may consider desirable.[51] These proposals met with favourable responses in the media. It was suggested that the AIFA’s realization, albeit belatedly, about the importance of the IFA was a healthy development and would do much to improve the standard of soccer in the country by reducing inter-provincial jealousies.[52] ‘Give to Ceasar what is due unto him. The All India Football Association, who at one time thought that they could build up their association with the IFA left out of it is slowly coming to their senses.’[53] Finally, it was suggested that the AIFA should acknowledge Calcutta’s claim as the paramount centre for soccer in the country.[54] ‘It is idle to expect that Gorakhpur or Delhi or Bombay should be preferred to Calcutta as India’s football headquarters. Calcutta, whether the present All India body recognizes the fact or not, has already become the Wembley of the East.’[55] The position of the IFA vis-à-vis the AIFA was strengthened further when the Army Sports Control Board decided to support the IFA.[56] Accordingly, all local military sides enlisted to take part in the Calcutta Football League to be conducted by the IFA in JuneJuly 1936.[57] It was also declared that the usual contingent of military teams would take part in the IFA shield competition.[58] The continued support of the Army Sports Control Board was viewed in many quarters as the last straw in the coffin of the AIFA. This support, it was argued, signalled the disintegration of the sovereignty of the AIFA:[59] ‘Though maintaining its legal position intact and unassailable, the AIFA had to admit de-facto defeat from Attock to Cape Comorin. The rout seemed almost to be complete, with the Army Sports Control Board holding the whip hand throughout.’[60] The support of the Army Sports Control Board encouraged the IFA to issue a circular letter to the soccer associations of the country giving a fresh call to set up an All India body.[61] In the circular issued by the IFA, it was emphasized that the IFA was ready and willing to enlarge its present constitution by giving adequate representation on its council to all provincial associations of soccer in India.[62] It was also declared that the scheme had the sanction of the Football Association of England. To this end, the IFA decided to organize a conference at Calcutta in December 1936 where this new body would finally come into existence:[63] The fourth act (of the ongoing drama) now begins with the issuing of the circular letter to representative persons and associations by the President of the IFA, the only body affiliated to the Football Association of England and recognized by the Federation Internationale de football as the only football body representative of India throughout the British Empire.[64]

At a meeting of the IFA in September 1936, organized to draw out its future course of action, the Maharaja of Santosh, the President, gave the following address: The Indian Football Association, however, realizes that if it is to keep pace with the tide of evolution, its present constitution should be so re-modeled as will bring

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together all the provinces of India on a federal platform in honorable partnership. With such an end in view, I approached the Football Association of England for advice and guidance. I am glad to say that I have now received from them a formula, which, if accepted, will solve the present tangle. It will, I am confident, enable us to evolve out of the present constitutional framework of the IFA, a constitution, which will be truly representative of India as a whole.[65]

Later in the speech, he went on to discuss the rules that were to govern the reconstituted IFA, urging all men and women in the country to support the IFA in its attempt to unify the soccer associations of the country.[66] His proposals evoked approval from most quarters, and the actions of the IFA were hailed as a genuine effort to overcome past differences and misunderstandings. The Indian Football Association is to make a genuine bid for unity in football throughout the country. As one of the oldest, and the most powerful football body in the country, with a record of past achievements which entitles it to be regarded as what it is in name, it feels that the mistakes and differences of the past should be forgotten and that a real effort should be made to induce all the leading football controlling bodies in the country to come under its banner.[67]

Regional Conflict Turns Bitter Favourable responses in the media, however, were not enough to convince representatives from Delhi and Bombay about the merit of the scheme. Commenting on the scheme, the spokesman of the Delhi Soccer Association denounced it, saying that it sought direct dominance of the IFA and Calcutta over all other associations of the country.[68] The scheme, he said, meant that the office bearers of the IFA would remain the same but delegates would be allowed on the council from different provinces and presidencies. Such delegates would be allowed only when each presidency had satisfied the council that it was the proper representative of its province. The IFA, in other words, would sit in judgment and affiliate such associations as suited their purpose.[69] It was also declared that the scheme was in no respect better than the one, which had been proposed by the All India Football Association.[70] With a view to helping the IFA to retain their prestige as the premier provincial association in India, the AIFA had offered special weightage and Vice Presidency of the AIFA to the IFA, but all members of the AIFA were unanimous that it was essential to form an All India body on a democratic basis.[71] The IFA, it was argued, was insistent that direct control of football in India should remain in their hands and that was why the proposed scheme had been mooted. S.C. Banerjee, secretary of the Delhi Football Association, summed up the argument in the following words: In the circular letter which has been addressed to all provincial associations, the Maharaja of Santosh says that the Football Association of England and the International Football association has recognized the IFA as the only All India body throughout the British Empire. Armed by this authority, he had asked other associations to consider his pet scheme, which appeared in the papers some time back and to attend a conference to be held in Calcutta in December next. This definitely

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A Social History of Indian Football indicates that he is not prepared to accept the offer, which was made by the AIFA to the IFA at the suggestion of the Army Sports Control Board.[72]

A similar response awaited the IFA in Bombay. The committee of the Western India Football Association, after having considered the scheme, declared that it was not prepared to consider any formula for the dissolution of the AIFA and its absorption by the IFA.[73] It was also emphasized that the circular issued by the IFA was nothing more than an elaboration of its earlier scheme, which had already been turned down by all provinces.[74] Mr Turner, spokesperson for the Western India Football Association, concluded saying: We, in Bombay, will not affiliate to a body, which is only a provincial organization like ourselves. The Maharaja of Santosh talks glibly of being authorized by the Football Association of England to put certain proposals before the rest of the provinces, but he does not inform the provinces of the contents of his letter to Mr Rous, Secretary of the Football Association of England. This circular is a last minute attempt to secure for Bengal domination in the sphere of football in India.[75]

However, the United Provinces (UP) association supported Bengal, suggesting that it was time to end the long drawn quarrel. The association was of the opinion that there was no denying Bengal’s valuable service for the cause of football in India, whereby it was essential for Bengal to take the lead in forming the All India body.[76] They also felt that a joint meeting attended by the representatives of the IFA, the AIFA and the Army Sports Board was crucial to solve the impasse.[77] Replying to the criticisms advanced by the representatives of Delhi and Bombay, the Maharaja of Santosh declared that the scheme advanced by the IFA was aimed at achieving unity and was not intended to assert Bengal’s dominance over other soccer associations of the country.[78] He condemned the statements of Mr Turner and made the point that such statements did not come as a surprise to him. As Mr Turner had turned a deaf ear to all pleadings for peace at Darbhanga, it was natural for him to behave in an unfriendly manner.[79] The Maharaja also announced that he was awaiting the return of Mr Henrichs, the President of the Western India Football Association (WIFA), from England. After Mr Turner had forced the abandonment of the Darbhanga convention, Mr Henrichs had apologized to the Maharaja at Calcutta and wanted peace with the IFA.[80] Mr Turner is not prepared to draw any line of demarcation between the IFA and any other provincial football organization like his own. He is silent over that portion of my circular letter in which reference has been made to the inter-provincial and international activities of my association. Nor has he any explanation to give as to why the supreme football body of England has described the IFA as the ‘mother institution’ of football in India and refused to recognize any other body in India claiming equal status, or why the Federation Internationale de Football has recognized the IFA as the only body representing India throughout the British empire.[81]

He went on to add that the present scheme was not an elaboration of the earlier scheme and had been formulated on the advice of the Football Association of England: To follow the expert advice of the Football association of England we have abandoned our scheme of a federal council at which Mr Turner points the finger of scorn

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and we have now put forth an absolutely democratic scheme which has been drawn up by the masterly hands of a great association with a record hitherto unbeaten and with a fund of experience unparalleled in the annals of football.[82]

Finally, he expressed surprise at the way Delhi had denounced the scheme. As the scheme had offered two seats to Delhi, it was in their interests to support the proposal. They were mistaken to suggest that the office bearers of the IFA would remain the same. Rather, the idea was to make the new council autonomous in every sense.[83] He thanked the representatives of Lucknow, Orissa, Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Patna, Jamalpur, Hazaribagh and UP for their support.[84] He concluded by saying that he still hoped that under the guidance of the Football Association of England and with the potential co-operation of the army in India, the IFA, with its resources, experience and tradition will be able to build a greater sporting fraternity in the East.[85] The media hailed his statement positively, evident from the following editorial published in The Statesman: Peace in the Indian football world is a very desirable thing, and if the latest attempt of the Indian Football Association towards bringing about unity succeeds, a great deal will have been achieved. It was a wise move to ask for the guidance of the Football Association at home, and the parent body suggested that the constitution of the IFA should be altered so as to bring in the other provincial associations. But the indications are that some of the other provinces are not willing to be led like lambs into the IFA fold. They argue that the AIFA is already in existence and there is no reason why the IFA should not affiliate with that body. That argument could have been sounder if the AIFA could point to any achievement in Indian football in its year of life beyond electing office bearers some of whom refused to serve and had to be replaced, and writing letters to the provincial associations. The IFA can point to very solid achievements. It has organized tours in this country and out of it; it arranged the first international match ever played in this country. It has the largest number of football clubs and associations affiliated to it, including a good number outside of Bengal. The genuine lover of football will hope for a settlement of differences at an early date.[86]

On being met by a reporter of The Statesman, the secretary of the North West Indian Football Association, Mr Soofi, voiced dissent at the suggestion that the new body should include two representatives from Bengal and two from Calcutta proper.[87] This, he felt, amounted to having four representatives from Bengal while reducing representation of the other provinces to a maximum of two.[88] He also emphasized that so long as the Calcutta association retained the title ‘IFA’, it was necessary that the controlling body for the whole of India be called ‘All India’.[89] He concluded saying that it was desirable to call a conference to settle any outstanding points, and that it should be called by the AIFA at Delhi, which was more central and more convenient than Calcutta.[90] Reacting to the suggestions offered by the secretary of the North West Indian Football Association, the President of the IFA, the Maharaja of Santosh proclaimed: The IFA is definitely against compartmentalism and firmly believes in perfect balance of homogenous bodies, working in unison and in honourable partnership as autonomous units in the constitutional framework of the mother institution, making it in

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A Social History of Indian Football reality their own by such a harmonious combination. I know Mr Soofi’s (Secretary, NWFA) mind and so I can reasonably hope that he will give unto Caesar what is due to him.[91]

Formation of AIFF The conflict between Bengal and the other provinces did not abate and things again came to a head in December 1936.[92] The proposed conference at Calcutta proved a non-starter, and the fate of soccer in the country was thus left in a delicate state. In such a situation, the representative of the Army Sports Control Board, a key player in the whole controversy, decided to strike a compromise between the two bodies by taking the initiative to form the All India Football Federation, a body which would give considerable importance to the IFA.[93] With this view, a circular was issued to all soccer associations of the country that a conference would be held at Simla in May 1937 where the All India Football Federation would finally come into existence.[94] While this solution was not something Bengal would have coveted, it was the best result under the circumstances. Further, Bengal was in no position to alienate the Army Sports Control Board, whose support was key to the survival of the IFA. The IFA tried its best to postpone the formation of the AIFF to September but the Army Sports Board held firm.[95] In a personal letter sent to the Maharaja of Santosh, the representative of the Army Sports Control Board declared his intentions to go ahead with the formation of the AIFF at Simla in May 1937, solving the crisis that had plagued the fortunes of soccer in India for almost a decade:[96] I am sorry to say that it is quite impossible to accede to your request that the meeting, to be held next month at Simla and at which we hope to bring into being the All India Football Federation, should be postponed till July. As you know, the original date has already been put back one month to suit the IFA with considerable inconvenience to the other parties concerned, and any further postponement would, I know, cause great offence to them and upset all their arrangements. I regret that the present date is not very convenient for the IFA but I hope you will find it possible to send a suitable representative to the meeting. Your question regarding the number of representatives which the IFA should send to the meeting is a little complicated. The meeting is being held to inaugurate the proposed AIFF and is governed by no rules. All we could do was to ask all the parties concerned to send a representative each. The first thing to do will be to bring into being the federation; when that has been done, the next step will be to consider and approve the draft rules. Until these rules have been approved, there can be no authority for the IFA to have more than one representative. I suggest therefore that the only possible solution is for the IFA to send one representative to the meeting; for the initial proceedings he will have only one vote; after the draft rules have been approved he will have two votes for all subsequent business. I agree that there is much to be said for accepting Calcutta as the headquarters of the AIFF for the first few years. Obviously, however, the decision cannot rest with me as the question will have to be decided by the forthcoming meeting. I also regret very much that you consider that the IFA has not been well treated. Since I became

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connected with this affair I have tried to be quite impartial and, incidentally, to ensure that sufficient weight was given to the prestige and traditions of the IFA. The alternative suggestion that the IFA should to all intents and purposes absorb the AIFA was never of course a practical solution.[97]

He concluded the letter saying: I must confess that I find the last few lines of your letter rather perturbing as they imply that even at this late stage in the proceedings you may find it impossible to accept the AIFF or to co-operate loyally with such a body. I have, however, decided that if the meeting at Simla next month is unsuccessful and does not result in the formation of the AIFF to be loyally supported by all concerned, I shall be forced to refrain from any further participation in this football controversy. In such a contingency, I will be forced to forward to the FA in England a report on the happenings of the last few months and on the reasons for the breakdown of negotiations and thereafter events in India would have to follow their normal course.[98]

With the possibility of the Football Association of England turning its back on Bengal, the Maharaja of Santosh had no other alternative than to support the formation of the AIFF. The other associations too could not oppose it because it catered to their central demand, that is, that Bengal was no longer the sole arbiter of the fortunes of soccer in the country. Accordingly, a compromise AIFF came into existence in 1937.

Towards a Changing Sociopolitical Equation of Indian Soccer As mentioned at the start of this essay, the state of Indian soccer, in this case the relationship between the soccer associations of the country; was hardly stable in the 1930s. Accordingly, the history of Indian soccer can only be meaningfully analysed if viewed against the wider political canvas of the evolving relationship between the provinces against the backdrop of the towering presence of the colonial state. In other words, when pressed by other associations of the country, Bengal consistently tried to invoke British support to retain control. The roots of such actions went deep – in an ambience of Muslim political ascendancy in the province, the bhadralok looked upon the British as their only ally. Soccer emerged as the mirror wherein trends of contemporary Bengali politics could be assessed, in turn making the British Football Association a key player in determining the fortunes of the game in India. The object of this essay has been to demonstrate the importance of studying the dayto-day developments in the history of soccer for understanding the history of the sport in the country, and at the same time to show that this history was always imbued with nuances, the roots of which went beyond the sporting arena. The story of soccer in India only makes sense when we take into account the colonial context, reading this narrative in terms of power equations governing the day-to-day administration of the sport. While bitter regional conflict dominated the All-India scene, the rise to fame of the Mohammaden Sporting Club in Bengal in the early 1930s ensured that rivalries were not solely confined to the provinces. By the close of the decade, growing discord had embraced the communities as well, especially the Hindu and the Muslim, adding specific communal dimensions to India’s growing passion. To this feature we turn in the next essay.

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Notes [1] Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p.6. [2] Paul Dimeo, ‘Football and Politics in Bengal: Colonialism, Nationalism, Communalism’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p.71. [3] Mario Rodrigues, ‘The Corporates and the Game: Football in India and the Conflicts of the 1990s’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p.105. [4] The All India Football Association came into existence at Darbhanga on 20 September 1935. [5] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 20 Sept. 1936. [6] All the leading newspapers of the country, Amrita Bazar Patrika, The Statesman, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Star of India, carried detailed reports about this ongoing tussle through the 1930s. [7] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 14 May 1936. [8] Misunderstanding and mistrust between the associations existed from the beginning of the 1930s, coming to the fore after the formation of the AIFA. [9] This body eventually came into existence in May 1937 at Simla. [10] Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp.150–90. [11] The historical data provided by scholars such as S.N. Mukherjee provide room for the argument that the category bhadralok refers to both a class of aristocratic Bengali Hindus, the abhijata bhadralok, and more middle-income groups. The latter group surpassed the abhijats, in numbers and correspondingly social influence, from the second half of the nineteenth century due to large-scale immigration. The abhijat sreni was comprised by men who had moved into the city of Calcutta around the mid-eighteenth century. While some of them had made their fortunes through service to the Mughals, most of them ‘rose from poverty to wealth’ in businesses and occupations as varied as shipping, indigo plantation, banyans to the British, purchasing zamindaris and flour mills. Below this group were the large shopkeepers, small landholders and white-collar workers in commercial and government houses, teachers, ‘native doctors’, journalists and writers. This group was referred to as the madhyabit in early-nineteenth-century Calcutta. S.N. Mukherjee, Calcutta: Essays in Urban History (Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 1993). [12] Chatterji, Bengal Divided, p.16. [13] Pankaj Gupta, ‘A Brief History of the Association’, in Cricket Association of Bengal Silver Jubilee Souvenir (Calcutta: Cricket Association of Bengal, 1954–55), pp.37–45. In a meeting held on 3 February 1928, presided over by the President of the Calcutta Cricket Club, it was agreed by the clubs present that the Cricket Association of Bengal and Assam should be formed with the President and Secretary of the Calcutta Cricket Club serving as the President and Secretary of the Association. The working committee, it was agreed upon, would consist of nine members, of which three were to be Europeans, two Hindus, with a member each from among the Parsees, Mohammedans, Anglo-Indians and Assam. As the President and Secretary of the CCC were President and Secretary of the CAB, the Europeans had two additional seats on the working committee giving them a numerical superiority in matters of dispute and those which called for voting. This framework continued till the beginning of the 1940s. [14] The Orient Illustrated Weekly, 11 Oct. 1936. [15] Star of India, 29 July 1933. [16] Ibid., 5 Aug. 1933. [17] Ibid., 8 Dec. 1933. From the beginning of the 1930s the Maharaja of Santosh had been emphasizing the need for the soccer stadium in Calcutta. [18] Star of India, 29 July 1933. [19] Ibid.

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[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42]

[43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52]

[53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64]

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Ibid. Advance, 18 Nov. 1933. Interview with Pankaj Gupta, Advance, 18 Nov. 1933. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 15 Sept. 1935. Ibid., 22 Sept. 1935. Forward, 22 Sept. 1935. Ibid. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 22 Sept. 1935. Founded in 1889, the Mohun Bagan Club is one of the oldest soccer clubs of the country. Advance, 29 Sept. 1935. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 24 Sept. 1935. Ibid., 28 Sept. 1935. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 14 March 1936. Advance, 15 March 1936. Amrita Baar Patrika, 14 March 1936. Ibid. Vernacular sports journalism in India developed in the 1930s. English journalism on sport, in existence since the late nineteenth century, gathered momentum in the 1920s and 1930s. This is evident from the increased space devoted to sport in this period. Forward, 14 March 1936. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 14 March 1936. Ibid. Ibid. The Statesman, 13 April 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Private Papers of the Maharaja of Santosh, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; The Statesman on 10 June 1936 reported that the AIFA had applied to the football Association in England for recognition. The Association was informed that affiliation could only be granted, after reference to the IFA of Calcutta, the only body in India to which affiliation had already been granted. Forward, April 1936. For similar assertions in the newspapers also see Private Papers of the Maharaja of Santosh, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi Ibid. Ibid. The Statesman, 13 April 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 10 Sept. 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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[65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92]

[93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98]

A Social History of Indian Football Ibid. Ibid. The Statesman, 10 Sept. 1936. The Statesman, 12 Sept. 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. The Statesman, 12 Sept. 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 14 Sept. 1936. Ibid. The Statesman, 15 Sept. 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. The Statesman, 16 Sept. 1936. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 15 Sept. 1936. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 18 Sept. 1936. Despite the efforts of the IFA to go ahead with the proposed conference at Calcutta in December the hostile reaction of the other provinces eventually resulted in the abandonment of the plan. The IFA, infuriated at such actions had become determined not to accede to any demand advanced by the AIFA. Private Papers of the Maharaja of Santosh, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

Brothers Turn Rivals: Communal Conflict in Indian Football [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta 700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106386 FSAS110621.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

While these developments are interesting and point to a necessary awareness to commercialize Indian football, they are not altogether new. It might sound radical, but Baichung Bhutia was not the first Indian footballer to play in Europe. The pioneer was another Calcuttan, Mohammed Salim,[2] who played for the well-known Celtic FC in Scotland[3] in pre-independence India. Celtic, Mihir Bose mentions, ‘was not only the first British club to win the European Cup, they were also the first European club to play an Indian and, what is more, he performed in bare feet’.[4] However, the extraordinary story of Mohammed Salim was relegated to the shelves of archives in no time, drawing attention to a new trend in Indian football of the 1930s-soccer’s burgeoning communal encounter. This essay, in trying to resuscitate Mohammed Salim, comments on what is now a lost episode in Indian football history. In doing so, it seeks to analyse why Salim faded into oblivion and why his feat wasn’t given due recognition in existing works on football. This analysis brings to light trends dominating the nation’s (in this case Bengal’s) socio-political and economic life in the 1930s, and explains why Mohun Bagan’s victory against East Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield final in 1911 is still perceived a greater nationalistic triumph than Mohammedan Sporting’s five straight Calcutta Football League titles between 1934–38.[5] It also demonstrates why Mohammedan Sporting, despite performing brilliantly against

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leading British sides in the 1930s, was, on occasions, treated with disdain by the Indian Football Association (IFA). Rereading the Lost Story of Mohammed Salim Following Mohammed Salim’s death in 1989, in a brief obituary message the Amrita Bazar Patrika declared: Mohammed Salim (Sr) a member of the legendary Mohammedan Sporting Club side that claimed five successive Calcutta senior football league titles in the thirties died in Calcutta on Wednesday morning. He was 76. A right winger in his playing days, he was intimately connected with many sports clubs and took active interest in training youngsters. He is survived by his wife, four sons and three daughters.[6]

When his obituary ignores his feat of having played for Celtic FC with distinction, it is hardly surprising that he remains unmentioned in most works on Indian football. This treatment is unjust, more so in view of his extraordinary performances for Celtic.[7] While Baichung played for a second division club side in the UK, Bury FC, and failed to win a permanent place in the club’s first XI,[8] Salim, during his brief stint at Celtic, had established himself as a key member of the team and was pleaded with by the club authorities to stay for another season in 1937–38.[9] Further, while Baichung was forced to return to India, Salim returned to India to help his favourite club Mohammedan Sporting continue with their famous run in the Calcutta Football league in the 1930s. Commenting on his extraordinary skill, the Scottish Daily Express had declared: Ten twinkling toes of Salim, Celtic FC’s player from India hypnotized the crowd at Parkhead last night in an alliance game with Galston. He balances the ball on his big toe, lets it run down the scale to his little toe, twirls it, hops on one foot around the defender, then flicks the ball to the center who has only to send it into goal. Three of Celtic’s seven goals last night came from his moves. Was asked to take a penalty, he refused. Said he was shy. Salim does not speak English, his brother translates for him. Brother Hasheem thinks Salim is wonderful – so did the crowd last night.[10]

This comment, published on 29 August 1936, is now a yellowing, almost faded piece of history crumbling to pieces at the slightest touch. Rashid Ahmed, Mohammed Salim’s second son,[11] handed it over to us with a request – he wanted readers to know the truth: that his father was one of the earliest Indian footballers to have played in Europe. Asked whether Celtic had rewarded Salim monetarily, Rashid narrated a fascinating tale. When after a few months in Scotland, Salim began to feel homesick and was determined to return to India, the Celtic Football Club pleaded with him to play for one more season. ‘Celtic tried to persuade my father to stay by offering to organise a charity match in his honour, giving him five per cent of the gate proceeds. My father did not realise what five per cent would amount to and said he would give his share to orphans who were to be special invitees for the match. Five per cent came to £1,800 [colossal money then] but although my father was astonished, he kept his word.’[12] In doing so, Mohammed Salim earned a unique recognition for himself and his country in the eyes of the westerners. Alongside his performances for Celtic in the limited

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number of matches that he played he demonstrated that bare-footed Indians could match the British on an even keel.[13] This belief may have inspired his colleagues in Mohammedan Sporting to win five straight Calcutta Football League titles (1934–38), defeating leading European teams in the process. Many years later, Rashid wrote to Celtic stating that his father was in distress and that he needed money for his father’s treatment. In his words: I had no intention of asking for money. It was just a ploy to find out if Mohammed Salim was still alive in their memory. To my amazement, I received a letter from the club. Inside was a bank draft for £100. I was delighted, not because I received the money but because my father still holds a pride of place in Celtic. I have not even cashed the draft and will preserve it till I die.[14]

In colonial India, trying to challenge British superiority was the most difficult task of all. Salim had achieved this seemingly impossible task through his football. In a nation plagued by religious violence, and political and economic uncertainties,[15] his football served a purpose that went beyond the boundary. It helped colonized Indians reinvent themselves, reassuring them that the might of the colonial state could be successfully subverted on the sporting field. While on earlier occasions, achievement in sport helped colonized Indians capture the imagination of the west, Salim’s triumphs, nationalist successes on the sporting field, have hardly been given their due in the annals of our history.[16] Salim’s Football Career Mohammed Salim was born in Metiaburuz, a lower-middle-class locality in Calcutta in 1904.[17] Uninterested in formal academic training, he displayed great footballing skill from childhood. At a time when communal harmony was the major outcry in Bengal, Salim did not find it difficult to join the Chittaranjan Club in Central Calcutta. His stay at Chittaranjan was brief and within a couple of years he left the Bowbazar Club. His new club, managed by a group of educated Bengali middle-class patrons, instilled in Salim the fervent desire to beat the European in his game.[18] These patrons, leaders of the anti-partition movement, contributed in no small measure to the development of British sports, cricket and football, in Bengal. Mohun Bagan’s IFA Shield triumph in 1911 also contributed to drawing the young Salim to football. As mentioned in the second essay, even Muslim newspapers such as the Mussalman hailed the victory as a cause for celebration for people of all classes, irrespective of caste, creed or religion.[19] It was declared that although Mohun Bagan was a team composed of Bengalis only, its success had brought in its wake a sense of universal joy, which pervaded the feelings of the Hindus, Muslims and the Christians alike.[20] Accordingly, it was natural for Salim to join the Bowbazar Club in North Calcutta, the area where the Mohun Bagan Club was based.[21] Having learnt the basics at Bowbazar, Salim proceeded to join the B team of the Mohammedan Sporting Club. Mohammedan Sporting, established in 1891, was an institution of the progressive Muslims and was gradually carving out a niche in Calcutta’s football scene. His first stint with Mohammedan Sporting was short lived.

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Struck by Salim’s exceptional talent, Pankaj Gupta, Bengal’s legendary sports administrator,[22] recruited Salim to play for his club, Sporting Union. After a couple of seasons with Sporting Union, Salim moved to the Aryans Club under the auspices of Choney Majumdar, a leading sportsman of contemporary Bengal.[23] He played for the Aryans in 1932–33 and finally joined the senior team of the Mohammedan Sporting Club in 1934. In his years at the club, Mohammedan Sporting achieved unmatched success winning the coveted Calcutta Football League title five times in a row. Key to their spectacular success was Salim: Salim joined Mohammedan Sporting in 1934. This year marked the beginning of glory days in the club’s history. With Salim in their ranks, the Club for the first time in its history won the Calcutta Football League. Winning soon became a habit. For the next four years Mohammedan went on to win the coveted title with Salim spearheading the attack. Exceptionally talented, Salim was winning thousands of hearts with his ball control, dribbling, correct passes and lobs. He knew at what height a pass should be given. His passing was one of the greatest attractions for Mohammedan supporters. This winning spree continued for five years and Salim was at the forefront in most of these years. With each triumph the number of his fans multiplied. The more people wanted to touch him and embrace him the more emotional he became. He celebrated his fifth straight league win by shedding a couple of teardrops and by thanking god for having helped him achieve what he wanted.[24]

After winning the league title in 1936, the Mohammedan players had a break. The next tournament, the IFA Shield, was still some days away. Around this time, the Chinese Olympic side visited Calcutta to play a couple of exhibition matches against select IFA teams.[25] The first match was against an All India XI and the second against a select civil and military side.[26] These matches, it might be of interest, were the first international football matches played in Calcutta/India. Understandably, their organization generated considerable excitement among the masses.[27] Salim, one of the best players of contemporary Calcutta, was picked to represent the IFA team for both matches. He did so with distinction in the first match, evident from the reports published in the Amrita Bazar Patrika: Dr Chi Chao Yung, the Official in charge of the Chinese Olympic team has issued the following statement: I have been asked to comment on the play of the first international match between India and China, which took place on the 4th evening. To begin with – allow me to congratulate most heartily the members of the India side for their wonderful display of good footwork. In the course of the game they showed perfect understanding and exceptional speed. It was most unlucky that they did not come out the winners. The forwards, Salim, Rahim, Bhattacharjee and Abbas were exceptional in their display. They certainly had given us one of the hardest, if not the hardest, struggles during our tour. Although I have not seen enough games played in India to make me a competent judge, yet based on that exhibition game I feel quite safe to say that the standard of football in India is in no way inferior to that of anywhere in the Orient.[28]

Before the second match against the Chinese, Salim was nowhere to be seen. The police were solicited to look for him. Advertisements were inserted in newspapers

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asking him to join the Civil and Military XI immediately.[29] Nothing came of these efforts because Salim, by this time, was on his way to Scotland: All of a sudden, Salim had vanished. He was with his friend Hasheem in the ‘City of Cairo’, on its way to England. Having seen his exceptional display against the Chinese, Hasheem urged Salim to try his hand at European football. He was convinced Salim would make a mark in Europe, demonstrating in the process that Indians were in no way inferior to the Europeans.[30]

Hasheem was so persuasive that instead of playing in the second Chinese friendly, Salim sailed with him for England. After a few days in London, Hasheem took him to Glasgow and Celtic Park. Salim was surprised to note that all Celtic players were professionals. However, when asked whether he would be able to compete with them, he nodded in approval. Salim’s confidence encouraged Hasheem to speak to Willie Maley, the Celtic manager: ‘A great player from India has come by ship. Will you please take a trial of his? But there is a slight problem. Salim plays in bare feet.’[31] Maley laughed, the idea of a bare-footed amateur from India competing against Scottish professionals was difficult to believe. But Hasheem was persistent and the Celtic manager finally agreed to give him a trial. However, he emphasized the need to seek special permission from the Football Federation for someone playing bare feet. If the Federation gave their nod, he would give Salim a trial. Permission was eventually granted and Salim was asked to demonstrate his skill before 1,000 club members and three registered coaches. He had never faced a trial like this before and was understandably nervous. The coaches took him to different corners of the ground and asked him to demonstrate his skill in six different ways. When Salim finished his demonstration, they were astonished. Salim, the shy Indian, then asked Hasheem to seek permission to demonstrate three further styles of play. When Hasheem communicated his wish to the coaches, they were stunned. Further surprise awaited them when Salim displayed three further styles of play with distinction. Eventually, they were convinced that an exceptional talent had arrived in Scotland. They decided to include him in the playing XI for the forthcoming match against Hamilton. Thus began his short stint at Celtic FC.[32] In his first match for Celtic against Hamilton, he was in great form. In fact, he was exceptional and Celtic won the match 5-1. In his second match against Galston, Celtic won 7-1 and his performance led the Scottish Daily Express of 29 August 1936, to carry the headline: ‘Indian Juggler – New Style’.[33] Salim was also offered a professional contract to play in Germany.[34] However, he was determined to return to India in time for the 1937 Calcutta Football League. Despite his exceptional achievements, Salim has continually been ignored or accorded limited recognition in studies of Indian sports history. The roots of this ignorance may be traced back to the changes in the political equation in Bengal in the 1930s, when his club, Mohammedan Sporting, was discriminated against by the IFA. Despite their gallant performances against leading European teams, they were not given recognition anywhere near that accorded to Mohun Bagan after their victory in the IFA Shield in 1911. Key to the IFA’s discriminatory attitude against Salim and Mohammedan Sporting was the Muslim political ascendancy in West Bengal in the 1930s.

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Sociopolitical Context of Soccer Conflict in Contemporary Bengal The 1930s were a period of great flux in the political economy of Bengal. Bengal, which had been the key player in Indian nationalist politics till the mid-1920s, saw itself being marginalized in the 1930s, with the central Congress leadership displaying a growing apathy towards the bhadralok who dominated the Bengal Congress.[35] In his twovolume autobiographical work published at the beginning of the 1930s, the noted scientist, Prafulla Chandra Ray, noted, ‘The Bengali is now awakening to the fact that his leaders are very old men, that no one is taking their place, and that whether in Delhi or inside the Congress his representatives have little influence. The political centre of gravity is shifting northwards and westwards.’[36] Marginalization in national politics was accompanied by a minimization of the bharalok’s regional hegemony, an outcome of what Joya Chatterji has called, ‘the emergence of the mufassil in Bengal politics’.[37] Chatterji shows how the metropolis, which had dominated Bengal politics till the end of the 1920s, increasingly became less significant from the early 1930s, as political fortunes began to be determined by the Muslim vote concentrated in rural and small-town Bengal.[38] This transformation, an outcome of the Communal Award of 1932 and Government of India Act of 1935, which enlarged Muslim representation in the provincial assemblies at the expense of the Hindu vote, culminated in the accession of the Krishak Praja Party[39] – Muslim League ministry led by Fazlul Haq in 1937. The new ministry soon set in motion a series of reforms that affected the interests of the Hindu bhadralok. As Chatterji enumerates: In 1938, the Fazlul Haq ministry changed the rules about police recruitment so that ‘while enlisting Bengali constables the Superintendent of Police must see that not less than 50% of the recruits are Muslims’. In the same year, the ministry passed legislation that stipulated that 60 per cent of all Government appointments be reserved for Muslims. In 1939, the Government instructed local bodies ‘not to propose for appointment to local bodies persons who were known to be actively opposed to the policy of the Ministry’, and slapped administrative controls on nominations to the Union Boards, which accounted for one-third of their total membership.[40]

Even control of higher education, a mainstay of bhadralok power, was taken away from the Calcutta University and vested in a Secondary Education Board in which Muslims were to be given a greater say. To quote Chatterji, ‘Higher education was not only a mainstay of bhadralok power and influence; it was also a symbol of their exclusive identity. In threatening their control over this vital asset, the Bill also challenged the very basis of their “cultural superiority”’.[41] As with higher education, administrative and political appointments, also bhadralok preserves, were now under threat. This challenge in a hitherto uncontested public sphere greatly unsettled the bhadralok.[42] Muslim ascendancy led them, principal patrons of sport, to look favourably upon British rule. While in cricket they were content to allow the exclusively European Calcutta Cricket Club[43] and Ballygunge Cricket Club[44] to wield power over the Cricket Association of Bengal[45] well into the 1940s, in football they were opposed to the dominance of Mohammedan Sporting and tried their best to thwart it.

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Growing Rift between IFA and Mohammaden Sporting Discriminatory policies of the IFA, a bhadralok bastion, climaxed in 1937 and finally resulted in the withdrawal of Mohammedan Sporting from the Calcutta Football league in 1939.[46] The controversy started on 11 June 1937 during the match between Mohammedan Sporting and East Bengal. In this match, Sattar of Mohammedan Sporting hit Girin Ghose of East Bengal on the face.[47] The referee immediately reprimanded him for his offence by showing him the red card and it was known to all concerned that the IFA would take appropriate action against him. However, the IFA, instead of taking stern action against Sattar, suspended Habib, one of the best players of the Mohammedan Sporting side.[48] When the club’s secretary K. Nooruddin protested against this arbitrary decision-making, the apex body decided to ban him from attending its Governing Body meetings for the next three years. These actions generated considerable ill feeling among the Muslims, evident from the following editorial published in the Star of India: The inevitable has happened. The irresponsible and vindictive manner in which the Governing Body of the IFA had dealt with the situation created by false and malicious propaganda against Mohammedan Sporting has resulted in a deadlock, which may ruin Calcutta football for ever. In our leading article yesterday we pointed out the uncalled for insult which the IFA Governing body had offered the Mohammedan Sporting Club by the spiteful and shameful resolution appointing a committee to enquire into the conduct of the club itself in order to find out whether it had shielded Habib, the player wrongly punished by the IFA in the same meeting. We knew that the only answer, which the Mohammedan Sporting Club could give the IFA, consistent with self respect, was to decline to play any more games conducted by that Association. But yesterday we deliberately wrote with restraint because we had faint hopes that a good night’s sleep might help the Maharaja of Santosh and his colleagues on that governing body to realize the lengths to which they had been led on the evening previous. We had hoped that at least the Maharaja of Santosh would soon realize the mistake made and would use his influence to bring his erring colleagues to their senses and scrap the offensive, entirely uncalled for, petty minded and absurd resolution … entirely unworthy of grown up men who are expected to be reasonable and unbiased. But wisdom has not yet dawned, and the infamous decision to hold an inquest on the conduct of a club managed and controlled by men, many of whom are held in higher esteem by the public than the more boisterous gentleman on the IFA Governing Body still stands. The Mohammedan Sporting Club has refused to stand this act of coldblooded insult and deliberate injustice. If the men who voted for this monstrous resolution in the IFA meeting on Monday, despite protests from several other members, had any idea how men with any sense of self respect react to such insults as they were offering the Mohammedans, they would have hesitated a hundred times before mooting so unmannerly, so revengeful and so unprecedented a proposal before the meeting. But it is clear that the majority present on the occasion had gone there determined to punish the Mohammedans. The Mohammedans had in their eyes merited punishment not because of what happened or did not happen on Friday last; that was but the excuse of the Tiger to the Lamb.

It went on to declare that, the Mohammedans merited the severest punishment in their eyes for other reasons. They had driven out of the picture the ‘Premier’ Indian team and all teams, in fact, which had held supremacy before the advent of the all-conquering Mohammedans.

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A Social History of Indian Football They had taken the glory out of Hindu football, and had fought their way to a glory never before achieved by Indians. In this year of grace, the Mohammedans seemed to be once more on the high road to the same achievement – and if for the fourth year in succession the league honours went to them, would not this fair land of Indians be overcast with the clouds of ignominy? The very idea of so much glory to the Mohammedans seemed to have destroyed appetites and stolen sleep from the eyes of the thousands of the only loving children of Mother India.

The Editorial concluded thus: The tricks that were played to trip up the victorious Mohammedans on their onward march to victory, the accidents that robbed them of advantages on the field of play and the confused judgements of referees at the most crucial moments in the movement of the leather – all these and many things are too well known to tens of thousands of Muslims … who have regularly watched the contests on the Calcutta maidan. But we ourselves never took notice of these little ways or little men; we had confidence that as long as the Mohammedans played the splendidly efficient and commendably clean football which they alone can play at present, laurels would come to them despite all intrigue, impediment and controversy. And now some of the men whom both chance and design have placed in a position wherefrom the strangler’s rope can be fastened round the neck of the unloved Mohammedans, have created an opportunity to ‘feed fat the ancient grudge’. It may be further noted that the Mohammedans are to have from next year a better field and an enclosure of their own in a part of the maidan which would make their club territorially the second best to Calcutta FC. Could there be a more bitter gall and wormwood for the unhappy nationalist who has invaded the field of sport? But the nationalist is a clever stage manager and plotter. He realized that if the Mohammedans could be driven to an intolerable position, if on some pretext or other, they could be subjected to an insult, which they could not and would not brook, if a situation could be created in which the only alternative for the Mohammedan Sporting Club would be to cut themselves adrift from the IFA – then the unwanted Club and its unconquerable eleven could be effectively prevented from acquiring such permanent importance in the world of Indian football. That intolerable position has been created, that pretext has been invented, that situation has been engineered. And now is the exit of the Mohammedans awaited with hope and joy. The indecent haste with which the Governing Body of the IFA arrived at their decisions on Monday, was further proved when it was found that they had punished the wrong man. The Mohammedan Club executive after the enquiry have ascertained that it was their reserve player Sattar and not Habib who had assaulted Girin Ghose, and they have promptly suspended the guilty person, and naturally demanded that the IFA’s wrong and slanderous act against Habib, the innocent, must be rescinded.[49]

Noting that public opinion had been mobilized against the IFA, the President, the Maharaja of Santosh, hastened to find a peaceful solution to the controversy.[50] Even when the IFA was trying to resolve the problem, the suggestions its enquiry committee offered the Mohammedan Sporting Club were unacceptable. The club was advised to ‘form a volunteer corps from amongst your carefully selected members to sit among

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the spectators of your community with a view to use their influence in keeping order during the game and to prevent violence and lawlessness at its conclusion and also to collaborate with the police to protect the players and members of the opposing club against molestation’.[51] After deliberating on these suggestions, the Executive Committee of the Mohammedan Sporting Club notified the IFA that the suggestions were totally unacceptable. They were justified in asserting, ‘We submit that the Governing Body cannot reasonably take exceptions to our opinion expressed with regard to suggestions, which affects not only our club but also the good name of our community’.[52] Commenting on the humiliating suggestions of the IFA, the club souvenir published in 1939 declares, ‘A serious crisis appeared inevitable and the Governing Body of the IFA created a situation that caused great resentment not only amongst the members of the club but among the entire Muslim public of Bengal’.[53] As a mark of protest, Mohammedan Sporting Club withdrew from the league on 16 June 1937.[54] However, the IFA and the Mohammedan Sporting Club arrived at a temporary truce after K. Nooruddin, Secretary of the Club, met the Maharaja of Santosh at his residence.[55] At this meeting an agreement with the following decisions was signed between the two bodies: That time be given to the Mohammedan Sporting Club to reconsider the situation. That the Mohammedan Sporting Club shall lodge an appeal with the Indian Football Association in accordance with its rules and the Governing Body (of the IFA) will do all that is just and reasonable to redress the grievance of Mohammedan Sporting Club, if any. That in view of the understanding and in order to keep the doors of negotiation open, Mohammedan Sporting’s matches were to be postponed as requested by the club.[56]

As per the terms of the understanding, Mohammedan Sporting Club appealed to the IFA on 19 June 1937, urging the Governing Body to reconsider decisions against the club.[57] Rather than softening their stand in view of the club’s appeal, the IFA imposed a fresh series of conditions upon the club declaring that only if the conditions were met would their appeal be considered.[58] The primary condition given by the IFA was that the club would have to unconditionally withdraw all letters sent to the apex body. Criticizing the IFA’s stand, the Star of India stated: We tell the Maharaja of Santosh that the terms of an agreement to which he put his solemn signature have been violated and that he has himself been a party to that violation. Mr Nooruddin did not give any ‘assurance’ over and above what was put down in writing and signed by him jointly with the Maharaja. When later there was a vague talk of ‘assurances given by Mr Nooruddin’ the Mohammedans Secretary, we understand, several times protested against the suggestion that he had given any other assurances and asked for permission to contradict the reports. That permission was refused by the President of the IFA although Mr Nooruddin was never told what the assurances he was supposed to have given were. And even if there were assurances, which there were not, the Maharaja of Santosh and the ‘able lawyers’ who are on the IFA should know very well that after two parties in dispute put down their agreement in writing and specify certain terms and conditions thereof, any subsequent understanding has no validity in law.[59]

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Despite such criticisms, the IFA refused to alter its stance and after its meeting of 6 July asserted that the Maharaja of Santosh, had already notified the Mohammedan Sporting Club that if their letter of 16 June was not withdrawn their appeal would not be considered.[60] At this meeting, the IFA also decided that no more time would be given to the club and rejected the appeal by Mohammedan Sporting, a decision prompted by the clubs record fourth triumph in the Calcutta League on 3 July 1937.[61] In doing so, the IFA ignored the wishes of the European members of its Governing Body. G.C. Fletcher, a key member of the Governing Body, had moved a resolution whereby the Mohammedan Sporting Club was to be given a further forty-eight hours to withdraw their letter.[62] But the Hindu members were determined not to give the club any further time and wanted their appeal to be rejected immediately, as was eventually done: ‘There was a feeling in many quarters in Calcutta that the IFA have been surrendering its legitimate right to control football in Calcutta and it looked as if there would be one body left to rule football that is either the IFA or the Mohammedan sporting Club.’[63] Accordingly, the Hindu members of the IFA’s Governing Body strongly urged that ‘the matter should be dealt with then and there and no further adjournment should be given, and if the Mohammedan Sporting Club be given any further opportunity to re-consider this point, Mr K. Nooruddin on behalf of the club should straightaway withdraw the letter and revoke the resolution adopted at the meeting’.[64] Even when the club pleaded for a reconsideration of their appeal, the plea was rejected. Finally the IFA decided to forward to the club the following letter drafted by the President, the Maharaja of Santosh: ‘I am directed to regret that under the rules of the Association they are unable to go out of their way to reopen the issue.’[65] Thus even after much deliberation, the conflict between the IFA and the Mohammedan Sporting Club did not abate and the situation remained unchanged. Habib was under suspension for eighteen months and the censure against Secretary Nooruddin, who it was alleged, ‘did not behave in a candid manner before the general body at its meeting held on 14 June and attempted to shield Habib’[66] stood unaltered.[67] Interestingly, this atmosphere of hostility failed to deter the club from registering their fifth straight league triumph on 13 July 1938. ‘The club had the proud distinction of winning this match and yet another record was set by winning the league for the fifth year in succession.’[68] These performances escalated tensions between the governing body and the club and in 1938 the Club again suffered from the high handedness and unfair treatment of the authorities. The climax was reached when the question of the Australian tour came up. The suggestion of the club to postpone the tour until the end of the IFA Shield was ignored. However, the players rose to the occasion and showed their great love for the club and refused to join the Australian touring team till the end of the IFA Shield. By this time the members were exasperated and a general demand was made that the time had now come when the club, once and for all, should decide its line of action and withdraw from the Shield as a mark of protest. However, the Executive committee eventually decided to continue to play in spite of all opposition.[69]

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Communalism and Soccer: The Crisis of 1939 Central grievances of the club, the souvenir mentions, were ‘maximum punishment for minimum offences, repeated bad referring, arbitrary decision with regard to the venue of matches and generally the tyranny of the majority of the council of the IFA against our club’.[70] Even though Mohammedan Sporting competed in the 1938 IFA Shield under extreme duress, the IFA’s derisive attitude had finally taken its toll and forced the Mohammedans to withdraw from the Calcutta Football League in 1939. Interestingly, this withdrawal was not confined to the Mohammedan Sporting Club alone. East Bengal Club and Kalighat Club had also joined hands against the bhadralok-dominated IFA, which continued to favour the Mohun Bagan Club. Though a temporary truce was once again arrived at in 1940, resulting in the re-entry of these clubs into the Calcutta Football League, the temporary parting of ways did have a lasting effect. The withdrawal of the East Bengal Club marked the climax of yet another form of communal/ethnic rivalry in Indian football, this time between the Hindus of West and East Bengal. This Ghati-Bangal rivalry, brewing since the late 1920s but dominant in the immediate post-independence context, is something we turn to in the next essay. As mentioned at the start of this chapter, an understanding as to why the extraordinary achievements of Mohammed Salim and his club Mohammedan Sporting remain ignored must take into account the political context of 1930s Bengal. The changes in the balance of political power in Bengal resulted in them being ill-treated by Bengali sporting patrons, members of the bhadralok community of colonial Calcutta. The gradual marginalization of the Mohammedan Sporting Club in the Bengal sporting scenario of the 1930s and 1940s and the shabby treatment meted out to them by the IFA explains why a rich history of football in India has been lost. It demonstrates why, despite winning five straight Calcutta Football League titles defeating leading European sides, Mohammedan Sporting did not usher a new wave of sporting nationalism in colonial Bengal. As a result, Mohun Bagan’s solitary IFA Shield triumph in colonial India[71] continues to be regarded as a greater success of Indian nationalism on the sporting field. The factors influencing the gradual disappearance of Salim and his club from the Bengal sporting scenario also throws light on the association between politics, communalism and sport in the Indian context. It was the Bengali bhadralok’s failure to come to terms with the spectacular success of Mohammedan Sporting that led to the erasure of a rich chapter of Bengal’s sporting history, resulting in the perpetuation of a number of false impressions about the history of football in India. By looking at football as an integral component of ‘Indian’ political, social and cultural life, we have tried to bring into the realm of Indian social history the whole question of the relationship between sport and identity in the colonial context, one that continues to animate historians even after the demise of colonialism. Notes [1] Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p.167.

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[2] While Phil Vassili (The First Black Footballer [London: Frank Cass, 1998]) and Paul Dimeo claim to have written about Salim in their work, it is correct to suggest that Salim has never before been given the pride of place he deserves in works on India’s football history. [3] Legendary Scottish football club. Rivalry between Celtic and Rangers is one of the best-known football rivalries in the world. [4] The Daily Telegraph, 22 May 2003. This article was the outcome of a long discussion between Boria Majumdar and Mihir Bose, the Daily Telegraph sports writer and author of numerous books on sport. [5] The first Indian side to do so. [6] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 6 Nov. 1989. [7] For details see Scottish Daily Express, 29 Aug. 1936. [8] During his two seasons at Bury FC, Baichung played five matches for his club. Injuries and poor performance had seriously affected his progress in England. [9] Khelar Ashar, 8 June 1979. [10] Scottish Daily Express, 29 Aug. 1936. [11] He played first division football for Howrah Union in Calcutta in the 1970s. [12] Interview with Rashid Ahmed, Calcutta, 20 Jan. 2002. [13] Junior Statesman, 11–24 Sept. 1976. In this issue a photograph was published that shows a European feeling Salim’s feet to check what magic they contained. In colonial India a white person touching an Indian’s feet was an extremely rare occurrence. [14] Interview with Rashid Ahmed, Calcutta, 20 Jan. 2002. [15] 1930s Bengal was plagued by political turmoil. Increased communal tension in the wake of migration from East Bengal and shifts in the economic balance of power in the wake of Marwari influx from United Provinces (UP) had affected the politico-economic life of the province. [16] Salim’s feat remains unmentioned in all existing works on Indian football. Even P.K. Banerjee, arguably India’s best footballer ever and the country’s best coach, was unaware of his achievements. Interview with P.K. Banerjee at his house in Salt Lake, 7 Oct. 2002. [17] Khelar Ashar, 8 June 1979. [18] Ibid.; see also Jugantar 8 Aug. 1970. [19] Mohun Bagan Platinum Jubilee Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohun Bagan A.C., 1964), pp.199–206. [20] Ibid., p.203. [21] Mohun Bagan club was based at Beadon Street, two miles from Bowbazar in North Calcutta. [22] He dominated Bengal’s cricket and football administration between 1930 and 1950. Was manager of the Indian cricket and football team on numerous occasions and was leader of the Indian delegation during the Melbourne Olympics in 1948. [23] He had distinguished himself in both cricket and football, in the 1920s and 1930s. [24] Khelar Ashar, 8 June 1979. [25] Ibid. [26] The Statesman, 4 July 1936; see also Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7 July 1936. [27] The Statesman, 4 July 1936. [28] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7 July 1936. [29] Khelar Ashar, 8 June 1979. [30] Ibid. [31] The Daily Telegraph, 22 May 2003. [32] Khelar Ashar, 8 June 1979. [33] Scottish Daily Express, 29 Aug. 1936. [34] Khelar Ashar, 8 June 1979. [35] For details on the Bengal Congress’ growing rift with the central leadership see Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.18–54, 103–49. [36] Prafulla Chandra Ray, Life and Experiences of a Bengali Chemist (Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co., Ltd., 1932.), Vol.1, p.471. [37] Chatterji, Bengal Divided, pp.55–102.

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[38] Ibid. [39] Led by Abdul Kasem Fazlul Haq, the Krishak Praja Party drew its strength from the mass following it enjoyed among Bengal’s Muslim peasantry and intermediate shareholders. [40] Chatterji, Bengal Divided, pp.107–8. [41] Ibid. [42] Ibid., pp.18–54, 103–49. [43] One of the oldest surviving cricket clubs in the world, mentioned in India’s first newspaper, the Hicky’s Gazette of 16 Dec. 1780. [44] Foremost rival of the Calcutta Cricket Club in colonial India, this club was established in 1864. [45] Established in 1928, the CAB is still the governing institution for cricket in Bengal. [46] Their withdrawal allowed the predominantly Hindu bhadralok side Mohun Bagan to win the League title for the first time in their history. [47] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 12 June 1937. [48] Star of India, 16 June 1937. [49] Ibid. [50] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 17 June 1937. [51] Ibid. [52] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7 July 1937. [53] Mohammedan Sporting Club Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohammedan Sporting Club, 1939), p.62. [54] Ibid. [55] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 18 June 1937. [56] Ibid. [57] Ibid., 20 June 1937. [58] Ibid., 1 July 1937. [59] Star of India, 7 July 1937. [60] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7 July 1937. [61] Ibid. [62] Ibid. [63] Ibid. [64] Ibid. [65] Ibid. [66] Star of India, 7 July 1937. [67] Commenting on this injustice the Star of India (14 July 1937) wrote, ‘At a stormy meeting of the Governing Body held last night, with the Maharaja of Santosh in the chair, at which the representative of the Mohammedan Sporting Club, who is not a lawyer, had a rough time having repeatedly to seek the protection of the chair, which too was not always readily forthcoming. The Mohammedan Sporting Club was hanged, quartered and drawn for what? – for having, as luck would have it, created another piece of history in British empire soccer, that of annexing the league championship for four years in succession.’ [68] Mohammedan Sporting Club Souvenir, pp.66–8. [69] Ibid. [70] Ibid. [71] The club next won the IFA Shield in 1947.

A century old journey [email protected] 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500125733 FSAS112556.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 000000June/September /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Figure 1. Dukhiram Majumdar – one of the early pioneers.

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Figure 2. That immortal moment. Mohun Bagan’s victorious 1911 team with the IFA Shield.

Figure 3. East Bengal – proud winners of the 1940 league title.

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Figure 4. People watching from the ramparts – a conventional sight in Indian football.

Figure 5. The Indian team on the eve of departure for the 5th Asian Games at Bangkok.

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Figure 6. People’s passion at its best: Never ending queue for tickets.

Figure 7. A close up of the IFA Shield – India’s blue ribbon tournament.

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Figure 8. Do we need to say much about the popularity of football in India?

Figure 9. Mohammedan Sporting and Eastern Railway – Mohammedan Sporting players hitting linesman, August 1975.

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Figure 10. Pele on arrival at Dum Dum airport in early hours of 23 September 1977.

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Figure 11. East Bengal and Mohun Bagan football match at Eden on 16/8/80. Bodies kept at Club House. Indian football’s biggest tragedy – 16 fans died on this fateful day.

Figure 12.

Indira Gandhi– the Indian Prime Minister flagging off the Nehru Cup

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Figure 13. Bobby Moore, the chief guest, handing the Nehru Cup to the Argentinian captain.

Figure 14. Chima Okerie the Nigerian superstar being given police protection on a day of inter club transfers.

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Figure 15.

Akbar being taken out of the field after an injury, August 1974.

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Figure 16.

The Mohammedan Sporting Club trying to revive those glory days.

Figure 17.

India v. Malaysia women’s football series.

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Figure 18.

The global Indian football fan.

Figure 19. football.

Fans protesting against the lack of television coverage of domestic

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Figure 20. National footballers Debjit Ghosh and Renedy Singh touring schools asking for support for the national team.

Figure 21. People mourn the death of the Brazilian footballer of East Bengal club Cristiano Junior – who died of a collision with the rival goalkeeper in 2004.

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan: Subregionalism, Club Rivalry and Fan Culture in Indian Football [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar /3 Bidhan SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106394 FSAS110622.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 62005 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

It was an unimportant match between East Bengal and a local team in the late 1970s. The match was just about to start. A small crowd was chatting near the main entrance of the ground. Suddenly a middle-aged man with messy hair, red eyes and a worn out look appeared at the gate. While entering the ground he anxiously asked the gatekeeper whether the match had begun. The gateman replied in the negative. A few other members who knew the man came to him and asked why he was so late in arriving on that day. The man hesitantly replied: ‘My younger son passed away in the morning. I am coming straight from the crematorium.’[1] In a League match in the late 1970s, Mohun Bagan won by a big margin. After the match the jubilant crowd rushed towards Esplanade to board buses and trams on the way home. A few bare-bodied young lads were standing on the rod of the tram’s wheel, hanging on to the windows with one hand. They were waiving their shirts like Mohun Bagan flags. As the tram suddenly stopped at a road signal, one of the lads got thrown onto the street. His feet appeared to be run over by the wheels of the tram. However, as the tram started to move, the lad ran and jumped onto the rod to catch the tram. After the tram left the place, a severed toe was found amidst a few drops of blood while a thin red line stretched along the tramline. The pain got lost in the euphoria of victory.[2]

The incidents cited above are but a few of the most popular sporting lore that have grown around the eternal rivalry between India’s two most glorious football clubs – Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Even though anecdotes are not always reliable, they convey a simple truth in spirit: rivalry between the two clubs mirrors the oppositional identities, social differences and emotional commonalities inherent in Indian society and culture. This essay seeks to suggest that while the roots of the origin and consolidation of this football rivalry lies in social and sub-regional differences of contemporary Indian society, its playing out in the last twenty-five years can only be meaningfully explained in terms of club loyalty, fan culture and commercial transformation.

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Contours of Social Conflict in Indian Football Paul Dimeo, one of the few scholars to have written about this rivalry, in a recent intervention on the history of club-conflict in Calcutta football, has argued that the most fascinating rivalry in India’s club football between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal can be interpreted in terms of an ethnic conflict between the Hindu settlers of West Bengal and the Hindu immigrants from East Bengal in the aftermath of the Partition of 1947.[3] But this rigid ethnic polarization, probably emanating from Dimeo’s lack of awareness about the fluidity of cultural identities of the two groups of people sharing more or less a broadly common language, religion and cultural past, seems not only over simplistic but also flawed. As Cornell and Hartman have argued: ‘Ethnicity, then, is identification in ethnic terms … A population or social collectivity may be simply an ethnic category, assigned an ethnic identity by outsiders. Once that objective becomes subjective – that is, once that population sees itself in ethnic terms, perhaps in response to the identity outsiders assign to it – it becomes an ethnic group.’[4] Even this definition does not justify Dimeo’s premise since the Ghati-Bangal binary can be meaningfully interpreted in terms of a perceptional cultural clash between sub-regional sentiments.[5] As this chapter will demonstrate, an intense club rivalry based on aggressive fan culture gradually replaced the sub-regional tension that lay at the root of the initial configuration of the rivalry. Under colonial conditions, Indians employed football to express nationalist, communal or regional identities. The turnover from colonialism to Independence added a further dimension to football. In the aftermath of Partition, large-scale Hindu migration from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to West Bengal created serious sociodemographic tension resulting in a distinct cultural conflict in Bengali society. The sub-regional identity of the East Bengali Hindus clashed with the established Hindu settlers of West Bengal, who designated their East Bengali counterparts derisively as Bangals. In Calcutta, the Bangals started competing with the West Bengali Hindus for the dominance of the city. The Bangals, with their common memory of a homeland and everyday culture and a shared experience of suffering and migration, fought hard to earn a living, acquire economic strength, social position and cultural recognition to ensure survival in a hostile environment. They returned the compliment affront by labelling the locals as Ghatis, after a distinctively shaped vessel used commonly in West Bengal. While the Ghati-Bangal conflict epitomized a socio-cultural rivalry in Indian society, the identities seemed more ‘instrumentalist’, or constructed, than ‘primordialist’, or fixed and ascribed. The Ghati-Bangal conflict has sent ripples across the football field. As the immigrants sought to preserve their cultural identity and integrity in a new society, they searched for avenues to assert themselves. Football, in this context, was appropriated by the East Bengali Hindus as a cultural tool to establish their social identity and cultural excellence. Consequently, the maidan became a cultural space where the opposed identities of the Ghatis (settlers) and Bangals (immigrants) came to be produced and reproduced through a bitter rivalry between Mohun Bagan, the club of the Ghatis and East Bengal, the club of the Bangals. While this arch football rivalry

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struck another blow to Indian footballing nationalism, it, contradictorily, played an important role in assimilating the immigrants into the host community. With time, however, this fluid sub-regional football culture proved ephemeral and a more virulent club rivalry between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, based on intense team loyalty, overtook the erstwhile sentiment at national level competitions throughout India. Ghati-Bangal in Indian Society The terms Ghati and Bangal, as mentioned earlier, refer to the people with their respective original habitats in West and East Bengal. However, while the term Bangal has found a place in most standard Bengali lexicons as a meaningful word, Ghati is not included in any of them. Reference to the people of East Bengal as Bangals is evident in Bengali literature since the twelfth century.[6] That Bangal became a butt of ridicule in West Bengal, especially in nineteenth-century Calcutta, is evident from Dinabandhu Mitra’s[7] memorable drama Sadhbar Ekadashi where he depicted this attitude perfectly.[8] Well-known Indian sports writer Moti Nandy succinctly sums up the essence of this contemptuous attitude of the West Bengalis towards the Bangals since the nineteenth century: From the beginning of the nineteenth century, people who came from East Bengal were treated with condescension by the original settlers of Calcutta, who compared them with country bumpkins. On the stage and the screen, East Bengalis appeared invariably as jesters. To express their contempt, the Calcutta Bengalis called them Bangals.[9]

It is, however, difficult to determine as to how the word Ghati appeared in the Bengali lexicon. Moti Nandy refers to a letter in the Ananda Bazar Patrika in the late-1980s, which attempted an explanation: In the nineteenth century, when water taps were unknown in every home in Calcutta, each household had its own well. The pots and buckets would often fall into the well. In the afternoon some men would do the rounds of the neighbourhood with a rope and a hook, shouting ‘Ghati tulben? Ghati tulben?’ ‘Want the pots taken out?’ Finally, they abbreviated their call to just shouting ‘Ghati! Ghati!’ in front of the houses. The East Bengalis who lived in these areas at the time heard this daily uproar and assumed that the locals of Calcutta were referred to as ‘Ghatis’.[10]

Rupak Saha, a journalist of the Ananda Bazar Patrika, offers a different view. According to Saha, the word, unlike Bangal, is of recent vintage, and it first came into vogue in the nineteenth century. He is of the opinion that the Bangal students of Calcutta, overturning the slur labelled against them by the West Bengalis, introduced the term to ridicule them. Since the West Bengalis used a ‘ghati’ for all their household work, the term was purposively taken as synonymous to their identity by the East Bengalis.[11] There is another popular explanation of the origin of the word: Once when a person from Gaur went to visit his East Bengali relative, he forgot his ‘Ghati’. On arrival, he could not concentrate on anything for not having his essential ‘Ghati’ with him. Ultimately he attempted to steal one from a neighbour’s house, but was subsequently caught. For his heinous act, the image of the people of Gaur, i.e. West Bengal, was permanently tarnished. Henceforth they were labelled ‘Ghatis’.[12]

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Whether or not these explanations are correct, neither community is apt to lose its temper when identified as Ghati and Bangal today. The trend of derisive attitude aside, the difference between Ghati and Bangal was clearly discernible in terms of dialect, manner, dress, food habits, rites and rituals and even appearance, transcending wider similarities of religion, language and a common cultural past. These mostly cultural differences, though not rigid, had the potential to create sharply distinctive social identities in times of heightened socio-political tension. The partition of Bengal in 1947, followed by a massive influx of East Bengali Hindu refugees into West Bengal, created the occasion for a sub-regional social conflict to flourish. In the aftermath of partition, the East Bengali refugees found in East Bengal a club of their ‘own’, representing their cultural ‘self’ to fight and win against the ‘other’, that is, the West Bengali Hindus. As the latter mockingly named East Bengal ‘the club of the Bangals’, they, in turn, renamed Mohun Bagan ‘the club of the Ghatis’. Consequently, the Ghati-Bangal rivalry on the maidan divided Bengali Hindu society into two camps during every football match between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. Interestingly, as Moti Nandy writes: ‘These two communities even divided the aquatic population in a symbolic manner – the prawn for the Ghatis and the hilsa for the Bangals. In the evening after a football derby, the prices of prawn and hilsa used to rise or fall depending on the result of the match.’[13] Though the rivalry deepened after partition, it had begun when the East Bengal Club was formed in 1920 in an unusual context. A Synoptic History of the East Bengal Club The East Bengal Club was started originally as one for East Bengali players by East Bengali people to ameliorate sporting grievances born out of continuous discrimination against them by Calcutta’s Bengali clubs.[14] The birth of the club can only be meaningfully explained in the context of this sporting polarization in contemporary Bengali society. In fact, the club was born as a mark of protest against injustice, bias and discrimination meted out to sports organizers and players from East Bengal. At the turn of the century, football had moved to districts of East and North Bengal. In East Bengal, Dacca was the centre of football’s growing stature and popularity. Players hailing from Dacca and adjoining regions used to come to Calcutta to gain wider recognition at competitive level. That they performed well and sometimes better than their West Bengali counterparts is borne out by the fact that eight of the eleven players of the victorious Mohun Bagan team in 1911 originally came from East Bengal.[15] Even the legendary Mohun Bagan defender Gostho Paul came from a village in the Faridpur district of East Bengal.[16] Despite this noticeable excellence of East Bengali players, a large number of them frequently became victims of discrimination at the hands of West Bengali club organizers, officials and players.[17] The foundation of the East Bengal Club was a direct outcome of such an incident. In 1919, Sailesh Basu, a footballer from the Vikrampur pargana of Dacca, distinguished himself as a player of the Jorabagan Club. However, Basu was excluded from the team in a crucial tie of the Cooch Behar Cup in the following year.[18] He soon

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realized that his East Bengali identity had cost him his place in the side. He even complained to the club’s Vice-President Suresh Chaudhuri, who, despite his best efforts, failed to remedy the situation. As a result, both severed relations with the club. Chaudhuri, a rich and influential businessman, was originally the zamindar of Nagarpur of Mymensingh district in East Bengal. To combat the insult, he decided to form a club by mobilizing East Bengali players and enthusiasts in and around Calcutta. Sailesh Basu, along with another East Bengali player Nosa Sen, assisted him in founding the East Bengal Club in August 1920. The very name of the club was important as it clearly appealed to the discriminated East Bengalis in West Bengal for support. The club prospered with patronage from peoples from different walks of life – Taritbhushan Roy, Raibahadur of Bhagyakul, Saradaranjan Roy, Principal of the Metropolitan College (present Vidyasagar College) and Pankaj Gupta, one of the greatest sports administrators India has produced. The organizers of the club formed a modest team of East Bengali players in a few days and emerged champions in a sixa-side tournament called the Hercules Cup held at Shyam Park in north Calcutta. One of its matches was reported in a local newspaper, which noted with surprise the presence of an enthusiastic crowd to cheer the newborn club.[19] Since its inception, the club had a reasonable support base all over Bengal. A review of the club’s history of the next five years points to a complex equation between social power relations and mechanisms of sports administration in contemporary Bengal. Suresh Chaudhuri and Taritbhushan Roy (joint secretaries of the club), both being socially influential in Calcutta and having good relations with British officialdom, utilized their power and position to earn the club’s affiliation with the IFA. East Bengal was soon allowed to play in the Second Division League[20] and given a ground on the maidan.[21] The meteoric rise of East Bengal to a position of respectability, however, was not well taken by its sister clubs in Calcutta. The subsequent controversy over East Bengal’s promotion to the First Division of the Calcutta Football League in 1925 serves to illustrate this point. As has already been elaborated in the third chapter entitled ‘Race, Nation and Performance’, East Bengal earned a much-deserved promotion to the First Division in 1925 amidst debate and controversy within the rank and file of the IFA.[22] Most historians[23] of the East Bengal Club argue that the deadlock was ultimately resolved through the initiative of the Maharaja of Santosh, Manmathanath Raychaudhuri, then President of the club. In October 1924 the members of the League Committee, at a special meeting held at the residence of the Maharaja, abolished the rule that restricted two Indian teams to play in the First Division League and introduced the standard rule of promotion and relegation. This decision, scholars agree, earned East Bengal a welldeserved promotion. Interestingly, most scholars point out that while the European representatives of the committee strongly supported the motion in East Bengal’s favour, the two Indian members representing Mohun Bagan and Aryan strenuously opposed the move.[24] A look at newspaper reports on the issue in 1924–25, however, points to a different course of events that eventually led to the club’s success in earning the promotion. This engaging story, narrated in ‘Race, Nation and Performance’, clearly shows how

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan 97

the Bengali clubs led by Mohun Bagan and Aryan opposed East Bengal’s promotion to the First Division. The League Committee’s decision to accord East Bengal the promotion in its annual general meeting on 15 April 1924[25] was reversed in its special meeting a week later under strong pressure from other Indian clubs.[26] In protest against this unjust decision, all the European clubs withdrew from the League leaving Mohun Bagan and Aryan as the only two teams to compete for the title.[27] The withdrawal of the European Clubs and their deadline to the League Committee in support of East Bengal was strongly condemned by their Indian counterparts.[28] Against such allegation, a representative of one of the European clubs argued in The Statesman that the Europeans had in mind the progress of Indian football. He was certain that East Bengal’s presence and participation in the First Division of the Calcutta League would substantially enhance the competitive edge and glamour of the tournament.[29] Pankaj Gupta played a major role at this juncture to promote the cause of East Bengal. In his words: I was approached by East Bengal Club to help them in their mission to be promoted to the first division. The late Mr Thomas Lamb [later became Sir Thomas Lamb] was then the key man of the Calcutta Football Club … I approached Thomas Lamb and he joined hands with me in our fight to delete such restrictions in regard to promotion in the first division … Although I was not a member of the East Bengal Club for the sake of sporting justice I took a lead on this issue, and the later Mr A.B. Rosser joined hands with us and helped us in a great way. Later Mr Medlycott of the Customs opposed our move but ultimately we succeeded and restrictions were removed. Later Mr Medlycott left the meeting in a hurry and subsequently resigned from the Hon. Secretaryship of the IFA.[30]

The Statesman also expressed deep surprise at the Indian teams’ (especially Mohun Bagan and Aryan) hostile attitude towards East Bengal. The most probable reason for such hostility, according to it, was an anxiety over the potential challenge East Bengal would pose to the two leading Indian clubs in terms of popularity and player acquisition.[31] The club, however, by the 1930s, had lost its exclusive sub-regional character and could field no more East Bengali players than Mohun Bagan or other Bengali clubs.[32] But the name and banner of the club continued to inspire an emotional attachment among the East Bengali population in West Bengal. This particular emotional set-up, hardened more by the West Bengalis’ discriminatory remarks and attitude, was an extension of the social conflict between Ghati and Bangal. And it lay, along with the growing communalism in Indian football, at the root of fragmentation of Indian sporting nationalism in the 1940s. Ghati-Bangal Conflict on the Football Field Paul Dimeo has argued that: ‘Before partition, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan had a friendly relationship … and, until the cataclysmic political changes of 1947, the two clubs saw each other as siblings’.[33] The evidences he provides in support of his view,

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however, are not substantial. According to him, that the clubs shared a common ground, and that Mohun Bagan hosted a celebratory tea party for their ‘younger brothers’ at the latter’s first ever League triumph in 1942 are sufficient to prove the point.[34] He further suggests: ‘The main difference at this time [the 1930s–40s] was that while Mohammedan Sporting’s rivalry with several Hindu clubs prompted serious communal violence, the two most successful Hindu clubs were on friendly terms … Hindu clubs [mainly Mohun Bagan and East Bengal] cooperated in opposition to Muslim clubs, and in opposition to the last remnants of competitive British clubs.’[35] Dimeo’s chief concern is to situate the ethnic footballing rivalry between the two clubs in the context of post-partition immigration. Dimeo, however, confuses his position by furnishing contradictory evidence: ‘Yet, an exhibition match in 1942 between the ‘Bengalees’ – a term referring to the West Bengalis – and the Rest, took players’ individual ethnicity as relevant: the Rest including Muslims, Europeans and East Bengalis.’[36] Dimeo’s views defy contemporary realities of Indian football. First, sharing of a common ground was not to become a factor precipitating friendship, but a source of discord as the bhadralok-dominated Mohun Bagan resented this option forced upon them by the police. Mohun Bagan’s hosting of a tea party at East Bengal’s first League win in 1942 may have been a rare occasion of goodwill. Such gestures were shown to impress the public of the club’s versatility rather than to honour rival success. It was, however, the occasions of virulent enmity that proved of relevance in the 1930s. As has been pointed out, Mohun Bagan scrupulously opposed East Bengal’s promotion to the First Division in 1925. This resulted in long-term bitterness between the two clubs. Their first meeting in any first class competition saw the infant club beating their more renowned rival 1-0 in the final of the Cooch Behar Cup.[37] In their first encounter in the League, East Bengal’s 1-0 victory over their opponent was a sweet revenge on all counts.[38] In the same year, East Bengal raised an objection over the legality of one of Mohun Bagan’s players, J. Sen.[39] This move led to further hardening of relations. The enmity continued unabated in the 1930s. For example, the League Council was forced to transfer the match between the two clubs in 1932 to the CFC ground to abort possible hooliganism. An unprecedented number of policemen had to be employed to control law and order in and around the ground on that day.[40] More importantly, Dimeo’s conception of Mohun Bagan-East Bengal cooperation in opposition to a Muslim club, that is, Mohammedan Sporting, is a grossly flawed one. Two specific instances prove the point. During the 1939 League competition, Mohammedan Sporting, East Bengal and Kalighat jointly withdrew from the Calcutta Football League in protest against the IFA’s cynical attitude towards them.[41] At this juncture, J.C. Moitra, a reputed Bombay-based sports journalist, while expressing his full sympathy with the IFA’s decision to suspend the ‘recalcitrant clubs’ and strong condemnation for the unsporting action of the clubs, maintained: The association of East Bengal and Kalighat with Mohammedan Sporting may seem a little strange at first sight. Because they are not Muslims, though they have a sprinkling of them in their composition. Their affinity lies in a different directio. … They are the strongest supporters of importation of players from outside. It is a wellknown fact that Mohun Bagan have sternly set their face against this move …

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan 99 Evidently, club rivalry and jealousy, which are much deeper and stronger than we see on the surface, have made strange bed-fellows.[42]

Mitra’s comments and his unwitting reference to Mohun Bagan bring out the realities of club rivalry in Calcutta football. The clubs went further to form a rival football association called the Bengal Football Association on 12 August 1939 and start a new tournament called the Brabourne Cup. Although the crisis was averted through negotiations in early 1940, the episode clearly demonstrates that East Bengal was in no mood to cooperate with Mohun Bagan in opposition to Mohammedan Sporting. The joint venture of East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting to combat the IFA decision, according to Moitra, was ‘backed by persons who hold high offices in the Ministry of Bengal’.[43] This again, in direct contradistinction to Dimeo’s view, points to a fruitful cooperation between the two clubs against IFA’s favouritism of Mohun Bagan. Even at the height of communal tension in Bengal on the eve of partition, IFA was alarmed at the increasing spectator violence on the occasion of every Mohun BaganEast Bengal match. For example, the return League match between the two teams that ended in a goalless draw leading to East Bengal’s League triumph in 1946 witnessed rampant hooliganism and violence. The supporters not only exchanged words but also threw bricks, stones and soda bottles against each other.[44] The Mohun Bagan tent was raided and ransacked either by dejected club supporters or rival cohorts. The club lodged a complaint with the IFA against East Bengal for the incident, which the latter strongly denied.[45] The IFA President Major Stanhope even urged the two clubs to move jointly to mitigate such unfortunate happenings in future.[46] The degree of social sensitivity and divergence evidently visible in the Mohun BaganEast Bengal rivalry before partition, however, should not be exaggerated. This bitter rivalry between supporters of the two clubs shifted from a fluid to a rigid/exclusive state only after the partition of Bengal in 1947. Hindu refugees started to arrive in droves in West Bengal from East Pakistan after 1947. Moti Nandy captures the tragedy of this refugee exodus brilliantly: Searching for a roof over their heads in the city and its surrounds and a fistful of rice twice a day, they began their struggle for survival under conditions of unbearable hardship. Lost and impoverished in an unknown territory and hostile environment, faced with severe adversities, they would sometimes lose the battle and fall back, then return once more to dream of settling down to a secure and normal existence.[47]

A more recent observation may be of more value here: The experiences of the refugees after being uprooted and upon their arrival in West Bengal were far from pleasant. They were forced to live in cramped government-run relief camps. There small sums were handed out to them as doles and they were given meagre family rations. In overall terms they were treated no better than beggars. No efforts were made to create employment opportunities to enable them to eke out a living.[48]

It was under the stress of such plight in everyday life that the Hindu refugees discovered East Bengal Club, which was waging their battle on the sportsfield and surprisingly enough, winning! ‘For these ravaged and embittered masses’, remarks Nandy, ‘the one source of hope, pride and victory lay in the triumphs of the Club named after their

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abandoned homeland’.[49] In fact, a spell of five years (1949–53) in the immediate aftermath of partition and the refugee influx, witnessed dazzling performances from the famous ‘Five Pandavas’ of the East Bengal forward-line, viz. Vengkatesh, Apparao, Dhanraj, Ahmed Khan and Saleh, leading the club to a series of successes in national level tournaments.[50] These victories, for the uprooted Bangal migrants, soon became a cultural weapon to fight discrimination. In other words, the Ghatis being identified as antagonists in their subconscious, the Club’s victory over Mohun Bagan on each occasion instilled a new confidence in their hearts. Naturally, they began to assemble under East Bengal’s red-and-yellow banner. It has been argued with some justification that if ‘Mohammedan Sporting Club had brought with it hatred through its aggressive communalism born of a minority’s natural instinct for self-preservation’, ‘East Bengal brought anger through regional, cultural and language differences in the backdrop of a hostile social, economic and political environment’.[51] Press reports of matches between the two clubs in the 1950s and 1960s, either in the Calcutta League and Shield or in national level tournaments such as the Durand Cup in Delhi and Rovers Cup in Bombay, confirm the presence of massive crowds. The IFA Shield final between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan in 1947 had to be abandoned on the first day due to spectator violence.[52] In the Shield final between the two clubs in 1950, a huge police force had to be stationed at the ground to avert violence.[53] These skirmishes gradually extended to engulf the whole of the Calcutta maidan, so much so that the IFA decided to conduct the League with regular assistance from the Calcutta Police in 1951.[54] East Bengal, however, objected to this decision and a bitter rivalry ensued between the club and the police. The matter assumed such a controversial dimension that the Chief Minister had to intervene to settle matters.[55] The Chief Minister also expressed concern over the question of the organization and control of the game in 1955. Disappointed with the IFA’s role in the process, he proposed the formation of a central organization to control the game in Calcutta.[56] The very next year East Bengal along with a few other clubs filed a petition to the IFA against biased refereeing in the League. The referee’s bias, according to the petition, was intended to favour one particular club. They urged IFA to change the scenario within a week.[57] Needless to say, the favoured club was Mohun Bagan. Throughout the 1950s–60s, the rivalry between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal continued to prosper on sub-regional and cultural lines. While the refugees, backed strongly by the Communists, waged a pitched battle against the Congress-led West Bengal Government on the political plane,[58] East Bengal led the onslaught on the cultural plane, that is, on the football field. The situation became so alarming in the late 1950s that Dr B.C. Roy, then Chief Minister of West Bengal, suggested a change in club names which carried religious, regional or ethnic overtones.[59] Further, Football’s politicization in the context of increasing spectator violence in the 1950s was a major source of discord between the IFA on the one hand and clubs like East Bengal, Mohammedan Sporting or Aryan on the other. The Ghati-Bangal war on the football field and the political war on the streets of Calcutta merged in the 1950s–60s to produce a strong identification of sport with politics. And the resultant craze and euphoria for this arch

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan 101

rivalry between the two clubs was to dominate Indian football culture in the next decade as well. From Ghati-Bangal Conflict to Club Rivalry The configuration of Indian football in terms of a social conflict between Ghati and Bangal on sub-regional or cultural lines took an aggressive turn in the 1970s. The war of liberation in East Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 led to fresh immigration of Hindus into West Bengal. This added substantially to East Bengal Club’s support base as the club served as a rallying point for the immigrants’ hurt sentiments embodying a shared memory. Strikingly enough, the first half of the 1970s was a glorious period for the club.[60] More importantly, during the six years from 1970 to 1975, the club conceded only one defeat at the hands of Mohun Bagan.[61] Naturally therefore, the supporters of the club dominated the maidan in this period. The immigration of the early 1970s coincided with a period of intensive social tension and political turmoil in West Bengal in the wake of the anti-establishment Naxalite movement that used violence and terror as a means to achieve its end. The football field failed to isolate itself from this violence. As a result spectator behaviour began to undergo qualitative changes. As Surojit Sengupta, the footballer-turned-sports journalist, has remarked, ‘In the context of the Naxal Movement in the early 1970s, political uncertainty and social depression often turned Calcutta’s football ground hot and violent’.[62] Emotional bonding with a club rapidly acquired a violent temper; aggression became more pronounced and win or loss produced spontaneous euphoria or retaliation. Spectators used to stand in queues for days on end to obtain their cherished tickets to watch matches. Skirmishes and feuds were common during long waits for tickets. People also got injured or fell ill at times. In the 1975 Shield final, East Bengal defeated Mohun Bagan 5-0. After the fourth goal was scored, one East Bengal supporter had a heart attack out of sheer ecstasy and had to be taken to hospital immediately.[63] For a 25-year-old young Mohun Bagan supporter named Umakanto Palodhi, the ignominious defeat aroused so much dejection that he committed suicide that night. The suicide note he left is revealing: ‘By becoming a better Mohun Bagan footballer, I wish to take revenge of this defeat in my next birth.’[64] Subrata Bhattacharyya, a player of that Mohun Bagan team recounted later: Three hours passed since the match had ended. It was 9 o’clock at night. Noticing that thousands of supporters still surrounded the tent, I fled through the back door along with Prasun Banerjee [another player of the team] and took refuge at a restaurant by the side of the river Ganges. It was only at 2.30 a.m., well past midnight, that Sailen Manna [a veteran and most revered Mohun Bagan footballer] came in a police jeep and rescued us to a mess at Elliot Road.[65]

Again, when East Bengal defeated favourites Mohun Bagan in a 1977 League encounter,[66] a young Mohun Bagan supporter poisoned himself by devouring a bottle of pesticide.[67] The post-match report pointed to extremely unruly behaviour of the crowd and mentioned that joyous reaction of the East Bengal supporters after the match became uncontrollable.[68] Instances of the crowd going overboard are abundant in

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contemporary press reports. What these trends of crowd behaviour bring to light is that behind the façade of eternal enmity between the two clubs inspired by a long-term socio-cultural conflict; lay a deeper and more intense force of club loyalty. In modern society, sporting rivalry inflamed by club loyalty breeds social difference while social divisions based on affiliations of race, regionalism, ethnicity, community or religion inform and reinforce such rivalries.[69] On this premise, social polarization of fan culture has the capacity to produce recurrent spectator clashes, which often assume violent forms. Indian football, too, witnessed such a series of clashes around the Mohun Bagan-East Bengal rivalry during the three decades following independence. In the late 1970s, as a columnist of a leading Calcutta-based sports magazine noted, the transformation in the character of spectator behaviour during the years 1978–79 was sudden and unprecedented.[70] The matter came to a head in 1980 when, during a rather unimportant League match between the two teams at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta, clashes between supporter groups led to widespread violence in the stadium resulting in a stampede that cost sixteen diehard fans their lives.[71] The immediate context that sparked off widespread violence was an ugly tackle by Dilip Palit, a tough East Bengal defender, upon Bidesh Basu, a mercurial Mohun Bagan forward, and the latter’s spontaneous retaliation by kicking the former, ten minutes into the second half. The referee gave marching orders to both for their offences. However, the supporters, enraged by the incident, became involved in a free-for-all while the police remained mere spectators. Thirteen fans kissed the dust while several others were seriously injured. Three more died at the hospital later on. Next day, the leading Bengali daily Ananda Bazar Patrika began its match report on the first page with the by-line: ‘Football: the new killer in Calcutta! Thirteen died, hundreds injured. Pathetic outcome of the derby match’.[72] The incident was severely condemned by all; and in an open letter Amal Dutta, a renowned football coach of Indian club teams, wrote to Jyoti Basu, the then-Chief Minister of West Bengal: You have done the right thing by not coming to see the match. In that case, you would have had to bear the pain of watching the last of a number of young lives simply due to inaction on the part of your police … This accident surely disproves your worth whatsoever as minister for Home and Sports. … You won’t be excused even if you immediately appoint an enquiry commission, which will be another eyewash. You must have realized the extent of decline of moral values among the youth during the course of the Federation Cup football played earlier this year. It must be well known to you that football is now more than a game to the Bengali – it is life for many of them. To sustain this intensity for the game, a large section of the unemployed, aimless and reckless take drugs before and during a match like this. This information is well known to the police department and should have been reported to you. Besides, in the last few years, spectators have got used to carrying arms such as blades, razors, knives, brick and iron-rods while watching their favourite clubs play especially in the 60 paise gallery. Whether your police has made any sincere attempt to stop this hooliganism or arrest the culprits is not known. It is really surprising as to how your government could take the responsibility of organizing such an important match without having made any attempts to avert clashes and arranging seating of rival supporters in two different blocs. How can you evade the responsibility for the disaster?[73]

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan 103

This tragedy was a jolt to the rising fervour of Indian football enthusiasm. It cast a heavy shadow on Indian footballing society and brought about unfortunate changes in Bengal football. New Challenges to Club Rivalry While supporters of the two clubs looked upon cultural and temperamental differences extremely seriously, the players never conformed to this perceptional equation of GhatiBangal. Ghatis like Arun Ghosh earned fame playing for East Bengal while Bangals such as Gautam Sarkar rose to prominence as a player of Mohun Bagan. Both admitted that identification of the clubs with Ghatis or Bangals was entirely the misrepresentation of a section of loyal supporters and sometimes of a few club officials; footballers hardly played any role in it.[74] Since 1980, the supporters’ rivalry on sub-regional lines, too, began to fade away, as memories of Partition and the old homeland itself grew weaker. Dimeo, however, makes this point unwittingly, yet pertinently: By the 1980s, though, identity markers were becoming less distinct. The memory of East Bengal as ‘home’ was the preserve of a fading generation of migrants, their sons and daughters more at home in West Bengal. Inter group relationships became more common, dialects less pronounced, and cultural traditions passed away. There are cases of fans with East Bengali parents supporting Mohun Bagan. Thus, a liminal, inbetween space developed that contravened the polarity of previous years.[75]

Then, how could one explain the continuing enmity between the two clubs in the last twenty-five years? The tradition of long-term rivalry, consolidation of an oppositional identity, convention of a supporters’ culture and intensification of club loyalty – all this contributed to sustain the excitement of the ‘battle royal’ of Indian football in a most critical period, when Indian football experienced recurrent fluctuation in terms of standard, popularity and professionalism. Despite radical changes in the Indian sporting map in the 1980s – organization of the Asian Games at Delhi (1982), India’s World Cup victory in cricket (1983) followed by the Mini World Cup triumph two years later (1985), live telecast of World Cup football since 1982 and of European and Latin American league and cup matches (since 1987), organizational laxity of the All India Football Federation, and most important of all, utter failure of the national and regional football bodies and the two great Calcutta clubs to adapt to the challenge of globalization, commercialism and professionalism till the mid-1990s – the intensity of rivalry between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal showed no signs of abatement. However, the rivalry faced a real challenge in 1997 when both clubs were sponsored and marginally bought off by the same company, viz. the United Breweries Group. Commercialization of Indian football, however, is a complex story, discussed at length in subsequent essays. After the sponsorship deal entered into by Mohun Bagan and East Bengal in 1997, there arose large scale apprehension among supporters that the age-old enmity would come to an end. Yet, what continues to dominate Indian football is a desperate rivalry between the two Bengali outfits.[76] In the Federation Cup semi-final of 1997, an unprecedented 131,000 spectators watched the match between the two – a world record at any club level first class match.[77] Their rivalry is rightly compared to the ones between Brazil and

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Argentina, Flumenitz and Flamengo (Brazil), River Plate and Boca Juniors (Argentina), Barcelona and Real Madrid (Spain), AC Milan and Inter Milan (Italy), Manchester United and Arsenal (England), Bayern Munich and BFC Leverkussen (Germany), and Ajax Amsterdom and PSV Aindhoven (the Netherlands).[78] What still differentiates this rivalry from other Indian club rivalries is an intense emotional attachment of supporters towards their club and vehement opposition to the others’ club. A most recent incident is revealing: In late May 2003, Mohun Bagan Club, bogged down by internal strife and court cases, could not arrange for the money to retain its star players including the club’s heartthrob Jose Ramirez Barretto, the mercurial Brazilian forward. Learning this from newspaper reports, one ardent supporter of the club decided to sell off his ancestral house and asked the club authorities to complete the formalities of payment from the sale proceeds.[79] The club officials understandably refused the offer but take pride in it as a reflection of the club’s continuing tradition and glory. As East Bengal, the foremost enemy of his club, won all the five tournaments they participated in the previous season, including the all-important National League title with a nearly all win record against Mohun Bagan, the fan could not bear the thought of a repeat of the same story the following year. Hence, to retain the star forward, who, he believed could ameliorate the plight of the club against the arch-rival, he committed his only asset for the sake of the club. This oppositional perception of self and other will continue to shape the future of the most fascinating club rivalry in Indian football. Notes [1] Rupak Saha, ‘Bangalir Football’, Desh, (28 Aug. 1993), 21–2. [2] Ibid., 22–3. [3] Paul Dimeo, ‘“Team Loyalty Splits the City into Two”: Football, Ethnicity and Rivalry in Calcutta’, in G. Armstrong and R. Giulianotti (eds), Fear and Loathing in World Football (Oxford: Berg, 2001). [4] S. Cornell and D. Hartman, Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (London, 1998), p.21. [5] Soumen Mitra, in his M.Phil dissertation, ‘Nationalism, Communalism and Sub-regionalism: A Study of Football in Bengal, 1880–1950’, submitted to the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1988, comes close to this argument. [6] Sadukti Karnamrita, a twelfth-century text, mentions the word meaningfully. Mukundaram Chakrabarty’s Chandimangal, a sixteenth-century text, also mentions the word in a derogatory sense. Another contemporary text Chaitanya Charitamrita clearly reveals that the Bangal of East Bengal became a comic figure in West Bengal for his style of pronunciation. [7] Dinabandhu Mitra was a noted Bengali playwright of the late-nineteenth century. His most famous piece was Neel Darpan that depicted the story of exploitation and oppression of Indian peasants by the European indigo planters in the middle of the century. The staging of the play created a stir among the Bengali populace in the wake of the Indigo Revolt of 1859. [8] For more layers on this trend, see Mansur Musa, ‘Ghati-Bangal er Birodh Nispatti’, in Nitish Biswas and Mukulesh Biswas (eds), Banga Sanskritir Sanhatir Oitihya (Oikotan Gobeshona Samsad, 1995), pp.235–42. [9] Moti Nandy, ‘Football and Nationalism’, in Geeti Sen (ed.), The Calcutta Psyche (New Delhi: The India International Centre, 1990–91), pp.249–50. [10] Ibid. [11] Rupak Saha, Itihase East Bengal (Calcutta: Deep, 2000), pp.12–13.

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan 105 [12] Ibid. [13] Nandy, ‘Football and Nationalism’, p.249. [14] Historians of the East Bengal Club have noted this aspect of discrimination against the East Bengali players and people and unanimously pointed to the exclusive regional character of the club at its birth and its impressive beginning in Calcutta football. For details, see Santipriya Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam East Bengal (Calcutta: New Bengal Press, 1979); Jayanta Dutta, Glorious East Bengal (Calcutta: Sahitya Prakash, 1975); Paresh Nandy, East Bengal Club, 1920–1970: Ponchas Bochhorer Sangram o Safalya (Calcutta: Bichitra, 1973); Pandit Mashai (Ramesh Chandra Goswami), East Bengal Cluber Itihas (Calcutta: Book Garden, 1963); Rupak Saha, Itihase East Bengal (Calcutta: Deep, 2000) (all in Bengali). [15] Among these eight players, goalkeeper Hiralal Mukherjee and right back Rev. Sudhir Chatterjee came from Faridpur district; the famous Bhaduri brothers of the team, Sibdas and Bijoydas, were from Rajshahi; scorer of the final, Abhilash Ghosh, right winger Kanu Roy and half back Rajen Sengupta from Dacca; while another half back Nilmadhab Bhattacharyya hailed from Barisal. [16] Incidentally, Gostho Paul is the only Bengali player to be honoured with a statue in the Calcutta maidan. Paul’s early career, his rise to sporting fame and the legend that grew around his striking personality are well delineated in his two biographies: Rupak Saha, Chinese Wall (Calcutta: Hemlata Prakashani, 1979); Jayanta Dutta, Footballer Mahanayak Gostho Paul (Calcutta: Anima Prakashani, 1986). [17] It was hard for the East Bengali players to get a berth in the well-known Bengali teams of Calcutta in the 1910s while the few who were fortunate experienced exclusion from the final playing eleven on different pretexts on crucial match days. [18] According to Santipriya Bandyopadhyay and Paresh Nandy, this match between Jorabagan and Mohun Bagan was played on 28 July 1920. For details, see Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam East Bengal, pp.28–9; Nandy, East Bengal Club, pp.28–30. Another club historian, Rupak Saha, thinks two East Bengali players, viz. Sailesh Basu and Nosa Sen faced exclusion in Jorabagan’s semi-final match against Calcutta Football Club in the Cooch Behar Cup. When Jorabagan made it to the final and faced Mohun Bagan, both players featured in the match at Suresh Chaudhuri’s instance. Jorabagan, however, lost the game, and the onus fell on the poor performance of the two Bangal players. Insulted and hurt by the incident, Chaudhuri left the club along with them. Rupak Saha, Itihase East Bengal, pp.15–16. Yet a few others like Pandit Masai and Shukharanjan Ghosh have argued that Sailesh Basu faced the discrimination of the club management not in a football match but in a cricket match against Calcutta Cricket Club during the 1919–20 season. Pandit Masai, East Bengal Cluber Itithas, pp.1–2; Shukharanjan Ghosh, Bharatiya Footballer Tin Protidvandi (Calcutta: Manju Prakashani, 1986), pp.79–80. [19] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 13 Aug. 1920. [20] It was quite unusual for a club like East Bengal to earn a berth to play in the second division of the League in the very first year of its existence. It was again due to Suresh Chaudhuri’s influential links with the European members of IFA and his personal relations with other East Bengali social magnates that the club achieved this distinction. East Bengal filled the vacuum created by the withdrawal of Tajhat Club from the second division. In this case, too, Chaudhuri reaped the harvest of his friendly relations with the Raja of Tajhat in East Bengal, who owned the club. Moreover, the East Bengali players of the erstwhile Tajhat Club joined East Bengal. For details see Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam East Bengal, pp.33–5; Nandy, East Bengal Club, pp.37–40; Saha, Itihase East Bengal, pp.20–1. [21] According to the existing rule of the maidan, two clubs used to share one common ground. Taritbhushan Roy came to learn that Mohun Bagan shared its ground with National Association, which by that time had ceased to exist. He referred this discrepancy to the police authorities and subsequently demanded the share for East Bengal. It was then that Police Commissioner Charles Tegart ordered Mohun Bagan to share its ground with East Bengal.

106

[22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]

[33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]

[42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47]

[48]

[49] [50]

[51] [52]

A Social History of Indian Football This sudden decision enraged the Mohun Bagan officials. Saha, Itihase East Bengal, p.20; Nandy, East Bengal Club, pp.47–8. See ‘Race, Nation and Performance’, this volume. Bandyopadhyay, Cluber Naam East Bengal, p.45; Dutta, Glorious East Bengal, pp.10–11; Pandit Masai, East Bengal Cluber Itihas, pp.17–18; Saha, Itihase East Bengal, pp.22–3. Ghosh, Bharatiya Footballer Tin Protidvandi, p.81. Three leading newspapers of Calcutta – The Statesman, The Englishman and Amrita Bazar Patrika – published detailed reports of the meeting on 16 April 1925. The Englishman, 22 April 1925. The Englishman, 24 April 1925. The Statesman, 22 April 1925. Ibid. Pankaj Gupta, ‘Story on Calcutta Customs Club’, in Platinum Jubilee: Calcutta Customs Club, 1892-1967. The Statesman, 22 April 1925. A number of worthy footballers from East Bengal played for Mohun Bagan throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The list includes names such as Nagen Kali, Hemango Basu, Rabi Basu, Bagha Som, Sanmatha Datta and K. Datta. For details see Sachin Sen, Kheladhular Bichitra Kahini (Calcutta: R.M. Gupta/Geetanjali Book Centre, 1983), pp.21–9. Dimeo, ‘“Team Loyalty Splits the City into Two”’, p.100. Ibid. Ibid., p.101. Ibid. The Statesman, 24 Aug. 1924. The Statesman of 29 May 1925 reported that although Mohun Bagan enjoyed larger spectator support, East Bengal too could count on the support of a sizeable section. The Englishman, 30 May 1925. The Statesman, 6 July 1932. For a fuller view of Mohammedan Sporting’s grievances, see Mohammedan Sporting Club Souvenir (Calcutta: Mohammedan Sporting Club, 1939), pp.66–8. East Bengal Club’s rancour towards IFA resulted from the latter’s continuous partiality towards Mohun Bagan Club. For an instructive discussion on the course of events, see Nandy, East Bengal Club, pp.84–7; Saha, Itihase East Bengal, pp.39–43. Bombay Chronicle, 9 July 1939. Ibid., 20 Aug. 1939. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 7 July 1946. Ibid., 10 July 1946. Ibid., 13 July 1946. Nandy, ‘Football and Nationalism’, pp.249–50. The experience of suffering, deprivation and impoverishment of the East Bengali refugees in the aftermath of the partition has been vividly delineated in a rich crop of Bengali literature. Gyanesh Kudaisya, ‘Divided Landscapes, Fragmented Identities: East Bengal Refugees and their Rehabilitation in India, 1947–79’, in D.A. Low and Howard Brasted (eds), Freedom, Trauma and Continuities: Northern India and Independence (New Delhi: Sage, 1998), p.118. Moti Nandy, ‘Calcutta Soccer’, in Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, Vol.II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p.319. Thanks to this legendary forward-line, during this period East Bengal won both the IFA League and Shield thrice (League – 1949, 1950, 1952 and Shield – 1949, 1950, 1951); Durand Cup and DCM Trophy twice (Durand – 1951–52 and DCM – 1950, 1952); and the Rovers Cup once (1949). Nandy, ‘Football and Nationalism’, p.250. The Statesman, 5 Oct. 1947.

Ghati-Bangal on the Maidan 107 [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]

[59] [60]

[61] [62]

[63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68]

Amrita Bazar Patrika, 17 Sept. 1950. Ibid., 31 May 1951. Ibid., 22 and 23 June 1951. Ibid., 29 June 1955. Ibid., 22 June 1956. For a useful study of the relationship between Communist political ascendancy in West Bengal and refugee politics, see Prafulla K. Chakrabarty, The Marginal Men, The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal (Calcutta, 1990). See the Amrita Bazar Patrika, 17, 18 and 24 July 1957. The Chief Minister by these terms apparently referred to Mohammedan Sporting, East Bengal and the Rajasthan Clubs respectively. East Bengal won the League title six times in a row from 1970 to 1975 – still a record. It won the IFA Shield in 1970 and then, with a gap of a year in 1971, won every year from 1972 to 1976. The club bagged the Durand Cup in 1970 and 1972; Rovers Cup in 1972, 1973 and 1975; DCM Trophy in 1973 and 1974; and Bardoli Trophy in 1972 and 1973. This sole occasion when Mohun Bagan got the better of their archrivals was in the 1974 Durand Cup semi-final. Mohun Bagan won the match by a solitary goal. Interview with Surojit Sengupta, 25 Aug. 2002. For Sengupta’s fuller views on football culture that grew around the East Bengal-Mohun Bagan rivalry in India, see Surojit Sengupta, Back Center (Calcutta: Sunny Publishers, 1986). Incidentally, Sengupta who was a worthy right winger of East Bengal team in the 1970s, has recently left his job to take charge as the sports editor of Khela, the foremost sports vernacular magazine of Bengal. Ananda Bazar Patrika, 30 Sept. 1975. Ibid., 1 Oct. 1975. Also see Manas Chakrabarty, ‘Mohun Bagan-East Bengal Reshareshi’, Anandamela, 19 July 2000, 118. Ibid. East Bengal won the match 2-0. Ananda Bazar Patrika, 10 July 1977. The report said that the person was taken to the PG Hospital in a very critical condition. According to the same newspaper report, total chaos resulted in the streets and different quarters of the city as the euphoric supporters ran wild with mashals (fire torches) in their hands from one place to another. There were several complaints against the jubilant crowd, which stopped private cars and scooters on the streets. Bricks were thrown into the ground and on another club’s tent resulting in the injury of at least two dozens of people, three of them being rushed to Shambhunath Pandit Hospital. According to the police, eight persons were arrested on that evening.’ Ananda Bazar Patrika, 10 July 1977.

[69] For a most recent consideration of these issues, see J.A. Mangan and Andrew Ritchie (eds), Ethnicity, Sport, Identity: Struggle for Status (London: Frank Cass, 2003). [70] Khelar Asar, 3 July 1979, p.38. [71] The pre-match press reports suggested possibilities of chaos and violence on the match day. In fact, the Federation Cup final between the two teams on 8 May 1980 witnessed extremely unruly behaviour of not only the fans, but also the players and club officials. See Ananda Bazar Patrika, 15 Aug. 1980; Khelar Asar, 16 May 1980. [72] Ananda Bazar Patrika, 17 Aug. 1980. For a very insightful coverage of the tragedy, see Khelar Kagoj, 1 and 16 Sept. 1980; and Khelar Kotha, 1 and 16 Sept. 1980. [73] ‘Open Letter to Jyoti Basu’ (Editorial), Khelar Kotha, 1 Sept. 1980. [74] Tanaji Sengupta, ‘Nirapade Bhinna Clube’, Desh (Binodon sankhya), (1988), 184–9. [75] Dimeo, ‘“Team Loyalty Splits the City into Two”’, p.106. [76] Intense club rivalries are not uncommon in other centres of soccer in India. Dempo vs. Salgaonkar in Goa, Air India and Mahindra United in Bombay, or Punjab Police vs. JCT

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Mills in Punjab – all these rivalries attracted or still attract a modest support base, but by no means can claim to have the continuity or tradition of intense enmity that exemplifies the relations between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. [77] East Bengal won the match 4-1. For details, see The Statesman and the Ananda Bazar Patrika, 14 July 1997. [78] East Bengal supporters always seem to be more aggressive in temper and more violent in reaction while Mohun Bagan supporters look sober and moderate. For such comparisons, see Manas Chakrabarty, ‘Mohun Bagan-East Bengal Reshareshi’, pp.114–17; Rupak Saha, ‘Bangalir Football’, 21–34, especially p.25. However, this kind of comparison was offered as early as 1965, if not earlier. For details, see Ananda Bazar Patrika, 19 July 1965. [79] Ananda Bazar Patrika, 3 July 2003. Rupak Saha narrates a similar incident of 1991 when an East Bengal fan mortgaged his house and took his wife’s gold ornaments to rope in a few good players for the club in times of the club’s financial crisis. For details, see Rupak Saha, ‘Bangalir Football’, 23–4.

Regionalism and Club Domination: Growth of Rival Centres of Footballing Excellence [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar /3 Bidhan SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106410 FSAS110624.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 62005 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Turn to Regionalism At the stroke of midnight hour in 1947, football was perhaps the most popular mass spectator sport in the country. As Mihir Bose has noted: While the Indians were fighting the British for their independence, one of the most popular games in the country was football. Logically, after independence, football should have become India’s number one sport. It is cheaper, it certainly permeated more layers of Indian society – even down to the semi-rural areas – than cricket and, as in other parts of the world, could have been a metaphor for nationalism.[1]

But as freedom drew close, football’s erstwhile role as a nationalist symbol sharply diminished owing to the game’s increasing communal and regional overtones. Despite the Indian national team’s worthy performances at international level in the first fifteen years after 1947, gradually, regionalism seemed to become a more distinct and viable alternative in Indian football. Regional rivalry between leading state football teams[2] sustained football’s popularity in India in the third quarter of the twentieth century. This regionalism, to a great extent, outdid the significance of the national football team in post-colonial India. And it came to acquire an altogether new dimension when big clubs representing certain football-fanatic regions got themselves involved in an intense rivalry for superiority at national level tournaments.[3] While club-based regionalism led to the game’s increasing popularity, it also reflected an unusual clash of interests between India’s leading clubs and contributed to dismal performances of the national team at international level. Provincial Football Associations in Colonial India While football had already become a popular spectator sport in Bengal at the turn of the twentieth century, most regions in the country appropriated the game in the 1920s and 1930s. Bombay, well known for its cricketing prowess at the time, was one such. The third oldest tournament of India – the Rovers Cup – was inaugurated in Bombay as far back as 1891.[4] Some British military soccer enthusiasts got together in 1890, formed the Rovers Club, and brought into vogue this tournament.[5] In 1902 the

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Bombay Football Association was formed to run a local league. Seven teams participated in the first year.[6] As Col. Harwood, the President of the Association, donated the cup, the League was soon designated the Harwood League. In 1911, the two bodies, the old Rovers Club running the Rovers Cup and the Bombay Football Association managing the League were amalgamated to form the Western India Football Association (WIFA). Hon. Mr Justice Russell, President of the Rovers was elected President and P.R. Cadell, President of the League, Vice-President. The respective Secretaries, Mr F. Hogan and Mr J.B. Linn, became joint Honorary Secretaries.[7] Russell and Hogan were associated with the organization of football in Bombay since 1902 and were pillars of soccer promotion in the city. As in Bengal, in Bombay too, Indian teams faced a systematic discrimination from the European-dominated WIFA in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It was not until 1922 that a local Indian combination – the Bengal United – got to play in the Harwood League.[8] Quite naturally therefore, public interest – particularly Indian – in football was negligible. This was such that matches were played on the open field of Cooperage, the chief venue of football in Bombay. Only during the Rovers Cup were temporary stands erected on the western side of the ground. All this, however, underwent a radical change with Mohun Bagan Club’s historic visit to Bombay to participate in the Rovers Cup as the first up-country Indian team in 1923. J.C. Moitra, a noted contemporary sports journalist, considers this event to be of immense significance in football’s massification in Bombay: Mohun Bagan, who had the unique distinction of winning the most-coveted IFA Shield of Calcutta in 1911, set the Cooperage literally afire by their scintillating displays. They lost ultimately to Durham Light Infantry in the final by 4–1 after leading by a goal for nearly 45 minutes. However, they claimed the honour of being the first civilian team to reach the final stage of the tournament since 1891. The WIFA reaped a rich harvest from the gates and Indian football received a great impetus. Indeed it was a memorable year for Bombay’s soccer from every point of view.[9]

A newspaper article published two decades later brought to light an incident that soon became a glorious anecdote in the history of Bombay football: Mohun Bagan took Bombay literally by storm. One of the big banyan trees at the South-East corner of the Cooperage ground still bears witness to that terrible tornado. A huge branch with a load of 50 enthusiasts crashed to the ground when the Indian team took the lead against the Durham Light Infantry in the final match. It is said that this was the result of a burst of cheering.[10]

The WIFA was, however, unable to take full advantage of the enthusiasm created by Mohun Bagan’s visit. The paucity of good playgrounds was the main cause for the failure. The oval and cross-maidans were hardly of use, as the evil effects of heavy monsoon made them unplayable.[11] Consequently, progress of junior and civilian football was slow. Nevertheless, the WIFA, under the able guidance of Sir Joseph Kay, made every effort to enhance popularity of the Rovers Cup by inviting more Indian teams to participate. However, until the late 1930s Indian teams could not make much headway against the redoubtable military sides. This had a somewhat adverse effect on the game’s progress at a more popular level. Another important reason for the slow

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growth of football in Bombay was the indifferent attitude of the Gymkhanas towards the game. Despite having all facilities at their disposal, they did not take any interest in promoting soccer. To advance the cause of football among Indians, the WIFA took an important step in 1925 when they started a competition for the Nadkarni Cup for purely Indian teams.[12] It was followed by more enthusiastic efforts on the part of the locals themselves. The Indian Football League was started under the auspices of the Bengal Club at Parel in 1928. Initially open to Indian clubs only, it threw its door open to all with the inauguration of the Satiranjan Shield and Hindustan Cup (later Dr Das Cup).[13] In fact, the Bengal Club was considered to be a nursery of Indian soccer in colonial Bombay. The WIFA also started Junior Leagues and knockout tournaments around this time at the Bengal Club ground and the G.I.P. Railway ground at Parel. Although the number of local teams increased, the standard of football did not improve fast enough to challenge British regimental teams on even terms. Besides Bombay, the states from the south promoted football in an organized manner in colonial India. The list begins with Mysore (present Karnataka), which became the third centre to establish a football association, viz. the Mysore Football Association (the former name of the Karnataka Football Association) in 1908.[14] The Madras Football Association (present Tamil Nadu Football Association) was founded in 1934 while the Hyderabad Football Association was formed in 1939– 40.[15] The latter was founded at the initiatives of S.M. Hadi, the first secretary of the All India Council of Sports, and his brothers Col. Ali Raza, Nawab Mahmood Yar Jung, S.A. Rahim and Ahmed Mohiuddin.[16] In fact, the 1930s was an important decade for the organizational progress of soccer in India. It opened with the formation of a controlling body for soccer in Bihar – Bihar Olympic Association – in 1931.[17] This Association was one of the founder members of the AIFF and took part in the Santosh Trophy from the very first year. The North West Football Association was founded in 1932 at Lahore, capital of undivided Punjab. After the partition of Punjab in 1947, the East Punjab Football Association came into existence, to be soon replaced by the Punjab Football Association, which was affiliated with the AIFF in 1951.[18] The Rajputana Football Association was established in 1934. It later became the Rajasthan Football Association after the change in name of the state.[19] Two other central sports bodies that took active interest in the development of soccer in both colonial and post-colonial India were the Army Sports Control Board and the Railways Athletic Association. The former, which was established in 1919 to control sports for the Services personnel in the Army, Navy and the Air Force, played a crucial role in the foundation of the AIFF in 1937.[20] The Board was reconstituted as the Services Sport Control Board in 1945.[21] The apex body for the control and coordination of sports activities of the staff of the Railways was set up in 1928 as the Indian Railways Athletic Association. On its reconstitution in 1959, the Association adopted its present name – the Railways Sports Control Board.[22]

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Origins of the Santosh Trophy One of the first acts of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) that came into existence in 1937 was to start an inter-state competition. Originally known as the Inter-Provincial Championship, it was first held in 1941 when teams played each other at various centres in the four zones and the finalists, Bengal and Delhi, met at Calcutta. Bengal became the first winners of the Santosh Trophy, instituted to perpetuate the memory of Sir Manmatha Nath Roy Chaudhury, the Maharaja of Santosh, for many years the President of the Indian Football Association. The Runners-up Trophy was donated by Dr S.K. Gupta, another President of the IFA, in memory of his wife Mrs Kamala Gupta. It would be of relevance here to trace the year-long developments in 1940–41 that led to the birth of the Santosh Trophy. These clearly reveal that regional sentiments, which had threatened to jeopardize the formation of a central controlling football body in the late-1930s were still at work. An inter-state football tournament in India was first conceived in 1940. Yet, it took a year-long muddle to give a concrete shape to the plan. In February 1940, the Dacca Sports Association (DSA), one of the constituents of the AIFF before 1947, mooted a proposal for an inter-provincial football tournament. This was discussed at the next annual general meeting of the Federation in April 1940. Dacca proposed the launch of an inter-provincial tournament in the country on the lines of cricket, tennis, hockey and athletics. The scheme, as submitted by the DSA and adopted by the AIFF, stipulated that the tournament would be held annually by rotation at different centres. Bombay, eager to host the inaugural championship, wanted the scheme to be implemented at once. It also proposed to donate a trophy – Hinrichs Shield – in memory of one of its former Presidents A.C. Hinrichs – for the purpose. The fourth annual general meeting of the AIFF, which adopted the resolution of the DSA, was due to be held on 14 April 1940 at the Cricket Club of India (CCI), Brabourne Stadium, Bombay. It was, however, shifted to the Chelmsford Club, New Delhi at the last moment. While the question of holding an inter-provincial tournament was unanimously approved at the meeting, the venue for the inaugural year could not be decided owing to severe differences of opinion among representatives of state associations. The Federation was eventually forced to appoint a committee to work out the details and submit a report. However, from the trend of discussions it was apparent that the tournament would be hosted by Bombay in September 1940. Another important decision taken at the meeting related to the naming of the trophy. Bombay insisted on their original proposal of Hinrichs Shield while Bengal proposed to donate a trophy in memory of the Maharaja of Santosh. Before the matter reached a deadlock, it was reasonably decided to associate the trophy for the ‘interprovincial’ football tournament of India with the names of both, the late Maharaja of Santosh and the late Mr Hinrichs in view of the great services they had rendered to developing Indian football. The Shield would be known as the Hinrichs-Santosh Memorial Shield. When it appeared that everything was right for the inauguration of the national football championships of India in September 1940, the dream did not materialize. As

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to why the tournament was not played in 1940 despite meticulous planning remains unclear. However, in the course of his report at the next annual general meeting of the AIFF on 27 January 1941, Mr E.J. Turner, Honorary Secretary, AIFF, stated: It was agreed at the last meeting of the Council to examine the scheme put forth by Dacca Sports Association and a sub-committee was appointed for this purpose. The inter-provincial, as members know, was not played; this, however, was not the fault of the sub-committee, but rather a chain of circumstances that made it almost impossible to stage the tournament during the season under review. Bombay was unable to take the responsibility and, as a result of a questionnaire circulated to members, it was unanimously agreed to hold it over until the 1941 season, and I have suggested that the sub-committee meet a day before the general meeting to discuss and submit their plans for confirmation of the Council. I see no reason why the inter-provincial should not be inaugurated during the ensuing season.[23]

The fifth annual general meeting of the AIFF held at the CCI, Brabourne Stadium, Bombay, took the decision of inaugurating the inter-provincial tournament from 1941 on a zonal basis for a trophy known as the Santosh Memorial Cup.[24] There is nothing on record to suggest how and why the name of Hinrichs was dropped from the tournament. One later sports writer suggested that Bombay was not ready to share the titular honour with Bengal and hence backtracked after a spell of initial enthusiasm.[25] Sources of hostility between different state football associations therefore continued in the 1940s. The birth of the Santosh Trophy clearly pointed to football’s potential development in India along regional or provincial lines. However, the provincial nature of the competition was not construed as a bar to the concept of a national team. Rather, it was expected to boost the long-term future of Indian football on national lines. As one football administrator argued in 1950: Provincialism is equally bad, if it is turned into a sort of religion. But that does not mean that we should not have friendly rivalries between provinces and states on the sporting field. In fact it is absolutely necessary in order to improve the standard of sport in every part of the country. Associations and clubs have been formed by peoples of different provinces with a view to encourage social contacts among themselves and also to invite collaboration with others in this regard.[26]

However, Morarji Desai, then Home and Revenue Minister of India, maintained a strict view in this regard: ‘Provincialism and Communalism should have no place in the field of sports. We should all work for National interests and subordinate our communal feeling to the greater cause.’[27] Nevertheless, the Santosh Trophy in its first decade of existence proved that while Bengal still remained the undisputed leader in Indian football,[28] states like Delhi, Bombay, Mysore and Hyderabad did not lag far behind. But whether this regional competition would lead to the formation of a strong national combination was the moot question in 1947: But unfortunately, Indian football, till the turn of independence, was all about club and provincial competitions. Though the All India Football Federation (AIFF) was constituted in 1937, the concept of the national team was still to gather momentum.

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A Social History of Indian Football The pride and glory those days were confined to beating the British club and military teams.[29]

Growth of Rival Centres of Footballing Excellence The troubled relationship between the IFA and other state football associations led by Bombay in the 1930s, elaborated upon in ‘Cotesting Neighbours’, this volume, reflected the regional character of the conflict over the central question of power, control and organization of the game in India. However, the game’s regional growth has had a dynamic of its own. Among the major challengers to Bengal’s supremacy in the politics of soccer in the 1930s, only Bombay could boast of a lineage in football, dominated by the Europeans until 1928 when the Indian Football League was started at J.C. Moitra’s initiative.[30] But Bombay’s initiative was gradually taken over in the 1950s–60s by Mysore, Hyderabad, Andhra and Punjab at the national level in terms of both organization and performance. Other emerging states, such as Kerala and Goa, began to make their mark from the late 1960s, the latter becoming Bengal’s arch rival in Indian football in the last two decades. A most recent addition to this list has been Manipur, a strongly organized and performing regional force, which began to excel in football from the late 1990s. Although the WIFA waged a bitter fight against Bengal on the question of AIFF’s foundation, it could by no means invite comparison with the kind of enthusiasm and euphoria Bengal could boast of in the 1930s. In fact, A.C. Hinrichs, the President of the WIFA, referred to the appalling lack of public interest in League football and consequent loss to the Association in the 1938 season.[31] He went so far as to invite the public and the press to offer constructive suggestions for the betterment of football in Bombay. The Association under Hinrichs’ guidance attempted every method in their stock to excite public interest in the Harwood League and increase its revenue. J.C. Moitra mentioned these ‘innovations’ in his report in the Bombay Chronicle: They brought Military Teams from Poona, Kirkee and Ahmednagar for several years to enhance the popularity of the League. They made various improvements in the stands – by providing chairs and electric fans – to attract the crowd. They enclosed the ground from all sides to prevent a free show of the games. They paid second class travelling expenses to the up-country military teams and gave the players ‘shandy’ in place of sweet drinks. In addition they installed a bar at the Cooperage. Lastly they appointed a Publicity Officer to advertise their activities through Weekly Programmes and Press stunts. They also put up European and Indian teams of their own creation to make the field more attractive.[32]

Moitra, however, noted in the end that ‘all these innovations have admittedly failed in their purpose to raise the standard of soccer in Bombay and to increase public interest in the League’.[33] The failure can be ascribed to two reasons. First, the Indian teams such as Bengal United, Colaba United and Matunga Hindus were debarred from participation in the League for a long time while more and more military teams featured in it. This resulted in a loss of enthusiasm among local civilian clubs in the long run. More importantly, the WIFA fell into a deep financial crisis in the late 1930s to sustain the

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expenses cited above. During the War years (1939–45), however, the Association recovered from the crisis and in fact experienced a financial upswing. As local teams earned their chance to play in the League and the Rovers Cup, the game became popular among Indian fans. Bombay fared well at national tournaments from the 1940s onwards. She was runner-up thrice in the Santosh Trophy (1945, 1947 and 1951) before she finally lifted the coveted trophy in 1954. She again became runner-up in 1956, 1957 and 1959 while the newly formed Maharashtra maintained the trend in 1961 before winning in 1963. At club level, too, Bombay performed well. It was the Western India Automobile Association (WIAA), which set the ball rolling for other Bombay-based Indian teams by reaching the final of the Rovers Cup in 1942. Among the most impressive victories were the IFA Shield victory of India Culture League in 1953 and the Rovers Cup win of Caltex Club in 1958. The star of Caltex’s win, Neville D’Souza, had a remarkable career as an Indian international in the late 1950s. In India’s quarter-final match against Australia in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, D’Souza made history by scoring a hattrick in India’s thumping win of 4–1. Another Caltex man, custodian S.S. Narayan, played his heart out to save India on many occasions with some sparkling saves under the bar. In the 1950s–60s more Bombay players such as O. Chandrasekhar, A. Latif, F.A. Franco, K.T. Pabitran and O. Debdas made it to the national squad proving the state’s continuing worth as a football powerhouse. In the 1960s–70s, Mafatlal Mills and Tata Sports Club represented Bombay in the national scene,[34] a mantle taken over by Mahindra United in the 1990s. Football in Bombay experienced major transformations in the late 1990s in terms of commercialization and professionalism. Incidentally, WIFA struck a deal with Procam Sports Private Limited, a leading corporate house in the region, to heighten soccer’s commercial viability. Gulf Oil, a longstanding client of Procam Sports, became sponsor of the WIFA League. The same company financed the second professional club of India, Bengal Mumbai Football Club in Mumbai. Procam Sports also began to conduct the Kozhikode Football League sponsored by Ever Ready, the multinational battery corporate and Procam client.[35] Mahindra appointed a British coach, Danny McLennan, to manage the team in a more professional way. It has paid rich dividends for the club as Mahindra has done quite well in major national tournaments in the last few years. In the recent AFC Club Cup Qualifiers it also put up a modest show although it failed to reach the quarter-final stage. Although Delhi, the other contender for power in Indian football, made it to the final of the Santosh Trophy in its first two editions and won the trophy on the second occasion,[36] it gradually became a dormant force in the regional football rivalry after Independence. Before Independence, the Bengalis of Delhi had formed Raisina Sporting as their club to compete in the Delhi League and other tournaments under the Delhi Football Association (DFA). By 1948, a faction of the club, because of differences with club authorities, broke away and formed the Hindustan Club. When the Delhi Soccer Association (DSA) replaced the DFA shortly after Independence, both clubs played a role in forming the body. Though Hindustan Club was formed as a rival to Raisina Sporting – which remained in the field – they joined hands in a bid to bail out

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Delhi football in days of growing turmoil. While the officials of both clubs worked in tandem, the need of the hour was that Raisina Sporting hold on to its position of strength in Delhi football. Soon Hindustan Club and its junior team, christened Hindkishore, became nurseries of Delhi football.[37] However, success of Delhi-based club teams was rare in the national circuit.[38] Delhi-ites, however, took active interest in football tournaments hosted by Delhi. In particular, their interest in outstanding Bengal players was no less fascinating than their counterparts in Calcutta: People in Delhi took leave, missed classes in schools or the university to see the dribbling skills of Chuni Goswami, Sardar Khan, Balaram or Sukumar Samajpati, Kajal Mukherjee or in the 1970s, the sheer brilliance of Surajit Sengupta. The distribution of Habib or Parimal Dey, the powerful shooting of Ashim Moulick, Sukalyan Ghosh Dastidar and Subhas Bhowmik, the dash and ability of Ashok Chatterjee, Shyam Thapa and Akbar to conjure up goals from half chances, the great midfielders Ram Bahadur and P. Sinha … were greatly cherished by innumerable people in Delhi. In the narrow alleys and bye-lanes of old Delhi, the youth of the walled city, after each Durand tournament, tried to emulate the anticipation, tackling and heading of Jarnail Singh or Nayeem. Defenders who have become folk heroes in Delhi are the burly Chandreswar Prasad and Sudhir Karmakar. Watching C. Prasad control the ball on his chest even as the rampaging Inder Singh or Majit Singh were bearing down on him, is a delightful memory which will remain for ever … such was the magnificent and heroic defence of C. Prasad that old timers in Delhi remember him fondly.[39]

It was a team from Mysore, namely Bangalore Muslims, which sounded the first warning bell for Bengal clubs. It upset the established British domination in the Rovers Cup by winning it in 1937 and 1938.[40] In the 1940s the Bangalore Muslims became a formidable rival to other Indian teams in the Rovers Cup. It once again won the Cup in 1948. In the inter-provincial contest for the Santosh Trophy, the state of Mysore did even better. It reached the final eight times till 1970 winning the title four times (1946, 1952, 1967 and 1968). In the 1940s, footballers from Mysore featured prominently in the national team and six players from the region represented India in the 1948 Olympics.[41] On the occasion of its Golden Jubilee, the Mysore State Football Association ‘gifted to Indian Soccer a tournament which would go a long way in stimulating the game in Southern India and Ceylon’.[42] In this tournament, titled the Southern Pentangular Football Tournament, the states of Andhra, Kerala, Madras and Mysore along with neighbouring Ceylon participated for honours. The tournament was organized in rotation by all participants. Mysore’s fame in Indian football rested mainly on a galaxy of brilliant footballers. The list includes, apart from the six who represented India in 1948 Olympics, Lakshminarayan, Murgesh, Somana, Rahamat, Sammugam and Mewalal. Most of these players while beginning their career in Mysore club teams like Bangalore Muslims later earned renown on the Calcutta maidan playing for Calcutta teams. Most famous of the Mysore players was Ahmed Khan, who scored the only goal in India’s ignominious defeat against Yugoslavia in the Helsinki Olympics. Khan was first spotted as a promising star of the future during his early career as a player of Bangalore Muslims. Later he became a legendary forward in Indian football history. In fact, players hailing from Mysore in general, and Bangalore Muslims in particular, began to be targeted and employed by

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Calcutta teams such as East Bengal to strengthen their teams in the 1940s–50s. East Bengal’s legendary forward-combination, better known as ‘Pancha Pandavas’ (the Great Fives), included three – Vengkatesh, Dhanraj and Ahmed Khan – from Mysore while the two others – Apparao and Saleh – came respectively from Madras and Kerala.[43] The club’s remarkable run of success from 1949–53 depended largely on the ability of these non-Bengali players.[44] While Mysore’s football fame gradually faded away from the 1950s, the tradition of Bangalore football found a saviour in the soccer team of Indian Telephone Industries (ITI). Founded in 1956 as a team of the so-called public sector undertaking, the ITI by the 1970s not only became the dominating and sole representative of the state of Karnataka, it also surprised everybody by winning the inaugural edition of the most prestigious national tournament – the Federation Cup in 1977. With the persistent problems that commonly accompany sports teams run by public sector companies, the ITI has shown some kind of professional resilience to survive as a soccer outfit in the face of a rising tide of commercialism in Indian football. No longer a regular in the National Football League ITI, of late, is finding it really difficult to regain its lost status in Indian soccer. It was, however, Hyderabad that posed the strongest challenge to Bengal’s supremacy after Independence. Football’s popularity as a mass spectator sport was on the ascendance in Hyderabad since the late 1920s. The patronage of royal families such as the Nawab of Tarband and the Maharaja of Dhanrajgir helped in the spread of the game. Merry Go Round and Qamar Club were the two best soccer sides of Hyderabad in the 1920s–30s. S.A. Rahim, who later led India to two Asian Games gold medals in football as coach, represented both clubs in his early career. Rahim also acted as the Secretary of the Hyderabad Football Association for twenty long years – from 1943 to 1963. Rahim’s greatest feat was not only to guide the Indian national side to perform well on the international circuit, but to transform Hyderabad Police into a nearly unbeatable combination in the 1950s. Incidentally, as Jaydeep Basu points out, Rahim’s efforts to spread the game at the grassroot level was phenomenal. He goes on to note: During his tenure as the secretary, Rahim was instrumental in introducing tournaments like the Nizam Gold Cup, the Hyderabad knock-out championships for the Majeed Challenge Shield, Sukumar Lal Challenge Tournament and the Rahim coaching scheme tournament. He even started a non-dribbling tournament for youngsters to raise the standard of speed and the one-touch playing style.’[45]

Hyderabad achieved the unique distinction of winning the Rovers Cup five times in a row (1950–54) – a record that stands. It continued to dominate the tournament till 1963, winning it four more times (1957, 1960, 1962–63). The team also clinched the Durand Cup four times in its period of glory (1950, 1954, 1957, 1961). In the Santosh Trophy, while Hyderabad was consecutive runners-up in 1949 and 1950, it won the championship twice in consecutive years (1956–57) and later in 1965 as Andhra Pradesh. The meteoric rise and consistent success of Hyderabad Police under Rahim threatened the monopoly of Calcutta’s Big Three – Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting – on the national scene. More importantly the team’s reputation, both as a fighting squad and quality combination, earned it widespread support.

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Novy Kapadia, following a story in a contemporary popular sports magazine,[46] mentions an exemplary incident after the first final of the 1950 Durand Cup in which Hyderabad Police fought back from a two-goal deficit against Mohun Bagan to equalize in the dying minutes of the match to earn a replay: This dramatic fightback won the hearts of the crowd. Thousands of fans invaded the ground and mobbed and chaired Laiq [scorer of the equalizing goal]. Some enthusiastic fans even kissed him and an over-exuberant one in his eagerness to congratulate his hero bit him on his cheek. Poor Laiq reached the dressing room with blood flowing down his face.[47]

Moreover, the Hyderabad Police, being an institutional side and representing multicultural identities, elicited viable support from the common people. As Kapadia remarks: Playing with exemplary manners and receiving few awards for their performances, the club was popular all over India and came to be identified as the team of the common man, in opposition to the elite clubs of Calcutta. In the period just after Independence, Hyderabad City Police came to symbolize the ethos, spirit of the age, the will to sacrifice, overcome odds and work for great ideals and their popularity transcended regional and religious identities.[48]

Arguably, Hyderabad came to play an important role in one of the most critical periods of the game’s history in India. Since India’s debacle in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Hyderabad players figured prominently in India’s reasonably smart run in international soccer till 1960 and on the Asian scene till 1970. The fourth placed Indian side of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics included in its rank five from the state – S.K. Azizuddin, Ahmed Hussain, Nur Muhammad, T. Balaram and Muhammad Zulfikaruddin. Two years later Azizuddin led the Indian team in the third Asia Cup at Tokyo. The team also came to include D.L. Kanon, another Hyderabad forward. After Hyderabad’s merger into the newly formed Andhra Pradesh, players from Andhra continued to make their presence felt in the national squad. Three Andhra players including Yusuf Khan, S.S. Hakim and Habibul Hasan Hamid featured in the Indian side that took part and performed well in the 1960 Rome Olympics while the victorious Indian team of 1962 Jakarta Asian Games had D.M.K. Afzal and Yusuf Khan in its ranks. In the 1960s Indian goalkeeper Peter Thangaraj who played mostly in and for Bengal originally hailed from Hyderabad. Despite this flurry of talent that Hyderabad produced for almost two decades, the success of both Hyderabad Police as well as the state team was in large measure due to Rahim’s long-term leadership and exceptional coaching skills.[49] Rahim’s death in 1963 came as a blow to the smooth flow of Hyderabad/Andhra football, so much so that it could never really recover from the decline it began to experience since the late 1960s.[50] From the late 1960s, most of the early competitors of Bengal began to fade away and new rivals like Punjab, Kerala and Goa came to the forefront. As already noted, Punjab acquired AIFF affiliation in 1951. The antecedents of the growth and spread of football in the region go back to the early twentieth century when British army officers took the game to the Punjabi regiments who in turn made it popular among the locals.[51] Despite this early start, no organized football play among the civilians/locals of Punjab is on record in colonial India. After Partition, football slowly began to attract public

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attention under the aegis of the Punjab FA. Three local teams shot into prominence in the 1960s – Leader Club, Punjab Police and Border Security Force (BSF) while the JCT Mills rose to power in the 1970s. Both Leader Club and Punjab Police became close runners-up in national level tournaments such as Durand Cup, Rovers Cup and DCM Trophy in the 1960s–70s. The Police team succeeded in winning the DCM in 1966. BSF had an impressive run in the Durand Cup from the late 1960s. Between 1968 and 1976 it lifted the Cup five times (1968, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1976). JCT Mills, on the other hand, began to put up a decent show in the same tournaments from the 1970s. It entered the final of the Durand Cup four times in a row between 1974 and 1977, winning it only once when it shared the honour with Border Security Force in 1976. The other Punjabi team that also made a mark at the national stage from this time was the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB). Punjab reached the final of the Santosh Trophy four times in the 1970s (1970, 1974, 1977, 1979) winning it twice (1970 and 1974). In fact, the match between Bengal and Punjab in the Santosh Trophy came to be regarded as the ‘battle royal’ of Indian football in the 1970s. Punjab’s rise to soccer glory began in the 1960s with the emergence of a string of talented footballers. The lead came from the greatest of all Punjabi players, Jarnail Singh, who became more famous as a defender of Mohun Bagan and represented and captained India for a long time in the 1960s–70s. Punjabi representation at the national level has maintained a steady flow throughout the last three decades. The long list includes the most important names of Inder Singh, Manjit Singh, Gurudev Singh, Gurkripal Singh, Parmar, Parminder Singh, Harjinder Singh, Sukhbinder Singh, Narinder Gurung, Charanjit Singh, Kuljit Singh, Tejinder Kumar, Daljit Singh, Hardeep Sangha and Hardeep Gil. It was JCT Mills of Phagwara that single-handedly took up the mantle of Punjab’s soccer power from the 1980s. During the decades of the 1980s–90s it won most of the prestigious club tournaments more than once.[52] Punjab’s golden moment in soccer came in the 1996–97 season when JCT Mills earned the glory of winning the first National League in India. If JCT’s success was based largely on its recruitment of topmost Indian stars such as I.M. Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri, equally important was the club’s increasing corporatization of soccer. With the creation of Kerala in 1956, the erstwhile Travancore Cochin Football Association and the District Association of Malabar in Tamil Nadu were amalgamated to form the Kerala Football Association. In India’s first exposure to international football at the 1948 Olympics, T.A. Verghese popularly known as Thiruvalla Pappan from Kerala performed brilliantly for the national team. Others who represented Kerala in the national squad in the next three decades included A.T. Rahman, S.R. Balakrishnan, C.C. Jacob, Victor Manjila, M.M. Jacob, Mohammad Basheer, P. Philip and Xavier Pius. Kerala emerged as a football force of some reckoning in 1973 when it won the Santosh Trophy for the first time. Since then Kerala and its affiliated club teams especially Premier Tyres, Kerala Police and the State Bank of Travancore (SBT) put up a consistent performance at the national stage. From the late 1970s, many of the industrial establishments, both in the public and private sectors, began to take active interest in the promotion of football in Kerala. Their readiness to maintain football teams afforded the opportunity to nourish young

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footballers. The public industrial undertakings such as Kerala State Electricity Board, Kerala Police, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, Travancore Uranium Products Ltd., Customs, Central Excise and Port Trust were able to maintain and field modest football teams in the state and also in the resultant invitation to them to partake in AIFF tournaments in other parts of the country. The concerted effort of the public industrial undertakings coupled with the able assistance of the Kerala FA was also directed toward arresting the outflow of able footballers from Kerala. The government too played a crucial role in the promotion of the game throughout the state. In the late 1970s the Kerala Government introduced a novel scheme, probably the first of its kind in India, to render financial assistance to former sportspersons in indigent circumstances.[53] Another major scheme in this regard was the introduction of financial assistance to create infrastructure in villages.[54] Among other measures, the government opened sports schools at a few selected centres to provide specialized coaching to budding talent in various sports. It also took the initiative in opening a sports college in Calicut.[55] These welfare measures played an important part in raising the status of sports in the state in the next decade, football being one of the major beneficiaries of such efforts. Kerala became a major soccer force to reckon with on the national circuit in the late 1980s with the rise of Kerala Police as a formidable club team. The first prominent players of this new trend to hit the deck were Nazib, C.D. Francis and Bhasi in the late 1970s. V.P. Sathyen and C.V. Pappachan boosted the prospects of Kerala soccer from mid-1980s. The mantle was finally taken over by the two legendary Kerala footballers of the nineties – I.M. Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri. Other Kerala players following in their footsteps to make a mark on the national scene included Mathew Vergese, K.V. Dhanesh and Sharaf Ali. Kerala football, however, got a fresh lease of life in 1997 when FC Kochin emerged as the first Indian professional club. Its success in recruiting top footballers of the country and making an impressive mark in national club tournaments in the very first year[56] demonstrated to other leading clubs the urgent necessity of changing their amateur infrastructure. In fact, commercialization of club football in India truly began with FC Kochin. Goa: The New Titan of Indian Football If there is any other state in India which invites comparison with Bengal in terms of mass craze for football, it is Goa. If Bengal can boast of a galaxy of great footballers such as Sailen Manna, Samar Banerjee, Kesta Paul, Sanat Seth, Chuni Goswami, Arun Ghosh, Subhas Bhowmik, Tarun Bose, Bhaskar Ganguly, Gautam Sarkar, Shyam Thapa, Mohammad Habib, Subrata Bhattacharyya, Manoranjan Bhattacharyya, Atanu Bhattacharyya, Sudip Chatterjee, Krishanu De and Sisir Ghosh through the ages after independence, Goa can also take a legitimate pride in such names as Brahmanand, Derek Pereira, Bernard Pereira, Nicholas Pereira, Camilio Gonsalves, Derek D’Souza, Mauricio Afonso, Anthony Rebelolo, Ignatius Dias, Roque Barretto, Roberto Fernandez, Carlton Chapman, Bruno Cutinho, S. Venkatesh, Jules Alberto and Alvito D’Counha. Although Goa is no match for Bengal in terms of track record at

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provincial and club championships, the social history of the game in the state is no less fascinating. James Mills, who has done some research on the subject, considers football in Goa to be ‘different’. He mentions five key factors – rather processes and institutions – that, in his opinion, have simultaneously shaped the society and culture, as well as Goa’s rise as a footballing power in the twentieth century. These factors are: the activities of an indigenised church, economic migration, a forced industrialization, decolonization, and the search for a means of protecting the difference of a Goa, which found itself immersed in the Indian Union after 1961.[57] Fr William Robert Lyons, who came to Siolim from Udipi to recover from plaguing health hazards, brought football to Goa in 1883. He liked Goa so much that instead of returning, he founded a school at Siolim and introduced the sport there. He was also responsible for putting sports into the school curriculum. Fr Lyons, therefore, might well be considered the father of the game in Goa.[58] Despite the obvious role of the missionaries and private school headmasters in the introduction and initial spread of the game in Goa, football’s popularization in Goa, as in Bengal, cannot solely be attributed to these processes. The attitude and response of the general Goan public towards this mass spectator sport was rather different. Football’s appropriation by the general public was a complex, calculated and incidental process. Mills puts strong emphasis on the importance of economic migration from Goa to Bombay and the growth of great industrial houses in the last decade of Portuguese rule in Goa as major forces to mould the evolution of Goan football in the middle of the last century.[59] The most crucial phase of reform and regeneration in Goan football, which led to its later boom and excellence from the late 1970s, is situated in the trajectory of the state’s de-colonization from Portuguese rule and its subsequent integration into the Indian Union in the 1960s. The transformation of Goa’s political status and its impact on Goan political culture came to play a decisive role in the development of the game in subsequent decades. While football was used as a cultural tool to express the difference of Goan identity,[60] the game’s appropriation for purely political purposes became too obvious. Dayand Bandodkar, President of the Maharashtrawadi Gomoantak Party and chief minister of Goa in the 1960s, used football to mobilize mass opinion in his favour during Goa’s merger with India.[61] On becoming the vice-president of the Goa Football Association in 1962 he started the All India Bandodkar Trophy tournament. Incidentally, the defining moment in Goan football in terms of its administration came in 1959 when the Associacao Futebol de Goa, now the Goa Football Association was formed with Lt Joao Luis Aranha as its first President. The Goa FA had to undergo a period of utmost stress during 1967–68 in the context of a wider political question over the issue of Goa’s merger with Maharashtra. The rejection of the merger by a referendum in 1967 led to the retention of Goa FA’s autonomous status, which proved vital in shaping the future of Goan football. Under its able auspices, major Goan clubs,[62] which included Vasco Sports Club (1951), Salgaocar Sports Club (1955), Dempo Sports Club (1967) and Sesa Goa (1962), began to flex their muscles at the national stage from the 1970s.[63] From the 1980s Goan outfits such as Dempo and Salgaocar became major contenders for supremacy in Indian club football along with three Calcutta giants, JCT Mills of Punjab, Mahindra & Mahindra and Air India from

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Bombay and Kerala Police of Kerala. From the late 1990s Churchill Brothers stormed into the fray with a most consistent track record in all the national club level tournaments. At the turn of the century a rejuvenated Vasco is also on song at the national circuit. Unlike in Bengal where football clubs grew around the initiatives of middle-class enthusiasts, aristocratic families and a few zamindars in the late-nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, football club formation in Goa was mostly the result of patronage of big business and industrial houses since the 1950s. Apart from Mormugao Port Trust, which was run by the Central Government-controlled Mormugao Sports Council since its formation in the 1950s, most other elite Goan clubs including Salgaocar, Dempo and Sesa Goa shot into prominence under the auspices of industrial/business establishments. The house of Salgaocar, the house of Dempo and the Sesa Goa Company have been the respective chief patrons of the three clubs for the last four to five decades. While the first two were successful in quickly grasping the changing commercial and professional priorities of the game in the 1990s and in transforming their soccer set-up accordingly, Sesa Goa turned its attention to nurturing young talent instead of retaining its football team. It was, however, Churchill Brothers, which broke the monopoly of Salgaocar and Dempo in Goan soccer in the 1990s. Founded in 1987 by the two Alemao brothers – Churchill and Joaquim, the club came to the limelight when it lifted the Goa State League thrice in a row from 1995 to 1997. Since then it has been a most consistent performer on the national scene except a one-year downfall in 1998 when its British coach Danny McLennan left the team. The Brothers recovered soon and in 2000 struck a deal with Zee TV to sponsor its football team. The deal was later called off as Zee TV decided to launch its own sports channel. In recent times, Churchill, who is primarily a politician, mooted the idea of keeping the terms and conditions of the contract open to the sponsor’s demands: ‘My priority is football and the club, which is my life. I can leave politics but not football. It’s in my blood and I will do anything to save my club. My club can easily give publicity and mileage to any sponsor.’[64] Being the only family club in the Indian soccer map, Churchill Brothers’ ability to survive in the highly competitive Indian soccer fray has been an exemplary achievement. ‘Dipping into their scarce resources and depriving the large Alemao family of many comforts and luxuries’,[65] the club was the first to pay a lump sum amount to its footballers in Goa. It also broke away from the tradition of playing only Goan players, which became a cliché with other Goan teams and roped in footballers from around the country as well as from outside India. It remains to be seen how the Brothers’ family powerhouse can retain a professional team in face of increasing strength of the forces of marketization in Indian football. In contrast to Churchill Brothers, the recent revival of Vasco SC points to the everincreasing importance of commercialization in Goan/Indian football. Vasco’s traditional status as the teacher of ‘ABCD of Goan football’ was at stake from the early 1980s. The club came under the threat of relegation to the second division of the Goa League at the turn of the 1980s. It was at this critical juncture in the club’s history that Noel de Lima Leitao, a well-known TV commentator and a football strategist in his

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own right, along with other like-minded football businessmen including Savio Messais, Stanley Pereira and Vinod Parkott, stepped in to revive the fortunes of the club.[66] Their earnest professional as well as commercial commitment throughout the 1990s helped Vasco to qualify at last for the NFL. The president of the Club at present is Vinod Parkott, while Noel de Lima Leitao is the chief patron and Derrick Pereira the coach. The club also found an official sponsor in 2000 with Arlem Breweries, part of the well-known Chowgule Group from Goa. More importantly, it was the first Indian soccer club to host a website – http://www.vascoclub.com – as well as to make a serious attempt at merchandising. The website offers online merchandising of Vasco team jerseys, colours and other paraphernalia to augment its revenues. Moreover, the club consequently launched a membership drive open to any soccer lover.[67] Between AIFF’s state units GFA may be said to have initiated the process of professionalization of the game in right earnest in the 1990s. It embarked on a Youth Development Programme to cater for the coaching needs of U-12 and U-14 age groups in the late 1990s. It runs its own Football Academy that works in tandem with the Sesa-Goa Football Academy.[68] The urge to start a football academy came from the erstwhile Governor of Goa, General J.F.R. Jacob in 1999. Deliberating as the chief guest on the occasion of the prize-giving ceremony of the South Asian Football Federation Coca Cola Cup tournament, he declared: ‘Football is the game Goans excel in. Goans love football. We must do something to encourage the game at the grassroots level, in the villages ... by providing proper football grounds. We have a proposal to set up a Football Academy to train youngsters.’[69] The GFA looked confident of achieving its aim as early as 2000: ‘…if we are to pursue our dream of making Football an Industry in Goa, we need to start a production line of players, so that the industry becomes sustainable.’[70] [emphasis added]. The plan to start a football academy, therefore, was the result of a very well thought out process to professionalize the soccer set-up in Goa: And there are more practical considerations involved. Rules of the Goa Professional League require that each Club participating should employ a minimum of seven professional players whose contracts are registered with the Goa Football Association. Further, every team participating in the National Football League needs to have an under-19 team as well. There is, therefore, a large requirement in Goa for professional players. If our teams are to maintain the high level of football, in competition that they play today, the answer lies in opening up an Academy where players’ skill and abilities are honed to the level required.[71]

The academy was also expected to encourage the Goan parents ‘to put their faith in what the GFA is attempting to achieve and encourage their children to become professional players’.[72] The academy became fully operational from 2002–03 with twenty-three under-16 trainees at the Nehru Stadium, Fatorda.[73] If the GFA-run football academy represents a strategic urge to professionalize Goan football, the Sesa Goa Football Academy is an emblem of social commitment to promote soccer in Goa. In the wake of Sesa Goa Company’s major equity capital transfer to Mitsui of Japan, the company began to concentrate more on revenue earnings

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rather than investing in football. Faced with the dilemma of either going professional or disbanding the senior club team, the team management decided to opt for the second choice, especially after Sesa Goa failed to qualify for the 1999 National Football League.[74] The decision was momentous since the management also decided to continue its commitment with soccer, but only as a social aspect. The question also arose as to whether Sesa Goa should rope in foreign players to revive its past glory. But Peter Francis Xavier de Lima, corporate director of Sesa Goa, clearly stated at this juncture: ‘Our train of thought is not to spend less money but spend it in such a way that will benefit the Goan youth, not Nigerians and Ghanaians.’[75] While disbanding the senior team it declared it would build Goa’s most prestigious football academy, where young Goan football talent could be developed and groomed into quality footballers.[76] Although publicized as a part of Sesa Goa’s ‘social commitment’, the academy aims and functioning point to a unique blend of a moral and professional approach: The Sesa Goa academy aims not only to make the boys excellent footballers, but also academically and technically good citizens. The boys though taking up football as a profession, will have to undergo compulsory basic education up to the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) level. The academically weak trainees who do not wish to pursue further education are sent to learn vocational skills at the Industrial Training Institute run by Sesa Goa which abuts the playing field.[77]

Much of the future of Goan football would depend on how the two academies run by GFA and Sesa Goa complement each other in a professional manner. At the initiative of Alberto Colaco, its erstwhile secretary, GFA also signed a deal with Procam Sports Private Limited to market and promote Goan football. The company roped in Shaw Wallace, who through their flagship brand Director Special sponsors the GFA Professional League and First Division League. Vivek Singh, the founder of Procam Sports, put a lot of emphasis on GFA’s attitude and willingness in explaining the successful marketization and professionalization of football in Goa: In the GFA, you have good people who are committed towards the development of the game with a professional attitude. The feeling and the love for the game should come from within. There should be good people at the helm of affairs, effecting changes to make the game beautiful and of good quality. No one in the All India Football Federation is busy working on changing the face of Indian football towards its development. You need experts at the top to help people at the bottom to do things in a professional way.[78]

This also explains why corporate houses like Procam Sports hesitate in marketing Indian football run by the AIFF. Although marketing of the game was well conceived in Goa, the GFA league had to go on without a title sponsor from 2000 when Shaw Wallace pulled out of the sponsorship in their third year of the contract. Procam Sports, however, met the contractual obligations. While the problem of viable sponsorship still persists, the GFA need to address other hitches as well – lack of television coverage, inconsistency in crowd quantity, alleged match fixing and viability of the state professional league being the most important.

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Nation Versus Club With the 1970s drawing to a close, regional rivalry around the inter-provincial Santosh Trophy began to lose importance as Bengal once again regained its domination as a regional footballing force. It won the championship five times in a row from 1975 to 1979 and, with a gap of one year, again in 1981–82. Bengal’s dominance was also clearly discernible in the national squad, where footballers from Bengal began to enjoy the lion’s share. This, however, did not bid well for Indian football. As Jaydeep Basu argues: The lack of challenge did hardly any good to Calcutta football either, as the feeling prevailed that it was in a position to dictate terms to the rest of the country and it started putting the club interest above the national interest. While club football brought capacity crowds to all centres from Calcutta to Bombay and Delhi to Kannur in the 70s, the national team suffered defeat after defeat.[79]

During the 1960s and 1970s, regional rivalry reflected through performances in the Santosh Trophy seemed to merge with a more virulent rivalry based on club loyalty. Clubs from different states became representatives of their regions in several national level tournaments. In Bengal, the situation came to acquire a rather different dimension as the players of the three big clubs started getting paid handsomely from the 1970s onwards. In the peculiar amateur set-up of Bengal/Indian football, most players were employed in public or private sector offices while obtaining healthy seasonal payments from their clubs. This sub-professional football culture of Bengal made the nation-club clash inevitable. The writing on the wall was therefore clear. Only a splinter was needed to set light to the barrel. And that was provided by the AIFF’s decision to hold long preparatory camps before the 1982 Asian Games, which also involved a series of foreign tours.[80] Fulfilment of such an ambitious plan required top recruits of Calcutta’s big clubs to remain with the national squad for nearly two seasons. Moreover, AIFF did not take into consideration the players’ financial liability and their contracts with respective clubs. As the transfer season was in the offing, the selected players requested that the Federation consider the matter, which the latter scathingly refused to do. This caused twentyone players[81] to walk away from the national camp on 19 February 1981. The point became crystal clear from this action: they were more loyal to clubs than the nation. The media, the government and others concerned took strong exception to the incident. Both the Central Government and the State Government strongly condemned the players’ action. Jyoti Basu, the West Bengal Chief Minister categorically stated: ‘What is more distressing is that these players have placed their private consideration over the demands of the country.’[82] The players’ image in the public eye was tarnished severely, thanks to critical newspaper reports: They [sports desk of a leading vernacular daily] unwittingly drubbed the camp deserters as traitors to the country, albeit within quotes. Not only was the news item frontpaged, it was made the lead news. The mass circulation of the paper coupled with the notorious credibility of the printed word brought an immediate and sharp reaction from the people. Indignation ran rampant and condemnation of the players began to pour in from all possible quarters. It appeared that the country had been swept overnight by a surge of patriotism, somewhat comparable to that prevailing

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A Social History of Indian Football during the days of the Chinese aggression or the battles with Pakistan! The players were painted as black as possible. Short of physical violence, they had to suffer from all sorts of ignominy. The ‘patriots’ began to heckle them like anything in their places of work and public places too. One of them was even threatened with the withdrawal of the Arjuna award for which he had been named earlier.[83]

Confronted with a near social boycott, the footballers became apprehensive. In fact, they were victims of an unusual clash of interests between the nation and the club. Yet this was but inevitable given the AIFF’s overall policy. Rather than attempting a longterm solution to the crisis, the Federation took recourse to further coercion. In an emergency meeting of its working committee, it decided to recall the players provided the latter agreed not to play for their clubs until their release from the camp.[84] Despite the players’ submission to the gravity of the situation, the decision taken by AIFF seemed totally unjustified as it completely sidetracked the important issue of compensation to the players in view of the bar imposed on them to play for their clubs. Finally, at the insistence of Field Marshal Maneckshaw, head of the All India Sports Council, the AIFF declared a monthly remuneration of Rs.2,000 to the players during their stay at the national camp. Jaydeep Basu, in his recent work on Indian football, blames AIFF for the fiasco: It was unfortunate that no attempt was made to solve the problem. The federation was aware of the under-the-table professionalism that existed at domestic level for a long time. The players, most of whom came from middle class background, were getting payments from their respective clubs. It was an open secret for many years, but the AIFF made no effort to check it or legalize the whole business. It was rather encouraging it … While the players could be accused for showing scant respect to the national feeling and the clubs for instigating them, the main blame should go to the federation for unimaginative handling of the whole situation. The controversy could have been easily avoided had the AIFF been a little more sensible in its approach.[85]

While Basu’s point merits attention, the roots of the nation-club conflict lay elsewhere. The trajectory of the game’s evolution in the first half of the twentieth century suggests that football as a metaphor for nationalism came out as part of a negative response against British imperialism. It was beyond doubt assertive, yet negative, in character. Even in the heyday of football’s frequent appropriation as a nationalist tool, it was the club teams and mainly Mohun Bagan that represented the nation in the making. While the annual Indians-Europeans matches evoked enthusiasm among Indians and attracted big crowds from the 1920s, these could hardly match the nationalist fervour expressed through a Mohun Bagan versus Calcutta Football Club League or Shield match in the same period. The flow of this unique club-based national football culture got a further fillip in the 1930s when regional rivalries over the question of control and organization of the game and the start of an inter-provincial tournament under the aegis of the newly constituted AIFF added a new dimension to it. It continued unabated after Independence and even during the national team’s glorious successes on the international stage – particularly in the Asian Games of 1951 and 1962. Rather, the ties of club loyalty were strengthened, with a few clubs becoming signifiers of their respective regional sentiments from the 1960s. The governments – both central and state – never

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realized football’s importance as a national emblem in independent India. Nor did they understand the game’s potential as an industry! Hence, the AIFF remained an amateur organization throughout the twentieth century. This appalling failure of the Indian Government to adapt to the changing dimensions of the global game meaningfully explains the unresolved dichotomy between nation and club in Indian football, which, even in the twenty-first century, continues to shape the future of soccer in India. The following episode from recent memory will provide ample testimony to this point. In November 2000, on the eve of the fifth National League, nine leading Indian clubs,[86] aggrieved over the AIFF’s faulty role in the management of the game, set up the Indian Premier Football Association (IPFA) under the Presidentship of ‘liquor baron’ Vijay Mallya, the chief of the United Breweries Group, and announced a boycott of the high-profile National Football League. Having failed to make the AIFF President, Mr Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, see reason and bring him around to the negotiating table, the IPFA decided upon direct confrontation with football’s governing body. A shoddy itinerary, which left players gasping for breathing space, partial payment of dues coupled with a disastrous administration, added fuel to the simmering fire raging in the minds of players for quite some time. The IPFA, whose demands included greater autonomy for the clubs, a proper calendar and revival of the Federation Cup, wanted football to be made more ‘spectator-friendly, television-friendly and sponsor-friendly’. Accordingly, everyone had an excuse to rebel. Mallya also questioned the closure of the Nehru and DCM Cups and cited misappropriation of funds as the main reason for the abandoning of these prestigious tournaments.[87] AIFF, who till then had been stubbornly declaring that the 5th edition would go on even if IPFA clubs did not participate, suddenly changed track. The President, in view of the forthcoming AIFF office-bearers election, understandably changed his rigid stance and conceded to the infant institution’s demands. Clouds cleared and the IPFA immediately responded by announcing its participation in both the league and millennium soccer championships. Although the onus was put mostly on the manoeuvres of administrators in action – the AIFF President, the Punjab Football Association chief and joint managing director of JCT Industries, and UB group, sponsors of three leading clubs of India – for this entire jigsaw, the core of the problem still lay in the failure of the government to adopt a viable sports policy specific to football and thereby put an end to the existing semi-professional institutional approach aimed at developing the game. The agreement between the Federation and the Indian Premier Football Association (IPFA), which represented a conglomeration of some of the clubs involved in the National League but in the main those controlled or floated by influential business houses, had the ingredients to revitalize the game in the country. It was even hoped in some quarters that if in the next three to four years’ time Indian football took a turn for the better, ‘the two sides could well sit back and pat themselves for having regenerated the game in the country’.[88] Some of the points on which an agreement was reached could and should have been implemented years ago, particularly the one relating to making a clear-cut difference between amateur and professional status. Ramu Sharma made the point amply clear:

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A Social History of Indian Football For years together Indian footballers, particularly those associated with the big clubs, have been allowed to wear the mask of amateurs and enjoying all the benefits despite bargaining for financial returns during the transfers. It was and is not their fault. It was the fault of the system which sought to mix priorities because of economic necessities. One could not fault a football player for earning extra money during the season even though, often enough, he had been given a job on the basis of his playing skill. And employed sportspersons in India are not expected to observe full time or duty. But clearly the money earned and demanded during transfers did violate the principles of amateurism.[89]

The transition from amateurism to professionalism looked an imminent possibility in the aftermath of the agreement between the two associations. As Sharma maintained: But if the agreement arrived at between the federation and the IPFA is any guide then India will at last have a set of professional players. They may lose out at playing in the Olympic Games qualifying rounds and other such meets at amateur levels but it certainly will go a long way in clearing the air and separate the amateurs from the professionals. This two-tier classification, however, does not mean that there should be two separate bodies of administration.[90]

While the transition seems to have begun, it depends largely on the government’s ability to adapt to the changing terms of the game: commercialization and professionalization of football, the most crucial challenges Indian football faces in the new millennium – discussed at length in the last essay. However, there was a silver lining to the entire episode. This came in the form of Mohun Bagan, the traditional icon of Indian football, being declared the national team of the country. For the first time ever, a football club was given this honour, which implied that Mohun Bagan would represent India in case a team comprising best footballers in the country could not be formed due to paucity of funds or any other reason.[91] The Changing Order Amidst the complex and confusing medley of regional and club interests that engulfed Indian football in the 1970s–80s, signs of change were apparent. Bengal’s supremacy in both the inter-provincial Santosh Trophy as well as major national level club tournaments was under serious challenge. The challenge came, as already noted, mainly from the state teams and clubs of Punjab, Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa.[92] The decline of the Mohammedan Sporting Club of Calcutta in the 1990s also tilted the balance in favour of rival centres of footballing excellence. The following tables show how these rival centres of power have come into a position of prominence in the course of the last two and half decades. An analysis of the database provided in the above tables[97] clearly reveals that although Bengal redeemed its lost superiority in the Santosh Trophy by the middle of the 1990s, it could no longer enjoy domination at major club tournaments. Even in the Santosh Trophy, it seemed to have lost its way at the turn of the last century. With the start of a semi-professional National League in 1996 and the emergence of new professional or financially strong football teams such as FC Kochi or Churchill Brothers in

Regionalism and Club Domination 129 Table 1. Santosh Trophy Year

Venue

1980–81 Cuttack 1981–82 Trichur 1982–83 Calcutta 1983–84 Madras 1984–85 Kanpur 1985–86 Jabalpur 1986–87 Calcutta 1987–88 Quilon 1988–89 Guwahati 1989–90 Margao 1990–91 Palakhad 1991–92 Coimbatore 1992–93 Cochin 1993–94 Cuttack 1994–95 Madras 1995–96 Margao 1996–97 Jabalpur 1997–98 Guwahati 1998–99 Chennai 1999–2000 Thrissur 2000–01 Mumbai [held delayed in the 2001–02 season] 2002–03 Imphal

Winners

Runners-up

Punjab Bengal Bengal & Goa Goa Punjab Punjab Bengal Punjab Bengal Goa Maharashtra Kerala Kerala Bengal Bengal Bengal Bengal Bengal Bengal Maharashtra Kerala

Railways Railways (joint winners) Punjab Maharashtra Bengal Railways Kerala Kerala Kerala Kerala Goa Maharashtra Kerala Punjab Goa Goa Goa Goa Kerala Goa

Manipur

Kerala

the late 1990s, Bengal’s dominance was under serious threat.[98] It also required the two big Calcutta clubs to seek sponsorships, which they did during the 1997–98 season. And, to date, the two Calcutta giants have won the championship six times out of eight.[99] The opportunities provided by the launch of the National League, however, have been more readily availed by the Goan clubs than by Bengal or any other clubs. Five teams from Goa featured in the last version of the League (2003–04), compared to four from Bengal, one each from Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.[100] More importantly, while three of the Goan teams remained in contention for the trophy until East Bengal emerged champions even before playing their last two matches, three other Calcutta teams fought hard to avoid relegation and one of them was in fact relegated.[101] In the 2004–05 edition, with another new entrant from Goa,[102] the National League had become what a recent newspaper report calls ‘Goa brothers and few others’.[103] Amidst this changing balance of power in Indian football, new forces are clearly on the ascendance. If the lead in this regard initially came from Goa, Manipur – a rather young entrant from the northeast into the national football theatre – has most successfully followed it up. Manipur won the 34th National Championship for the Santosh

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Table 2. Federation Cup Year

Venue

Winners

Runners-up

1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 (Jan) 1996 (Jul/Aug) 1997 1998 1999

Ernakulam Coimbatore Guwahati Calcutta Coimbatore Calicut Cannanore Triuchirapalli Bangalore Srinagar Cuttack Delhi Coimbatore Thrissur Kannur Calcutta Kozhikode Margao Calcutta Kannur Calcutta Calcutta Calcutta Tournament not held Tournament not held Chennai Calcutta

Indian Telephone Industries East Bengal & Mohun Bagan Border Security Force East Bengal & Mohun Bagan Mohun BaganMohun Bagan Mohammedan Sporting Mohammedan Sporting East Bengal Mohun BaganMohun Bagan Salgaocar Sports Club Salgaocar Sports Club Kerala Police Kerala Police Mohun Bagan AC Mohun Bagan Mohun Bagan AC JCT Mills JCT Mills East Bengal Salgaocar Sports Club Mohun Bagan AC

Mohun Bagan (joint winners) Mafatlal Mills (joint winners) Mohammedan Sporting Mafatlal Mills Mohun Bagan East Bengal Mohun Bagan East Bengal Salgaocar Sports Club Border Security Force Mohammedan Sporting Salgaocar Sports Club Mahindra&Mahindra SC East Bengal Mahindra&Mahindra SC Salgaocar Sports Club East Bengal East Bengal Dempo Sports Club East Bengal East Bengal

Mohun BaganMahindra United Dempo Sports Club

Dempo Sports Club Mohammedan Sporting Mohun Bagan

2000 2001 2002–03 2004

Trophy displacing the traditional bastions of Indian soccer, signalling the arrival of a new soccer power-centre in India, namely the northeast. The victory of Manipur, so long considered to be a minnow in Indian football, opened up possibilities for the game to flourish in the region. Moreover, the successful hosting of the tournament by the All Manipur Football Association (AMFA) pointed to its professional approach towards the game,[104] lacking in many other state units of AIFF. It is a bit of surprise that Manipur has taken so long time to strike at the National Championship. For the past decade or so the state provided a steady stream of classy players like Gunbir Singh, Kiran Khongsai, Rennedy Singh, Bijen Singh, Dharamjit Singh, Khemtang Paite, James Singh, Lolendra Singh, Manitomba Singh and Tomba Singh both to national, as well as to club, sides. It is now common to

Regionalism and Club Domination 131 Table 3. Durand Cup Years

Winners

Runners-Up

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001–02 2002–03 2003 2004

Border Security Force Mohun Bagan & East Bengal JCT Mills Mohun Bagan AC Mohun Bagan AC Mohun Bagan AC JCT Mills Border Security Force East Bengal Club East Bengal Club East Bengal Club JCT Mills East Bengal Club Mohun Bagan AC East Bengal Club JCT Mills FC Kochin Mahindra & Mahindra Salgaocar Sports Club Mohun Bagan AC Mahindra United East Bengal Club Salgaocar Sports Club East Bengal

JCT Mills (joint winners) Mohun Bagan AC East Bengal Club JCT Mills East Bengal Club Mohun Bagan AC East Bengal Club Mohun Bagan AC Mahindra & Mahindra Border Security Force Mohammedan Sporting Club PSEB East Bengal Club Tata Football Academy Oil Club (IRAQ) Mohun Bagan AC East Bengal Club East Bengal Club Mahindra United Churchill Brothers SC Army XI East Bengal Club

find Manipuri players in almost all the leading club teams of the country. As Aminul Islam writes: Browse through the names of the national squad, Manipur have representatives in the senior, junior and sub-junior teams. There is no denying the fact that Kolkata and Goa have the best of clubs at their disposal but Manipur possess the players. Today, most club officials make the trek to the North-east state to hire their footballers … After Manipur’s historic win (in the last edition of the Santosh Trophy), Bengal cannot claim to be the sole bastion of Indian soccer. Except for a few of their home grown players, club officials in Kolkata rely on outstation players; the Singhs have outpaced the Chatterjees and Banerjee.[105]

It is interesting to understand how Manipur came all the way to confirm its new status as a soccer force in India. Rennedy Singh, a key member of the national squad and a member of the victorious Manipur team of 2002 noted: ‘There are no academies or institutions that can nurture talent. There’s nobody to guide us, yet we have done it. It is a story of hard work and dedication.’[106] Manitomba, another rising Manipuri footballer explains overwhelming Manipuri presence in clubs of other states: ‘There is

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Table 4. Rovers Cup Years

Winners

Runners-Up

1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04

Mohun Bagan AC Mohammedan Sporting Club Salahuddin (IRAQ) Mohammedan Sporting Club Army Club (IRAQ) Mohammedan Sporting Club Mohammedan Sporting Club JCT Mills Mohun Bagan AC Salgaocar SC Dempo SC Mohun Bagan AC Mohammedan Sporting Club Mohun Bagan AC Mohun Bagan AC East Bengal Club Salgaocar SC Dempo SC East Bengal Club Mahindra & Mahindra Mohun Bagan AC Mohammedan Sporting Club Mohun Bagan AC JCT Mills Mahindra & Mahindra Bank of India East Bengal Club Air India Oman Club (OMAN) Sesa Sports Club Salgaocar SC Air India JCT Mills Churchill Brothers SC Bengal Mumbai FC Central Railway Salgaocar SC Churchill Brothers SC Mohun Bagan AC Churchill Brothers SC The tournament was not held due to no space in national calendar. The tournament was not held due to no space in national calendar. The tournament was not held

no money in Manipur. The leagues are not very popular, unlike those in Bengal or Goa. So naturally players like us would always want to move to a better place where we can earn a better living.’[107] In nourishing the talent of Manipuri footballers, Tata Football Academy of Jamshedpur and Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Special Area Games Program have played a fruitful part.[108] Yet, a new tinge of colour may be added here to understand the ground realities of the sports situation in Manipur. Sports like football, in the last decade or so, have become more than a mere pastime for on-field entertainment in this state of northeastern India. Rather, in the turbulent north-eastern states like Manipur continually struck by insurgency and terrorism, sport assumes the dimension of a partial opiate. As Aminul Islam observes: ‘Deprived of creature comforts and saddled with insurgency, drugs and AIDS, they turned to the one thing they knew best: sport.’[109] Dingko Singh, who sparked off a sporting revolution by winning the Asian Games gold medal in boxing in 1998, neatly sums up the essence of the situation: ‘There’s nothing else for youngsters to do here; no money, no business. So they get hooked onto some sport because that’s the only way they’ll find a job.’[110] In fact, sport can be one powerful medium through which the restless energies of the north-eastern youth can be channelled into a right track to serve their respective states and the nation. The

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veteran Rennedy Singh puts the prospect on a high pitch: ‘Watch out for some more names [in the national squad] in the next couple of years. Soon, Manipur will be the be-all and end-all for Indian football.’[111] The All Manipur Football Association (AMFA) was established in 1976 under the aegis of the Government of Manipur. Earlier, the All Manipur Sports Association (AMSA) was in charge of football in the state. It was with the directive of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and on the principle of one game, one Association, that the AMFA got separated from AMSA. Though Manipur is located in the extreme northeastern part of the country, the AIFF, giving due recognition to its recent performances, has been trying to entrust a good number of National Championships to the Association every year. In fact, the Association has now emerged as one of the most successful and well-organized state-level sports organizations in the north-east with its fully computerized office, permanent staff and other modern amenities. Word about the Association’s achievements have reached such proportions that FIFA, the World’s Governing Body in football and the International Olympic Committee had listed the Honorary Secretary of the Association in the list of volunteers honoured in connection with the commemoration of the International Year of Volunteers.[112] If the case of Manipur points to a healthy turn in Indian football, stark contrasts are available in plenty. The beginning of the 1990s witnessed the spectacular rise of Kerala to football fame thanks mainly to the dazzling display of football by its mercurial duo I.M. Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri. The duo’s home club, Kerala Police, achieved a rare feat of winning the prestigious Federation Cup twice on consecutive occasions (1990 and 1991). As one sports journalist recalled a few years back: There was a time when Kerala footballers were a hit. Recruiters moved in from Bengal, especially, literally carrying bagfuls of money and promises galore. It was one such concerted move that brought Vijayan to Calcutta, despite his not wanting to leave Kerala and his hometown Thrissur and despite his Kerala Police senior Pappachan advising him against it. The rest is history.[113]

Football in Kerala, however, is not the same any more. As the same commentator remarks: ‘Kerala soccer isn’t the same any more. The lustre has worn out, the enigma is no more, the nursery is withering. A state which has given the country players like I.M. Vijayan, Jo Paul Ancheri, V. Pappachan and many more, looks a mere shadow of their past.’[114] Unfortunately, Kerala Police does not have a team any more since the authorities consider it an unworthy investment. As G. Sugunan, Secretary of the Kerala Football Association, has argued, ‘There is no money in football in Kerala any more. No sponsors, no television. Believe me, even in Kerala cricket is the big thing now.’[115] The state has no representation in the latest edition of the National Football League. It seems strange as to why a state, in parts of which soccer is almost religion, is lagging behind others with extremely limited means. A deeper look into the overall economic system and the Kerala FA’s activities suggest that the decline stems necessarily from a lack of professional and commercial vision on the part of both the government and the Association. Sujit Bhar encapsulates the essence of the problem brilliantly: It is a vicious circle. There isn’t any good football because there isn’t any talent. There isn’t any talent because there isn’t a good, big pool of footballers. There isn’t a good,

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A Social History of Indian Football big pool of footballers because there isn’t any money. There isn’t any money because there isn’t any talent … Probably it is a problem of attitude. Probably an attitude that grows from too much apparent security.[116]

Despite this picture of gloom, the state reached the final of the Santosh Trophy on the last three occasions, finally winning it in 2001, while Kerala’s leading clubs, namely FC Kochi and SBT, made an exit from the top draw of the National League.[117] If Kerala makes a striking contrast to Manipur, it makes a further and more important reality very clear. Even after the initiation of a tangible process of professionalization and commercialization in the domestic circuit, Indian football with its attractive paraphernalia of mass spectatorship is far away from adapting to the contemporary trends of the game’s global culture.[118] India need more Manipurs to attain the status of a developing footballing nation because Manipur does not represent club syndromes, but provides a viable pool of young promising footballers who can serve the national team. When India as a footballing power of some worth flexes its muscle at the international scene, it is again a particular club and not a national side which gives us a toast of national victory and instils a sense of national pride.[119] The reason looks simple enough: Football in India is played with a professional sincerity only in a handful of states. Indians, to speak the truth, have become addicted to watching its cricketers perform in the international theatre and its footballers on the domestic front. It is to this limited Indian presence in the international arena that we turn to in the next essay. Notes [1] Mihir Bose, A History of Indian Cricket (London: Andre Deutsch Ltd, 1990), pp.16–17. [2] These state teams included Bengal, Mysore, Andhra, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Goa, Punjab and Kerala. [3] Big clubs from leading football-crazy states included Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting (Bengal); Bangalore Muslims (Mysore); Keral Police and FC Kochin (Kerala), Indian Bank (Tamil Nadu), ITI and HAL (Karnataka); Hyderabad Police and Andhra Police (Andhra); Leader Club, JCT Mills and Punjab Police (Punjab); Mafatlal Mills, Tata Sports Club, Air India and Mahindra and Mahindra (Maharashtra); and Dempo S.C., Sesa, Vasco, Salgaonkar and Churchill Brothers (Goa). [4] The oldest football tournament – the Durand Cup – was held at Simla in 1888. It was followed by the Trades Cup in Calcutta in 1889. [5] J.C. Moitra, ‘50 Glorious Years: W.I.F.A.’s unique achievement’, in WIFA Golden Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: Western India Football Association, 1961). [6] These seven teams were: Oxford Lt., R.A., Bombay Rovers, Bombay Gymkhana, Telegraphs, Bombay Volunteer Artillery and H.M.S. Magdala. Oxford became the champions that year. [7] Moitra, ‘50 Glorious Years’. [8] The club, however, took part in the Junior Rovers in 1913. The Nadkarni Cup was its contribution, presented by Nadkarni & Co., a Bombay-based sports goods dealer, in 1908. It was a monopoly of the St Mary High School since inception till it became dormant in 1915. [9] Moitra, ‘50 Glorious Years’. [10] Bombay Chronicle, 28 June 1942. [11] In Bombay, as in Bengal, Indians generally acquitted themselves well on dry grounds but failed miserably under wet conditions as most of them played barefeet. [12] In the first year’s competition, Qamar Club from Hyderabad won the trophy by beating Matunga Hindus in the final.

Regionalism and Club Domination 135 [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

[18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]

[25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]

[36]

[37] [38]

[39] [40] [41] [42]

Moitra, ‘50 Glorious Years’; also see Bombay Chronicle, 28 May 1950. 34th National Football Championship: Official Souvenir (Calcutta: IFA, 1977). Ibid. In 1959 Shiv Kumar Lal, Vice-President of the AIFF, brought about the amalgamation of the Andhra and Hyderabad Football Associations to form the Andhra Pradesh Football Association. The soldiers of the John Company and the indigo planters carried the game to the barracks at Dinapore in Bihar in the late nineteenth century. The general public, however, took up the game at the turn of that century. In its early years, Patna, Jamshedpur, Danapur, Dhanbad and Darbhanga were the centres where football acquired popularity. 34th National Football Championship: Official Souvenir. Ibid. For details, see ‘Cotesting Neighbours’, this volume. 34th National Football Championship: Official Souvenir. Ibid. Quoted in ‘Santosh Trophy – How It Originated’, 34th National Football Championship: Official Souvenir. A tournament committee was created to draw up the details relating to the tournament in consultation with the officers of the Federation as ex-officio members. The Committee comprised of M. Dutta Ray (IFA), Soofi (Punjab), Moin-ul-Huq (Bihar) and Captain Anwar (Delhi). Santipriya Bandopadhyay, a noted Bengali sports writer, has hinted at this possibility. Santipriya Bandopadhyay, Football (Calcutta: Dey’s, 1985), pp.73–4. J.C. Moitra, ‘Bengal Club’s Pioneering Work in Soccer’, Bombay Chronicle, 28 May 1950. Ibid. Bengal won the trophy five times (1941, 1945, 1947–50) out of seven in the first decade (1941–50). The competition did not take place in 1942–43 and 1948. Jaydeep Basu, Stories from Indian Football (New Delhi: UBSPD, 2003), p.30. J.C. Moitra himself makes this point: Moitra, ‘50 Glorious Years’. Bombay Chronicle, 31 July 1938. Ibid. Ibid. The same writer, however, noted elsewhere that initially the move to draw military teams from outside ‘proved very popular, though rather expensive’. See Moitra, ‘50 Glorious Years’. Mafatlal Mills bagged the Rovers Cup once (1965) and DCM Trophy twice (1967–68) during this period. ‘Cash(ing) on Goan Football’, in Francis Xavier Janim Rebeirro (ed.), The Grass is Green in Goa: 40 Years Yield a Lot of Goals (Panjim: Goa Football Association, 2000), p.154. [hereafter Grass is Green]. Delhi reached the final in 1941 only to be thrashed by Bengal 0–5. In the following year, it took a sweet revenge by beating Bengal 2–0 to grab the trophy. Delhi has never reached the final of the tournament since. For a brief but useful profile of Hindustan Club and its contribution to Delhi football, see Abhijit Das, ‘Honourable Mention’, in The Statesman, 7 Oct. 1998. A few Delhi teams made a mark in the DCM Trophy in the 1940s–50s. Among them mention may be made of New Delhi Heroes (winners – 1945), Raisina Sporting (winners – 1949), IAF Station (winners – 1955) and IAF XI (winners – 1956). Novy Kapadia, ‘Bengal Football in Durand and DCM Since 1963’, in VIIth Jawaharlal Nehru Invitation International Gold Cup Football Tournament Souvenir (Delhi: AIFF & IFA, 1988). In 1937 it stunned favourites Mohammedan Sporting 1–0 while in the next year it defeated the formidable Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders 3–2. These players were K.V. Varadraj, S.A. Basheer, B.N. Vajravelu, Ahmed Khan, Dhanraj and S. Raman. For the full team, see Basu, Stories from Indian Football, p.174. V.A. Mohan Rangam, ‘Our Association’, in XIX National Football Championship for The Santosh Trophy Souvenir (Bangalore: Mysore State Football Association, 1962), p.53.

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[43] A fascinating story of the emergence, brilliance and performance of these five players can be found in Rupak Saha, Pancha Pandav (Calcutta: Karuna Prakasahni, 1991). [44] This point needs more emphasis since Bengal’s football supremacy at both regional and club levels after independence rested to a great extent on quality recruits from other states. If Mysore provided the early pool of such talented players, Hyderabad, Bombay, Punjab, Kerala and Goa came to furnish quality recruits to Calcutta clubs from the 1960s onwards. In recent times, footballers from outside Bengal play an important part side by side with foreign recruits in the success of the two leading Bengal clubs. This, however, results in a rather marginalized presence of players originally hailing from Bengal. [45] Basu, Stories from Indian Football, pp.94–5. [46] Sport and Pastime, 3 July 1965. [47] Novy Kapadia, ‘The Story of Indian Football, 1889–2000’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2002), p.19. [48] Ibid., p.20. [49] For Rahim’s contribution to the cause and promotion of Hyderabad/Indian soccer, see Basu, Stories from Indian Football, Chapter 7, pp.84–98. [50] For a useful discussion on the decline of Hyderabad/Andhra football, see Novy Kapadia, ‘Decline of Hyderabad Football’, DCM Football Tournament Journal (Delhi: 1986), pp.35–39. [51] For a brief but useful analysis of this early chapter of Punjabi football, see Paul Dimeo, ‘Colonial Bodies, Colonial Sport: “Martial” Punjabis, “Effeminate Bengalis” and the Development of Indian Football’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 19, 1 (March 2002), pp.72–90. [52] The club’s success in winning the major club tournaments are as follows: Federation Cup (1995 and 1996); Durand Cup (1983, 1987, 1992 and 1996); Rovers Cup (1997); IFA Shield (1996). [53] Kerala Football Association, 34th National Football Championship: Official Souvenir. [54] Ibid. [55] Ibid. [56] It won the Durand Cup beating Mohun Bagan 3–1 and went down to East Bengal 2–3 to earn the runners up spot in the IFA Shield in 1997. In the National League it also put up a modest performance remaining in the top six. [57] James Mills, ‘Football in Goa: Sport, Politics and the Portuguese in India’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2002), pp.75–88. [58] For a well knit discussion of the early development of football in Goa, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century, see Noel da Lima Leitao, ‘Goan Football has Little Cause to Look Back’, in Rebeirro, Grass is Green, pp.2–5. [59] Mills, ‘Football in Goa’, pp.79–84. [60] For an instructive analysis of Goan political identity in the context of independence and integration, see A. Rubinoff, The Construction of a Political Identity: Integration and Identity (London: Sage, 1998). [61] Mills, ‘Football in Goa’, p.79. [62] A very useful discussion on the histories of these clubs is available in ‘The Elite of Goan Football’, in Rebeirro, Grass is Green, pp.32–57. [63] Dempo SC performed remarkably at the national level in the 1970s. It won the Rovers Cup three times (1974, 1978, 1979) in this period. [64] Anupam Thapa, ‘Brothers in Alms’, Delhi’s Today, 27 July 2003. [65] ‘The Elite of Goan Football’, p.54. [66] For further details on this, see Visvas Paul D Karra, ‘Goan Challengers Back in Hunt in Renewed Vigour’, Deccan Herald, 30 Jan. 2002. [67] Vasco’s recent professional measures to boost the club’s fortune are well narrated in ‘The Elite of Goan Football’, p.36. See also, ibid. [68] For a useful discussion on Sesa-Goa Football Academy, see ‘Back to the Future’, in Rebeirro, Grass is Green, pp.151–3.

Regionalism and Club Domination 137 [69] [70] [71] [72] [73]

[74]

[75] [76]

[77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86]

[87]

[88] [89] [90] [91] [92]

[93] [94]

Joel D’Souza, ‘South Asian Soccer Supremacy’, Goa Now, May 1999. ‘A Finishing School for Goa’, in Rebeirro, Grass is Green, p.146. Ibid. Ibid. The initial report on the start of the academy maintained that ‘a coach, an assistant coach and an administrator look after the training, with the trainees being provided with lodging and boarding facilities’. Savio Messias was selected its director. Proceedings of the Annual General Body Meeting (Panaji: Goa Football Association, 20 July 2003), p.38. The disbandment had a shocking effect on the Goan public creating instant dejection and continuous appeal from several quarters including the GFA to reconsider the decision. For an immediate repercussion of the event in the media, see Frederick Noronha, ‘Goa Football appears unsure about it’s future plans’, Goa Today, June 1998. ‘Back to the Future’, pp.151–2. The academy was consequently founded in Sanquelim close to the Sesa Technical School. It was planned with twenty-four boys in the age group of 13–16 years, wherein their education and nutrition is taken care of, with a budget of Rs.30 lakhs annually. It received an overwhelming response in the very first year with 410 applications for admission. ‘Back to the Future’, p.152. ‘Cash(ing) on Goan Football’, in Rebeirro, Grass is Green, p.154. Basu, Stories from Indian Football, p.133. The foreign tours included the Mardeka Tournament at Kualalampur as well as the King’s Cup in Bangkok, apart from other invitation tournaments in different parts of Asia. Of these players nineteen were from Bengal while one each came from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Quoted in Basu, Stories from Indian Football, p.134. Ranjit Kumar Ghose, ‘Club versus Country?’, in 93rd IFA Shield Tournament Souvenir (Calcutta: IFA, 1985). In fact, the players were asked to give a voluntary declaration to that effect. For details, see Amrita Bazar Patrika and Ananda Bazar Patrika, 20 Feb. 1981. Basu, Stories from Indian Football, pp.136–7. The trouble that started in Bengal spread not to the states but to the senior clubs – Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Mohammedan Sporting and Tollygunge Agragami from Calcutta, Salgaocar, Churchill Brothers from Goa, Mahindra United from Mumbai, F.C. Kochin from Kerala and JCT Mills Phagwara from Punjab, most of them being owned or sponsored by industrialists. For a detailed understanding of the episode, see ‘Off-field Dribbles kept Football in the News’, PTI, 28 Dec. 2000, featured in indianfootball.com. See also Amardeep Bhattal, ‘IPFA on a Collision Course with AIFF’, Sports Tribune, 2 Dec. 2000. Ramu Sharma, ‘Wake-up Call to Indian Football’, Sports Tribune, 16 Dec. 2000. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Off-field Dribbles kept Football in the News’. Toughest challengers to Calcutta’s three premier clubs were: JCT Mills and Border Security Force (Punjab), Kerala Police (Kerala), Air India and Mahindra & Mahindra (Maharashtra), and Salgaocar and Dempo (Goa). In the late 1990s came three more contenders, viz. a revitalized Vasco, Churchill Brothers (Goa) and FC Kochin (Kerala). www.indianfootball.com&/historical database. Ibid. The Federation Cup was instituted as a tournament for champion clubs in 1977. The tournament did not provide entry for the champion teams of all the AIFF affiliates, for that would have not only brought in too many weak teams, but also would have meant only one team from Bengal, Goa, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala. So over the years the format changed on numerous occasions.

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[95] Ibid. India’s oldest football tournament, the Durand Cup is the third oldest football tournament in the world, only the English FA Cup and the Scottish FA Cup are older. The Durand Football Tournament was started by Sir Mortimer Durand at Shimla in 1888. In 1940 the venue was shifted to New Delhi. [96] Ibid. The Rovers Cup, the second oldest of one of the three big tournaments in the country, was started by some British football enthusiasts at Bombay in 1891. [97] The IFA Shield, the so-called blue riband of Indian football, is not taken into consideration as participation of top clubs from other provinces of India has not been regular and depends on the priority and decision of the IFA each year. [98] For a brief but useful discussion of the possible multiple challenges the Calcutta clubs would have to face in that context, see Sukumar Samajpati, ‘Changing Order’, The Statesman, 7 Jan. 1998. [99] Mohun Bagan and East Bengal won it thrice each (Mohun Bagan in 1997–98, 1999–2000 and 2001–02; East Bengal in 2000–01, 2002–03 and 2003–04) while both JCT Mills and Salgaocar were winners once (JCT in 1996–97 and Salgaocar in 1998–99). [100] The Goan teams include Salgaocar SC, Dempo SC, Vasco SC, Churchill Brothers and Heyward Sporting while Bengal’s representatives are East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, Mohammedan Sporting and Tollygunge Agragami. The sole representatives of Punjab, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are JCT Mills, Mahindra United and Indian Bank respectively. [101] Goan teams who remained in the run for the championship were Dempo SC, Churchill Brothers and Vasco SC. Mohammedan Sporting Club had to face relegation. [102] Goa’s Fransa Club earned a promotion in 2004. [103] Ananda Bazar Patrika, 26 May 2004. [104] The tournament’s successful hosting bears witness to AMFA’s long-term commercial and professional planning. The title sponsor of the tournament was LG India. More importantly, the Association launched its official website on the occasion of its hosting the tournament. [105] Aminul Islam, ‘Jewel in the Crown’, Indian Express, 10 Oct. 2002. [106] Ibid. [107] Ibid. [108] While Manipuri players have always made their presence felt among the top string of TFA graduates since the mid 1990s, SAI offered its sponsorship to a few institutions such as the Army Boys School at Shillong, thereby helping a great deal to locate and nourish budding talent. [109] Islam, ‘Jewel in the Crown’. [110] Ibid. [111] Ibid. [112] We have collected these pieces of information on the AMFA from the official website of the Association. For details, see www.santoshtrophy2002.nic.in/news.htm. [113] Sujit Bhar, ‘Football in Kerala, a Dismal Picture of Deterioration’, The Telegraph, 8 Oct. 2002. [114] Ibid. [115] Ibid. [116] Ibid. [117] SBT, however, earned a promotion again in 2004 and has featured in the National League in 2005. [118] For football’s changing global dimension through the ages, see Richard Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). For considerations on the variegated pattern of the contemporary global culture of football, see Gerry T. Finn and Richard Giulianotti (eds), Football Culture: Local Contests, Global Visions (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000). [119] East Bengal Club’s recent victory (July 2003) in the ASEAN Cup at Jakarta, Indonesia by beating the top club teams from Southeast Asia has been perceived as a national spirit. The club’s more recent success in reaching the quarter final of the AFC Club Cup has also been represented as India’s success.

A Sporting Colony of Growing Global Capital: Globalization and Indian Soccer [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar /3 Bidhan SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106444 FSAS110627.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 62005 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

For a country ranked 140 in the FIFA world rankings, one whose team had lost in the first round of the pre-world-cup qualifiers, and one which has never played in the world cup finals, this description has a quality of the unreal. Yet, for someone who has grown up in India, and has witnessed the soccer-crazy nature of the country for years, these scenes were routine: If the languorous, gloomy, Sunday afternoon suddenly turned vibrant and exciting, the reason was all too simple – it was time for the final tussle for football’s most coveted prize – the world cup. And with Brazil winning the title, predictably Kolkata went on a mad frenzy today. Brazil’s supporters did everything – from sporting Ronaldo hair cuts to painting faces in yellow and green. A fan joked that if Ronaldo himself was present in the city, he would probably be lost in the crowd. Right from the morning there were riots of colors at every nook and corner of the city with supporters of Brazil sporting yellow and green jerseys. Photographs of Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho were put up in every para.[5] At Kashundia Shibtala in Shibpur,

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A Social History of Indian Football supporters of Brazil held a yajna[6] in the morning, praying for their team’s victory. Walls are covered with graffiti saying ‘Brazil – We love you’, ‘Brazil – the name is enough!’, and so on. The match over, frenzied crowds climbed atop buses and cars and danced to drum beats. At Netaji Indoor stadium there were several Ronaldo lookalikes who became the darling of the crowd. The celebrations were rounded off in true Bengal tradition with abeer,[7] firecrackers and loads of sweets and doi.[8]

Scenes described above have been replicated over and over again in course of the last two decades. Every major international footballing encounter of recent times was/is lustily cheered by fans the country over and the English Premier League is the staple weekend diet for Indian soccer aficionados. Why do Indian soccer fans mourn another nation’s loss in football just as they mourn an Indian loss in cricket, and why is it that Indians feel the way they do about foreign players who hardly know a thing about their football? This essay seeks to analyse the reasons behind this peculiar Indian behaviour. Subsequently, it attempts to gauge the impact of this adulation for world soccer on the development of Indian football, and in doing so evaluates the bearing of globalization on the future of soccer in India.

India: An Unnatural Sporting Nation A recent special issue of the ESPN magazine published from New York was promoted thus, ‘First came the pitchers. Then the outfielders. Now New Mets Shortstop Kazuo Matsui leads a third wave of Japanese exports to America. But the latest talent surge doesn’t stop with Baseball or Japan. From Korean Golfers to Chinese Hoops Prodigies, Pacific Rim athletes are bringing their games to our games. Asia is Next’ (emphasis added).[9] To this list add the spectacular performances of the Koreans and the Japanese in football and suddenly Asia looms large as a premier sporting continent. However, when we turn our attention to India, one of Asia’s biggest countries, we are confronted with an ambience of ‘backwardness’, ‘catching up’ and ‘gloom’. This is because India, the most populous nation in the world, is a rather insignificant presence globally once we account for the export of software professionals to the Middle East and the West. This marginality is especially prominent in sports, forcing the magazine to start the article on Indian sport with the words, ‘None in a billion’. In the Sydney Olympics of 2000 India won a solitary bronze medal.[10] The country continues to baffle with the panoply of anomalies it produces. Consider the fact that 44 per cent of Indians still spend less than dollar a day, seventy of a thousand Indian children die before their first birthday and another twenty-five die before they turn 5.[11] In world politics, India remains a distant presence – her pleas against terrorist violence fall on deaf ears, communal conflict continues to be a looming spectre and over a third of the population live on the streets. ‘Brain drain’ is one of the biggest threats that confront the nation. It is this ambience of despair that forced the Indians to embrace technology and television, becoming, in the process, part of the global sporting village. Televised sport, for the Indian masses, became a vehicle for stimulating wants, mustering desires and triggering fantasies. This explains why Prasun Bhattacharyya, the hero in Moti Nandi’s

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famous novel Striker, dreams of a Brazilian coming to offer him a contract to play for the Santos football club in Brazil. The novel starts with Prasun, an aspiring young footballer, describing a dream he has had the previous night. In his dream, he had seen a middle-aged foreigner, wearing white coat and trousers, stepping out of a limousine parked on the main road near his small town house. Residents of his locality had never seen a limousine before. Accordingly, a crowd had gathered to see the car and gauge the reason behind the coming of the foreigner. When it became known that he had come to see Prasun, most people were stunned, at the same time happy to hear a local name on the foreigner’s lips. The Brazilian, when asked what he wanted, mentioned that he was the secretary of the Santos Football Club and announced his intention to sign Prasun to play for the club in the coming season. Upon hearing this, one of the residents rushed to inform Prasun’s father about the offer and was very excited to mention that the foreigner represented the club for which Pele had played.[12] The way in which Pele is spoken about in this novel is proof enough of the iconic status Brazilian football enjoys in India, making Brazil the local favourite.[13] Sport in India, like in more advanced Western nations, is now part of the integrated global leisure and entertainment industries. An analysis of the global-football-viewing Indian population brings into focus the upshot of this transformation. While global football has become mass entertainment, the local game continues to languish with India ranked at an all time low of 140 in the FIFA rankings. Indian soccer fans, while claiming to be ardent viewers of European soccer, have altogether forgotten about Indian football. Native footballers in India still come from lower-middle class backgrounds and try their hand at the game because they have few other livelihood options. Financial crises continue to threaten the longevity of their careers, a situation aggravated by the dismal plight of most state football associations. Except for a handful of leading footballers, others are seldom given due recognition, and openings offered on the sports quota[14] are never higher than the clerical grade. It is commonplace for noted footballers to suffer in poverty after retirement, to be rescued from such plight by welfare organizations and sports enthusiasts. It would be improper to hold the football associations wholly responsible for the gloomy reality surrounding Indian soccer. While the Indian spectator has been appropriated by the media and corporate brands like Coke and Pepsi, on most occasions, the spectator has no agency and remains what we can call a ‘passive consumer’ of the global footballing spectacle, a spectacle created and nurtured by multi-national sponsors. Impact on the Future of Indian Soccer World cup 2002, which saw teams like Korea and Senegal make the headlines,[15] had raised much hope that India too could reach world standard in the near future. Fans in India, who were as much part of the world cup fever as their counterparts in any other country, believed that India had a distinct chance of emulating Korea in the future. However, analysis proves that globalization of soccer is a double-edged sword. Indian fans, with access to cable and satellite television under globalization, eagerly await the start of the English Premier league, the Italian Serie A and the Spanish leagues. With

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the world’s leading footballers playing in these leagues, the standard of football is a treat for the eyes. Under such circumstances, with unlimited access to watch the world’s best in action, it is unnatural to expect that local fans would pay to cheer local outfits like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. The Indian regional leagues, which start at almost the same time as the English Premiership,[16] are fast losing crowds. It is a common lament in India that after watching the world’s best, local football is a pain for the eyes. Accordingly, while the English Premier league has the highest TRP rating in some Indian cities,[17] the number of spectators queuing up to watch erstwhile local favourites continues to dwindle. As V. Krishnaswamy argues: But before you start clapping or dreaming of a Senegal or Korea up there on the top of the heap in 2010 or 2014, look at the other side. Globalization does not necessarily mean the gap between the first world (European and Latin American teams) and the Third World (Asia largely and to some extent Africa) in football is going to become narrower. Within Asia, only a handful of teams – primarily South Korea, Japan and China – are likely to rise further. And in Africa it will still be the same four to six countries – Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal or Algeria. Add to that South Africa and in times to come, may be Ghana or Sierra Leone. The globalization of world football may only mean more European and Latin American coaches in Asia and Africa and more talented Asian and African footballers in Europe – not even Latin America, which is itself struggling from the lack of funds. Just when it seems it is helping perk up standards, it turns its face and moves away. It does enrich the world, but leaves its own home in tatters. Not even for a fleeting moment should one believe that the rise of Senegal in the world cup … will raise the standard of football in that country. Just forget it. It has not happened, nor is it likely to happen. If anything, the domestic football scene in Senegal will be even more impoverished.[18]

With globalization, Manchester United, AC Milan and Real Madrid are household names in India. Come August every year, and people queue up to watch Thiery Henry and company start their quest for the premiership title. This explains why David Beckham is an icon in places like Singapore and Tokyo. To quote V. Krishnaswamy again: ‘These are places where spiky haired Beckham is better recognized by people than their svelte actresses and powerful Presidents, where fans buy $50 Man U scarves and pay through their nose for Cable TV that telecasts the English league.’[19] What is alarming is that with increasing globalization, when sponsorship figures for local leagues are undergoing a steady decline, fans are ready to pay more to view cable channels like ESPN/Star Sports and Ten Sports,[20] channels that telecast European football leagues. Failure on the part of the cable operators to telecast an important European football match often results in them getting beaten up and their offices ransacked.[21] No such ruckus follows a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal encounter, which have hardly been telecast live in recent years. Thus Krishnaswamy rightly asserts: Globalization by definition is meant to reduce the gap between the haves and the have-nots, not just in terms of wealth but also in terms of talent. It is meant to be a two way osmotic process, but in football it is not so. The few moments of success by the Asian and African teams may bring pleasure to countless people in Asia and Africa, but once on the field, the cruel world of commerce drives home the harsh realities of life. Once the world cup is over, the Senegalese fans will go back to pushing themselves hard to make ends meet, and the footballers will fly back to France to

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re-join their respective clubs. (22 of the 23 Senegalese players play for French clubs.) And what of those small boys on the streets of Dakar? They will continue to kick around with a rag ball and dream of playing outside Senegal. And what of the officials of Senegal – whose names we never know or care about? They will thump their chests at FIFA seminars about how they raised the standard of football in their country. FIFA chief Sepp Blatter and his organization will, meanwhile, pat themselves for taking football to places where even food seldom reaches and we shall seldom hear about the Senegalese, Nigerian or Cameroonian leagues … Globalization was always a romantic term, but with different meanings for different people – commerce for the haves and romance for the have-nots.[22]

With growing incursions from cable and satellite television, opportunities for local players are steadily dwindling. Local soccer administrators, watching international leagues, are keen to rope in foreign players to improve the standard of play. In doing so, they often sign unworthy internationals, who, given their foreign nationality, are preferred over home-grown stars. Local striker Dipendu Biswas, hardly a regular anymore for leading local sides, has argued that while worthy foreigners are indeed welcome, as they help in improving the standard of football, unworthy foreigners, and most recruits are such, often ruin the prospects of local stars.[23] Guided by the notion that all foreigners are better, local coaches are keen to play them ahead of home-grown footballers, a process that severely affects the development of local talent. Globalization also affects the fortunes of local coaches. With the Indian market opening up to absorb international discards, local coaches often find themselves saddled with a foreign coach at the helm. These coaches, paid a far higher remuneration than their Indian counterparts, often fail miserably resulting in them being thrown out after a season’s work. This explains the numerous changes at the helm of the Indian national team in recent years: Since the mid-1990s, however, larger numbers of foreigners have been used and have come from Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Kenya in Africa as well as Jordan, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Thailand in Asia and from Brazil and South America. Few of these players have been outstanding successes. Many of them have been found sub-standard and are either sent back when they come for trials or grudgingly accommodated, since the clubs cannot afford better players.[24]

Opening up of the global football scene, a product of the sortie of cable and satellite television, has also stifled the football boom in India, a process that had started in the early 1990s. The boom saw the start of the National Football League and the take over of numerous local clubs by leading corporate companies.[25] The UB group, a leading corporate concern in India, took to sponsoring the East Bengal and Mohun Bagan Club in 1998–99, successfully taking over the third Calcutta giant, Mohammedan Sporting Club, in 1999–2000.[26] In its first year of involvement, the UB group paid a whopping Rs. 27.5 million each to the two Calcutta giants, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.[27] However, by the start of the second year it had reduced its budget by 5 million rupees each. Further reductions followed in 2000–2001 and 2001–02.[28] Other corporate concerns, which had spent heavily on soccer clubs, followed a similar pattern.[29] As part of the soccer boom, leading national football tournaments such as the Federation Cup, Durand Cup, the Santosh Trophy and others had received corporate

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backing.[30] However, within a couple of seasons, by 2000–2001, as mentioned by Mario Rodrigues, three main tournaments, the Federation Cup, the Santosh Trophy and the National Football League had no title sponsors.[31] In trying to explain the budgetary reductions of the UB group, Rodrigues asserts: Despite liberal funding, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal finished fourth and seventh respectively in the third NFL (1998–99). In the fourth season, East Bengal ended a lowly seventh while Mohun Bagan too had floundered initially until a belated addition of the quality foreign players, Stephen Abarowei, Jose Ramirez Barreto and the top scorer Igor Shivkirin, saw them put together a convincing winning run that gave them the title.[32]

However, with Mohun Bagan winning the National Football League title in 1999–2000, his argument that poor performance had initiated a budgetary reduction hardly seems convincing. Going by this logic, the Indian cricket team, which languished at a lowly eighth position in the world Test rankings in 1999–2000, should have seen all its sponsors queuing up to withdraw. The story was the other way round. Sponsors were streaming in to sponsor the Indian team.[33] Rather, budgetary reductions in soccer, it may be argued, had much to do with the poor rate of returns. As explained by the spokesperson of the Phillips company after their withdrawal from the sponsorship of the National Football League: ‘The experience was not favourable. What was promised in terms of exposure in the media did not happen. The money spent was not commensurate with the outcome. So we felt that the long term strategic intent of Phillips would not be achieved.’[34] With continuing invasion from satellite channels, bringing live action to Indian homes from across the world, coverage of local football in the media is certain to drop off further in the coming years unless Indian football is successfully commercialized. Fans, it is natural, will be more eager to watch European teams than to cheer their favourite local outfits. The days of the 1960s and 1970s, when fans queued up all night to watch a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal encounter, seem to be a memory of a distant past.[35] With a reduced number of spectators in local derby games, sponsors, guided by the objective of maximizing profits, prefer television slots during live telecasts of European leagues to sponsorship of local football tournaments. Pecuniary Anomalies of AIFF The air of despondency has been aggravated by some of the actions of the All India Football Federation at the helm. The apex body for football in the country, it may be suggested, has hardly lived up to its professed nomenclature in recent years. This is best evident from a close analysis of the High Court Case of September 2000 involving the All India Football Federation and the Indian Football Association. With no other option left to explore, the IFA, in September 2000, filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court pleading that the respondents, the All India Football Federation, should be directed to provide details of its finances, improper management of which, the IFA argued, was affecting the future of football in the country. On hearing the IFA’s plea, the Calcutta High Court on 25 September 2000 appointed Shyamal Mitra as Special

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Officer to deliberate on the Federation’s finances. In his report,[36] Mitra categorically stated that ‘in the absence of proper documentary evidence, receipts, confirmations, agreements etc.’ he could not adequately verify many items.[37] He also scathingly observed: In the absence of details of gate sales and proceeds from a number of State Associations, accuracy of amounts … credited during the year to the General Fund, Players Benevolent Fund and Incentive to Members Associations amounting to Rs. 203,741 and Rs. 407,483 respectively could not be ascertained.[38]

As for sponsorship, the Federation, according to the report, fared no better. As the report noted with alarm: ‘Income from sponsorship as per statement sent by agents is more than the amount booked in the accounts by Rs. 500,000. No satisfactory explanation was provided for such difference.’[39] What is most surprising, as evident from Mitra’s cynical report, ‘the Federation has not maintained a fixed asset register showing full particulars including quantitative details and situation of its fixed assets’. ‘The existence of fixed assets’, therefore, ‘could not be verified in the absence of reports/working papers supporting physical verification of the assets in question’.[40] Mitra ended his report with a series of annexures, of which number 9 was under the heading, ‘Observations on the status of books of accounts and related records of the Federation’.[41] In this annexure, he paid particular attention to details of cash book, journal, general ledger, D vouchers and supporting matters and found a series of irregularities.[42] Deliberating on the Special Officer’s report, Chartered Accountants D.K. Basu and Company, appointed auditors of the AIFF by the High Court in March 2001, added a further list of anomalies to the already existing list of discrepancies.[43] The most serious of these was probably related to banking transactions and exchanges. As the auditors’ report declared: A sum of Rs. 4,281,828 was transferred from Standard Chartered Bank, Gariahat Branch, from time to time to the personal account of the Accountant of the federation in his personal name in August 1998. I have been given to understand that the said current account was opened in the name of the accountant of the federation for smooth functioning and to avoid impediments to payments to be made by the All India Football Federation. The relevant bills and vouchers for the expenses incurred on this account could not be verified by me. In my opinion, instead of opening the current account with Standard Chartered Bank in the name of the accountant, the current account should have been opened in the name of All India Football Federation duly authorizing the accountant to operate the said account, with the approval of the Executive Committee members.[44]

Finally, the report mentioned that, considerable amounts have been transferred by withdrawal from the account of the federation with Standard Chartered Bank, Gariahat Branch by instruction on letter head to the concerned bank deviating from the usual system of using cheques on the concerned bank. During the period 25th January to 31 March 1999, the period of my audit, a sum of Rs. 5,000,000 has been withdrawn … I am of the opinion that such

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A Social History of Indian Football system of withdrawal be discontinued as far as possible and practicable … (For Ledgers) casting (addition) is done in pencil, which was inked up on 19.7.01 before I certified the accounts.’[45]

Future of Indian Soccer As this essay has attempted to demonstrate, hopes that India will emulate other Asian counterparts in the near future lie largely unfounded. At the root of such failure is the disastrous impact of globalization on Indian soccer, intensified by an incompetent apex body at the helm. By transmitting action from round the globe to third world homes, television, it may be argued, is proving ruinous for the future development of local football. Spectators are fast losing interest, players are losing confidence and administrators are taking full toll of their unaccountability. There was once a situation, as Mario Rodrigues argues, when Brazilians would settle for much cheaper sums when compared to the local stars who quoted ridiculously high prices.[46] However, things have changed dramatically. Brazilian striker Jose Barreto, who played for Mohun Bagan for three consecutive seasons, was the highest paid player on Indian soil for quite some time. Stephen Constantine, present coach of the Indian national team, has received a whopping amount from the All India Football Federation, which is rumoured to be to the tune of 10 million rupees. Local outfits like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal are increasingly relying on foreign stars, and local players, who were preferred a couple of years earlier, are biting the dust. In such circumstances, chances are that during the world cups in 2010 and 2014, India will continue to remain a colony of the growing global capital with liberation from such yoke hardly visible. Notes [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Areas of Central and South Kolkata. ‘Hail Ronaldo, he is the king’. She had reason to say this because Ronaldo helped her do some brisk business! A cheap local delicacy. People generally eat this in the afternoons. Times Of India, 1 July 2002. Para means locality, in the vernacular. The city is divided into paras, each of which has its own club, local committee and leaders. Elaborate ritual organized to bring luck. Used to smear people during moments of joy. The Statesman, 1 July 2002; A form of sweet, traditionally a Bengali delicacy eaten with an elaborate lunch and during celebrations. Another newspaper, Hindustan Times, described the occasion thus: The city erupted in sheer joy when Ronaldo struck the second goal for Brazil. As the whistle heralded the end of the match, the people of Kolkata joined the Brazilian players and supporters – at Yokahama stadium and back in Brazil – in the revelry. The victory was heralded by bursting crackers and sprinkling yellow and green abeer. Shops selling Ronaldo posters did some brisk business. Hundreds thronged Kalighat temple (the most famous religious shrine in Kolkata) in the evening to express gratitude to goddess Kali

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for answering their prayers for Brazil. The preparations had started from morning with the city decking up in the colours of Brazil – flags strung on lampposts and buntings and ribbons fluttering in front of para clubs. Many food kiosks too were painted in yellow and green to go with the mood. All markets closed down early and the roads were deserted after soccer fans – needless to say all Brazilian supporters – took every conceivable means of transport to reach the four venues where the match was telecast on giant screens. The most electric scenes were, however, witnessed at Netaji Indoor Stadium where over 10,000 people turned up to watch Brazil. Sports Minister Subhas Chakraborty joined the frenzied spectators in cheering Brazil to the win. Nearly all spectators were clad in yellow and green T-shirts and vests and were carrying Brazilian flags and banners. After the match, fans took to the main floor of the stadium and danced wildly to the beat of the Venga Boys’ (a famous Indian rock band) hit ‘Brazil’. (1 July 2002). [9] Luke Cyphers, ‘Next’, The ESPN Magazine, 6, 26 (Dec. 2003), 58. [10] Karnam Malleswari won a bronze in the 63-kilogram category in women’s weightlifting at Sydney. In the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games India had also won a solitary bronze medal. Leander Paes won the bronze in men’s tennis at Atlanta. At Athens in 2004, the situation improved marginally with Rajyavardhan Rathore winning a silver medal in shooting. [11] For details, see Sandipan Deb, ‘I Am Not Daft, It’s The Game’, Outlook, 15 Feb. 2003. [12] Moti Nandi, Striker (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers, 1973), pp.1–4. [13] Sentiments expressed during an opinion poll conducted during the world cup bears testimony to this argument: On 21 June, when the Brazilian footballers kicked out their British counterparts from the world cup by two goals to one, they endeared themselves further to the football fanatics of Bengal. On that day, Kolkata turned into Brazil, with the yellow green flags along with the Ole Ole Samba dance on the streets to the beating of drums and bands, and the bursting of crackers. Age was no barrier. Bengalis did not forget to carry posters and effigies of Rivaldo and Ronaldinho. While the British fought their way to colonization, the Brazilians have won our hearts with ease by their display of excellence in world cup football. We can’t accept Brazil’s defeat in a world cup without feeling disappointed. We admire, if not envy, countries, which perform beyond expectation but we reserve our best wishes for Brazil. If this bias makes Bengal look like a colony of Brazil, we have no choice but to accept it.’ For details, see The Statesman, 1 July 2002. [14] Reserved jobs for sportspersons. [15] While Korea reached the semi-finals for the first time in the history of the nation, Senegal, in it’s maiden appearance, reached the quarter-finals. [16] Most Indian leagues kick off in earnest in July while the English Premiership kicks off in August. [17] TRP designates rating on television in terms of popularity. [18] V. Krishnaswamy, ‘Football and Globalization’, Frontline, 19 July 2002, 10–11. [19] Ibid. [20] Rates for these channels have increased four times over the past two years. Knowing that viewers will pay more for these channels, proprietors are putting pressure on cable operators for increased pay. This has resulted in a series of major tussles between cable operators and the representatives of ESPN, Star Sports in recent years.

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[21] Such a failure on the day of the quarter-final between Brazil and England on 21 June 2002 led to a series of crowd unrest’s in Kolkata. Many cable operators were beaten up and roadblocks were erected in protest. [22] Krishnaswamy, ‘Football and Globalization’. [23] In a panel discussion organized by the Tara Bangla television channel, held at the Bengal Club, Kolkata, he was emphatic in condemning the new policy of recruiting foreign players, suggesting that unworthy foreigners are spelling ruin for local players. [24] Mario Rodrigues, ‘The Corporates and the Game: Football in India and the Conflicts of the 1990s’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Special Issue of Soccer and Society (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p.110. [25] Ibid., pp.106–9. [26] Ibid., p.108. [27] Ibid., p.114. [28] Ibid. [29] Ibid. [30] Ibid., p.107. [31] Ibid., p.115. [32] Ibid., p.114. [33] Sahara India spent a fortune in winning the rights to sponsor the Indian team. Other bidders included ITC, Hero Honda et cetera. [34] Rodrigues, ‘The Corporates and the Game’, p.117. [35] It was natural for fans to queue up at night outside the stadium in the hope of buying tickets in the morning, soon after the ticket counter opened. Tickets were sold out within minutes of the opening of counters. [36] ‘Special Officer’s Report to the Honorable Calcutta High Court’ (hereafter Special Report), IFA Archives, Calcutta. [37] These items include the following: Cash and Bank balances (including fixed deposits and interest accrued thereon amounting to Rs. 7,083,984) totaling Rs. 7,221,789. Investments in Earmarked Funds (including interest accrued thereon amounting to Rs. 1,089,692) totaling Rs. 3,816,820. Outstanding dues from Members Associations and other loans, advances and deposits amounting to Rs. 2,782,715 of which Rs. 2,395,777 is on account of earlier years and recovery thereof. Cash payments made against earlier year’s liabilities towards office rent, telephone, fax charges, traveling etc and referees board, B and C Licencee Coaches Seminar etc, amounting to Rs. 657,000 and Rs. 69,930 respectively. Other payments amounting to Rs. 439,852 shown as a deduction against Current Liabilities and Provisions for Expenses. Tournament expenses amounting to Rs. 7,392,860. Other Expenses (e.g. Office Expenses, Traveling Expenses, Meeting Expenses, Prior Year’s Expenses etc) amounting to Rs. 1,497,869. Amount paid and charged against Players Benevolent Fund amounting to Rs. 26,000. For details, see Special Report. [38] Special Report. A number of other anomalies as mentioned in the report are equally startling. To reproduce the report:

A Sporting Colony of Growing Global Capital

Balance in Earmarked Funds is not represented by investments and there is a shortfall to the extent of Rs. 3,901,009. Outstanding dues from member associations, other loans, advances and deposits include recoverables towards sponsorship fees from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, United Breweries Limited and Philips India Limited totaling to Rs. 6,500,000 which should have been charged off in the accounts. Extent of recoverability of sponsorship income amounting to Rs. 3,000,000 outstanding from Britco Foods Company Limited could not be ascertained. No claim has been lodged with the income tax authorities for tax deducted at source by the sponsors/others amounting to Rs. 1,995,942 of which 1,443,747 is on account of the year (2000), as a result of which the balance, in my opinion, is not recoverable by way of tax refund. There is a shortfall in provision for tournament expenses and commission on sponsorship to the extent of Rs. 850,000 (of which Rs. 350,000 is on account of 1997–98) and Rs. 900,000 respectively. [39] Elaborating further, Mitra’s report stated the following: Claims raised by agents on account of adjustment of first year’s sponsorship income, commission on sponsorship from Star TV/Doordarshan, event management and fabrication of boards amounted to Rs. 38,168,325 as at 31 March 1999 of which Rs. 30,561,556 was on account of earlier years. The Federation disputed such claims and as evident from the petition submitted to the Honorable High Court, raised a counter claim of Rs. 164,793,221 on the agents. Subsequently the matter was referred to arbitration in relation to some of their claims. Pending settlement in arbitration no provision was considered in earlier year’s accounts. Subsequent to the year-end, an out of court settlement was reached with the agents, which was approved by the sole arbitrator to this case in his award dated 27 November 1999. In accordance with such settlement and award, Rs. 35,000,000 was paid to the Agents towards full and final settlement of some of their claims. A further payment of Rs. 5,000,000 was made to the Agents in full and final settlement of other claims, which were not covered in the above award. No provision has been considered in the accounts for such payments. Adjustment is yet to be made in these accounts in respect of excess amounts paid to the Agents in 1996–7 amounting to Rs. 874,611, which were charged off as an expense in the said year. The following transactions are yet to be approved by the Executive Committee of the Federation: Expenses amounting to Rs. 601,833 and Rs. 293,244 incurred by the member associations/others for National League and KBL Cup respectively in excess of the provision in the rules of the respective tournaments. Grant in aid included under Outstanding dues/Loans and Advances/ Deposits and Tournament Expenses amounting to Rs. 2,935,000 and Rs. 6,732,000 respectively. Grant in aid to State Associations, Medical Grant (both included under Grant in aid to members association) and to the Indian Olympic

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A Social History of Indian Football Association amounting to Rs. 1,600,000 and Rs. 140,000 and Rs. 1,500,000 respectively. Amount spent for FIFA Congress amounting to Rs. 233,400 Cost of tickets claimed by travel agents amounting to Rs. 679,817, Rs. 100,838 and Rs. 14,209,115 included under Traveling Expenses (Domestic and Foreign), Meeting Expenses and Tournament Expenses respectively, which were not properly authorized. Sponsorship income received from Britco Foods Company Limited (included under Leisure Sports Management) and others amounting to Rs. 13,000,000 and Rs. 2,500,000 respectively.

[40] Special Report. The Special Officer went on to provide specific particulars in this case: The Federation has been granted exemption from payment of income tax under Section 10(23) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, for the assessment years 1990–91 to 1994–95. I have been informed that applications have been made to the Income Tax authorities for extension of similar exemption in respect of subsequent years assessment for which the necessary approvals are awaited … However, the said applications were not furnished for my inspection. [41] Ibid. [42] It is of relevance to reproduce this annexure here:

Cash Book In a number of cases incomplete entries were found, where no particulars and/or dates of transactions were mentioned. There was no voucher reference for individual items of receipt and payment. No daily or monthly balances have been drawn. In some cases blank pages were found. In most of the cases there were blank spaces in between entries. In all the cases, casting was done in pencil.

Journal AIFF does not have any journal vouchers. It was found that a journal register was maintained containing the closing accrual entries. However, there was no authentication/authorization in the journal register. For the purpose of preparation of accounts, the closing entries and rectification entries were incorporated in a supplementary journal register as those could not be incorporated in the original Journal register already submitted to the Honorable High Court, without their consent. There was no voucher reference for individual transactions and the entries were not supported with narration. In most of the cases casting was done in pencil and in some cases it was not done at all.

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General Ledger For the purpose of preparation of accounts, the effect of the above mentioned closing entries and rectification entries were incorporated in a supplementary General Ledger as those could not be incorporated in the original General Ledger already submitted to the Honorable High Court without their consent. In some cases incomplete entries were found, where no particulars and/or dates of transactions were mentioned. There was no voucher reference for individual transactions. In most cases balances were not drawn and in some cases it was done in pencil. In some cases blank pages were found. In most of the cases there are blank spaces in between entries.

D Vouchers and Supporting Vouchers did not have any serial number. Nor were they kept in any particular sequence. Receipt vouchers were not maintained. In many cases payment vouchers were not prepared. In a number of cases vouchers were not backed with adequate supporting documents. There was no authorization in most of the payment vouchers. Particulars regarding relevant account heads were not mentioned on the vouchers. [43] To give one specific instance, in their audit report placed before the High Court in July 2001, they stated: An Ambassador Car number WDO 2H5174 was purchased for Rs. 414,485 out of the funds of the federation by payments on 1.9.98 and 14.9.98. Instead of debiting the said amount to fixed assets, the said sum was debited to the President’s A/C. The said car should have been shown as a fixed asset of the company, which, however, was not done. Though there was an official note to the Hony. Secretary, Treasurer and Senior Vice President for acquiring a vehicle but in my opinion such purchase of vehicle should have been approved by a meeting of the Executive Committee. For details, see the Report of Dilip Kumar Basu of D.K. Basu Chartered Accountants, Appointed Auditors of the AIFF by the Calcutta High Court on 15 March 2001. Housed at the IFA Archives, Calcutta. For access to this report we are grateful to IFA Officials. [44] Ibid. [45] Ibid. [46] Rodrigues, ‘The Corporates and the Game’, p.111.

The Gendered Kick: Women’s Soccer in Twentieth Century India

Contrasting Realities of Women’s Soccer: England and India 000000June/September Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106469 FSAS110629.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 /3 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

England’s progress in the World Cup is likely to draw record interest from women, as the notion of the ‘football widow’, annoyed and alienated during high profile matches, becomes a thing of the past. For the first time, marketing of the World Cup is being directed towards women, particularly younger ones, as companies attempt to cash in on the growing popularity of football. High street stores, including Top Shop, have produced a range of World Cup merchandise, from bikinis to underwear, printed with the cross of St George and other slogans designed to show support for the England team. Both the Football Association and television companies expect record interest in the tournament from women, and about 15% of England fans in Japan with the official England supporters’ club will be female. Pubs and clubs also expect many women will watch England during their morning broadcasts. (Vivek Chaudhary, ‘Women Football Fans Show their True Colours’, The Guardian, 16 May 2002.)[1] Football now permeates every aspect of daily life. It was not like this ten years ago. Companies now realize the huge benefits of trying to tap into women’s interest. (Nick Baron, the FA’s spokesman for England Fans.)[2] A couple of years ago in one of the Nationals, one team could not gather enough (that is eight) players to field a side. Finally their coach, walking on crutches because of a fracture, took the field. And to everyone’s surprise, she stood under the bar! One can now easily understand the nature of seriousness involved with the nationals … Most of the states bring teams with players, who actually play more than one sport. Inquiries will reveal that these girls play in many sports, like handball, basketball, volleyball, hockey or football for their respective government organisations. And since there is little competition, these girls even represent their states in more than just one sport. There are many women footballers, who are working in different government agencies, who have got their jobs because of some other sports they are good in. This does not make it possible for the women to concentrate on one sport, specialize in it and show their full potential. (Arunava Chaudhuri, ‘Gender and Sport in India: Aspects of Women’s Football’ in www.indianfootball.com)

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The contrast is self-evident. When compared to the upbeat nature of women’s soccer in Britain, Indian women’s football is a sorry sight, hardly comparable in status and esteem to its British counterpart. Women spectators, key to the popularity of football in Britain,[3] are still rarities in India with football perceived even today as a male domain, taboo for respectable middle-class women. In contrast to Britain, women footballers in India are members of the underprivileged sections of society who try their hands at soccer with no other tangible means of livelihood in sight.[4] Women’s soccer associations continue to stagnate with financial crisis a permanent companion of the women’s game. Leading stars are hardly given recognition, and jobs on offer on account of their sporting prowess are never higher than in the clerical grade. It is commonplace to see noted women footballers starving after retirement, often rescued from such plight by NGO’s and soccer fans. Faced with the prospect of impoverishment, it is apparent that the Women’s Football Federation[5] can hardly make a difference in the near future. Further, it would be improper to hold them singularly responsible for the gloomy reality surrounding the women’s game. Rather, the attitude of the Indian male, the nature of the development of urban Indian societies after independence and the story of women’s emancipation in the country have all had a role to play in crippling the development of women’s football. Always keen to relegate his woman to the household, the average Indian male has hardly ever encouraged their women to play soccer. Looked upon as a sport unsuited to women, given their physical build, women’s soccer is still taboo in many Indian middle-class homes. Daughters or wives playing football are considered a disgrace to the family with ostracism from society the outcome of such forays. Under such circumstances, women are often forcibly stopped from playing football, while in many other cases women hardly ever attempt to play, having grown up to understand that football is something alien to them and reserved for men only. The only footballing concession made is in the case of women spectators,[6] but even then, they are hardly ever permitted to look beyond the television screen. The number of women spectators, in comparison to men, remains negligible, often less than 2 per cent of the entire spectator base for football in the country. Strangely enough, the nature of the women’s emancipation movement has also contributed to this plight. The story of women’s liberation in India has hardly appreciated any attempt to encourage women’s football and cricket. Most measures undertaken to develop women’s football were in the colonial period, and post independence women activists hardly consider it relevant to protest against notions that cricket and football, the two most popular Indians sports, continue to be male preserves, hardly allowing women’s involvement.[7] Such apathy, stimulated and encouraged by the attitude of the Indian male, has made women’s football a lower class vocation in modern India. Using the film Bend it Like Beckham as an entry point, which portrays the story of a modern young British Sikh girl who aspires to be a professional footballer, this essay attempts to retrieve the lost history of Indian women’s football. It also deals with the sad plight of women footballers in modern India, the reasons behind the dismal state of the game, and comments on the challenges that confront women footballers in the future.

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Bend it Like Beckham: Retrieving the Lost History of Women’s Football in India Described as the best British comedy since Bridget Jones’ Diary, Gurinder Chadha’s Bend it Like Beckham has been accepted as one of the most successful Indian films of recent years, both in India and abroad. The film’s success, however, goes far beyond the marvellous camera work and gripping story line. For a cultural historian, working on the historical centrality of sport in Indian socio-economic and political life, Bend it Like Beckham may be read not simply as a saga of an Indian girl’s resistance to familial oppression, or a tale of women’s emancipation. The film is rather a commentary, in the filmic and imaginative mode, on the history of Indian women’s soccer. This essay draws on the representations of soccer in the film to comment on the realities of Indian women’s soccer, facts hardly ever mentioned in existing studies on Indian sport. Using the filmic imagination to get an idea of the discursive imaginary, which then helps open up historical questions, it delves into the history of women’s soccer in the country, a history that remains ‘lost’.[8] Thus, by using Bend it Like Beckham as a take-off point, its motive is to question certain assumptions about women’s soccer in contemporary India. This questioning, it will be evident from the following narrative, will rectify certain conventional wisdoms about the nature of the women’s game, and view it as more than a mere pastime. The film goes deep into the psyche of the Indian masses. It brings together two potent components of Indian cultural life – the magic of cinema and the excitement of the game of soccer. It is therefore a collage of two powerful elements of Indian mass culture, a colourful tale about a talented Indian teenage girl told through the cinematic medium. The infallibility of this formula is not accidental. Film and sport are pillars of Indian public culture, and unlike other sporting films which have failed miserably at the box-office,[9] the success of Bend it Like Beckham, like that of Lagaan[10] a year before, has accrued from an ideal blending of the two. Set in contemporary Britain, Bend it Like Beckham is the tale of a young Sikh girl who is a fanatical soccer fan. Her room is full of pictures of David Beckham,[11] in action and otherwise, and when playing in the local park she wears the number seven shirt, used by Beckham while he played/s for Manchester United[12] or England. She is the only Indian girl of her age who plays soccer; her mates are all male who appreciate her skills but never forget that she is a girl. It is on such an occasion when Jasminder, the central character of the film, is playing with the boys in the local park that she is spotted by Jules, a regular with the Hounslow Harriers soccer team. The Hounslow Harriers, an all female team, is coached by an Irishman, a failed footballer himself, and has aspirations of making their mark on the domestic English soccer scene. Having seen Jasminder in action and appreciating at once how talented she is, Jules asks her to train with the Harriers. When it becomes known to her family that Jess (Jasminder) plays soccer for the Hounslow Harriers, her parents, like most Indian guardians, forbid her to continue. To continue her tryst with soccer, she lies to her family, saying that she is working in a local HMV store. This lie grants her temporary freedom.[13] When her parents discover her deception, they are even more determined than ever to stop her from playing soccer,

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which is, after all a ‘man’s game’. She is forbidden from playing soccer by reminders of the rituals of her faith, strict parental control and on grounds that Indian tradition forbids teenage girls from playing physically demanding games like soccer.[14] Her unabated passion for football made the sport an arena of contestation, individual aspiration against traditional dogma and rejection of parental wishes. The sporting prowess of Jess and her ultimate success in convincing her father of her ability helps her emphasize that her ‘female’ identity was in no way inferior to that of her ‘male’ counterparts. Women’s mastery of a masculine sport, thus, emerges as the leveller between the two sexes. Indeed there is an element of the ‘feel good’ of the Indian blockbuster genre to the plot. But, there is much more to the film that distinguishes it from other representatives of this genre. Released after the mega success of Lagaan, Bend it Like Beckham successfully captures the heart of the Indian sports fan and opens up an entry point for historians to comment on the nature of women’s soccer in India. Women’s Soccer in Colonial India: Antecedents Historians and commentators of sport in India have always attempted to represent soccer as a masculine enterprise. The links, if any, between women and football are seen as a very contemporary phenomenon. That the two could be linked historically is seen as unfounded and fallacious. The following statement by Peter Velappan, Secretary of the Asian Football Confederation, testifies to this argument: Women’s football in India is at its infant stage. However, the Indian team has established themselves as a force to be reckoned with after their performances at the 11th Asian Women’s Championship in China. Cultural problems are the main factors that are hindering the growth of women’s football in India. 8 teams are participating in the National League in 1999. The respective state football Associations are responsible for the progress of Women’s Football.[15]

Arunava Chaudhuri, one of the earliest commentators on Indian women’s football, has expressed a similar view: The beginnings of women’s football in India can be traced back to the early 1970s though the game is yet to take firm root throughout the Indian sub-continent. The national team has done reasonably well on a number of occasions in the Asian Women’s circuit, finishing runners-up in the Asian Women’s Championships in 1979 and 1985. In 1979 India was the host of the third Asian Women’s Championships, which was held in the southern Indian port city of Calicut. Six teams, Australia, Hong Kong, Mulan Taipei, Malaysia and two teams from the hosts India participated in the championships. The Championship was won by Mulan Taipei with India finishing as runners-up. The first Senior National Championship for Women was held in 1975 in the Uttar Pradesh capital of Lucknow.[16]

A closer look into the archives of Indian football reveals an entirely different story. The origin of women’s soccer in India was closely tied with the movement for women’s suffrage and emancipation in colonial India. With the establishment of the All India Women’s Congress in 1918, the move for women’s suffrage gathered momentum.[17] Around this time, some women commentators espoused the cause of women’s soccer,

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demanding better sports facilities for women. That there was a close link between the suffrage movement and the introduction and/or development of women’s soccer was not a new or unique phenomenon. With the establishment of the All India Women’s Congress in 1918, attempts were made to give women a voice absent throughout the nineteenth century. With men acting on behalf of their female counterparts, women had, through the nineteenth century, remained a ‘site’ upon which the colonial state and the Indian intelligentsia had discussed issues of governance and reform.[18] As part of this broader movement for emancipation, sport, especially cricket and football, gained currency among Indian women. Period vernacular tracts commented on the virtues of these sports, claiming that sporting prowess would stimulate the movement for women’s emancipation. The vernacular journal Meye Mahal asserted: Earlier, sport was for women an extremely limited enterprise. By sport, they understood the playing of cards or other indoor games. By the 1930s things had changed. By this time women had started taking a keen interest in cricket, football and hockey. ‘If we are to rise from ignominy, we must take sport more seriously. When the Mohun Bagan Football Club had won the IFA shield in 1911, Indian males had made a huge issue out of it. We should also equip ourselves to achieve a similar victory. Such a victory is only possible in sport’.[19]

It is evident from such tracts published in colonial India that prowess in sport provided a sense of community to Indian women from disparate backgrounds, who, in a patriarchal society, had been united by the expediencies of history. Earliest evidences of Indian women playing football go back to the 1890s. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, a series of matches were organized between men and women, each team consisting of six members each from both sexes.[20] Despite this early start, women en masse continued to stay away from soccer by the turn of the century, and there was a hiatus of almost three decades before organized attempts were undertaken to further the development of football among Indian women.[21] Among other reasons, this period was one of intense political turmoil in the country, especially in Bengal,[22] the home of Indian soccer, forcing women’s sport to take a backseat in the province. Even when women became conscious of the importance of the sport from the 1920s onwards, this cognizance remained confined to a minority, with most eschewing rigorous sporting activity. As in Britain, the inter war period marked the gradual development of women’s soccer in India with the post-First-world-War period opening up opportunities for women to play the game. But unlike in Britain, where such efforts gathered momentum with the result that by 1920–21 there were 150 women’s teams playing soccer,[23] in India/Bengal the spurt was short-lived and by the early 1920s soccer had again become a male monopoly. It remains unclear whether the colonial Indian male saw the sporting activities of their women counterparts as a conscious challenge to their hegemony, but doubtless that attempts to extend women’s recreation provoked vigorous opposition. It is surprising perhaps to note that strong opposition also came from a section of women themselves. Importantly, this section belonged to the educated stratum of

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society. Some of them, administering women’s educational institutions in the city, thwarted attempts to further sport in these institutions, claiming that such actions would have a corrupting influence on the students.[24] Also contributing to a decline in women’s sporting activity was the emergence of criticism of British sports such as cricket and football in Bengal in the 1920s. It was argued by Bengali intellectuals that these sports had been consciously promoted by the British to misdirect the Indian youth: By promoting costly sports like cricket and exciting sports like football, the British have aimed to puzzle our youth. These sports require a developed physique, which most Indian boys do not have. In its absence, it was natural for our boys to remain mediocre, inferior in comparison to their British counterparts. Under such circumstances, the British could continue to defeat the Indians, asserting their supremacy over the sporting arena. Indians should play football only after they have developed their body by doing regular exercise in the akharas.[25]

While it was possible for boys to go through regular physical drills in the akharas,[26] thus developing their football skills, women were not allowed to do so. This was because the akharas were considered a male domain and rigorous physical exercise for bodybuilding was considered opposed to femininity. Accordingly, women’s football, which was only gradually starting to mature, underwent a rapid decline. Antipathy towards women’s soccer is explicit in the experiences of Brajaranjan Ray in the 1930s. Ray, considered the father of Bengali sports journalism, tried to promote the development of women’s soccer in the educational institutions and clubs of Bengal from the late 1920s.[27] In this period, the number of Indian sportswomen in Bengal was minimal. However, women from the English and Anglo Indian communities actively participated in sports such as cricket and soccer. It was the Australian-born teacher, Anne Kelleve, who had taken the lead in promoting women’s cricket in India.[28] Under her tutelage, cricket was introduced at the Becker Memorial School at Kotayam, Kerala.[29] Following her lead, cricket and football was introduced in some other Anglo Indian schools of the country. However, in the Indian institutions, the story was fundamentally different. In 1928, Ray took the initiative in establishing the National Youth Association at Calcutta.[30] When one of its members, Purna Ghosh, attempted to play soccer, she became the subject of ridicule in many sections of society.[31] However, the Ananda Bazar Patrika, the leading Bengali newspaper, gave her considerable support, publishing her photographs on more than one occasion.[32] As the traditional women’s dress, the saree,[33] obstructed free movement, women had to discard their conventional attire if they were to play the sport seriously. Rejection of the traditional attire provoked another wave of criticism in the province.[34] In this ambience, in which the hostility towards women’s football was growing, Ray’s attempt to start an annual soccer tournament for women under the aegis of the Women’s Sports Association, established in 1929, was met with severe opposition: To promote women’s soccer in Calcutta, we decided to start an annual tournament for the girls’ colleges of the city. It was decided that the tournament would be organized under the aegis of the Women’s Colleges Sports Association, which had been formed in 1929 with Harendranath Mukherjee as President. Accordingly, a notice

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A Social History of Indian Football was sent to all the women’s colleges of the city, informing them about the tournament. Soon after the notice had reached, there was widespread opposition against the tournament from many quarters. It was argued that the Association was trying to promote vulgarities and that the members of the Association had evil intentions. As a result, only Victoria College and Ashutosh College consented to participate in the tournament. When I met the Principal of Bethune College, she informed me that the college would field a team only if the referee and linesmen were women. Upon hearing that women referees and linesmen were impossible to find, she expressed concern that without women officials, parents would not want their wards to play. When I insisted that I was a professional coach and hence a teacher, she agreed that Bethune would participate provided I was the only male official. As no other alternative was available, I agreed to the proposal dropping linesmen for the time being.[35]

Securing participation for the tournament did not stop the wave of criticism. Even though Bethune College had agreed to participate, they had done so under the precondition that no male spectator would be allowed entry into the stadium.[36] Accordingly, the first women’s soccer tournament was held under strict vigil with no male spectator allowed entry into the ground. Some of the women footballers, playing in sarees, were injured and such incidents were widely reported in the media trying to mobilize public opinion against women’s football.[37] Opposition against women’s soccer in Bengal intensified further in the 1930s in view of the growing close relationship between Bengali soccer patrons and the British Football Association. The 1930s, as has been discussed earlier, witnessed a bitter struggle between the Indian states, Bengal on the one hand and the Western and Northern Indian states on the other, for the assertion of supremacy over control of soccer in India. In this struggle, Bengal, at every step, drew upon British support, a factor that eventually contributed to the success of the Maharaja of Santosh, the President of the Indian Football Association, in combating efforts to establish a parallel governing body, the All India Football Association (AIFA) to rival the IFA with its head quarters in Calcutta.[38] Recognition granted by the British Football Association was employed by Santosh to make the point that the IFA was the central governing body for soccer in India.[39] In 1921, the British Football Association had already expressed its aversion towards women’s soccer. On 5 December 1921, the British FA had announced that women’s teams could no longer use the grounds of any of its affiliated clubs.[40] This move was disastrous for the women’s game ‘robbing it of essential facilities and the credibility that use of such facilities conferred’. The FA’s statement, which accompanied the ban in December 1921 demonstrated similar sentiments, its council feeling impelled to express their strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged.[41] Depending on the FA for support against the united opposition from other provincial soccer associations of the country, it was natural for Bengali sports patrons to follow the actions of their British counterpart, and oppose attempts to promote the women’s game in the province. Despite considerable opposition, the first women’s football tournament of the country continued for four years eventually resulting in the formation of the Women’s

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Sports Federation in 1938.[42] By the third year of the tournament, some college women had discarded the saree and had started playing in shorts, a revolutionary development in colonial Bengal.[43] However, such initiatives were short lived and women’s soccer in Bengal had declined by the early 1940s. Women’s Soccer in Post-Colonial India: A Saga of Manipuri Dominance In many ways the story of soccer as told in Bend it Like Beckham brings to light the history of how Indian women had started playing the game, often for reasons more complex than simply trying to emulate their male counterparts. When Jess, played by Parminder Nagra in the film, appears on screen having convinced her father that her presence in the final of the soccer tournament was key to her team’s success against white rivals, the audience holds its breath. The final thus became a site for contestation, also one between white and ‘black’, evident from her father’s lament that his daughter would avenge the insult earlier thrust upon him. When he, a young Indian immigrant from Kenya, had wanted to play cricket in an alien land, his attempts had been thwarted by the ‘goras’[44] who had thrown him out of their club. The match also became a site for contestation between the forces of tradition and modernity. The fact that her father allowed her to play in the game, in spite of her sister’s wedding, was symbolic of the triumph of modernity over tradition. At the same time, that Jess could not play without her father’s permission reinforced the power of the traditional over the modern. In the final, when Jess scores from the free kick, as David Beckham so often does, lending the naming of the film credibility, the crowd erupts with joy. The goal can easily be perceived as the moment when dogmas of inferiority, based on both race and gender, are successfully thrown out of the window. Further, the introduction of soccer in the film, as a sport played and watched by men, is precisely the story of the game in post colonial India. Soccer in India continues to be treated as a male-female enterprise and players are hardly ever given equal treatment when compared to their male counterparts. Even after the formation of associations for the promotion of the women’s game in the 1970s, the situation did not change perceptibly. These associations were in many cases controlled by women related to men of importance in the Indian soccer hierarchy. Often, leading office bearers of the women’s associations were wives of male officials or the male officials themselves, exerting de facto control over the women’s game.[45] As argued by Arunava Chaudhuri: Women’s football had made some initial progress in the seventies but has little to talk about in terms of achievements after the Women’s Football Federation of India was taken over by the All-India Football Federation in the early 1990s. The present AIFF president, Mr Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, represents women’s football in the federation but the game is always treated as the poor relation of the family. On a number of occasions, the WFFI even threatened to leave the AIFF due to a lack of proper support.

Even in 2004, Indian women’s football continues to be a sport promoted seriously by only a few Indian states. This explains the Manipuri dominance over the sport since

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the 1990s. Bengal and Kerala are the only states that have come close to challenging the Manipuri monopoly over women’s football. In the 1990s, Manipur won the National Championship seven times, meeting Bengal in the final on all occasions.[46] It was only in 2002 that Manipur defeated Orissa in the finals of the national championship, en route to reinforcing their supremacy over women’s football in the country.[47] This statistic is illustrative of the fact that Manipur and Bengal have completely dominated Indian Women’s Football in recent years.[48] In the absence of other states trying to promote the sport seriously, Manipur, which had established its own Women’s Football Federation soon after the All India Women’s Football Federation was established in 1975, was able to establish its monopoly over the women’s game. In 1976, at the Polo-ground in Imphal, Manipur, the first State Level Women’s Football League was held.[49] This tournament marked the beginning of organized women’s football in Manipur.[50] Since then, Manipur has contributed a major share of players to the Indian women’s team over the years.[51] However, in Manipur too, the economic condition of the players and the financial condition of the state soccer association are hardly stable. The following comment by Ibotombi S. Longjam bears testimony to this fact: In this age of advanced technology, and high quality products, we are far behind. Players do not get any sponsorship of standard Indian brands of shoes and clothings, let alone the international repute such as Adidas, Nike, Raebok, etc. These players have long been wishing for good sports wear, which makes the players fit, comfortable and motivated. But in reality, they are struggling to get even a daily regular diet. Despite all these hurdles of being born in a poor state, their efforts to keep the opponents on their toes have to be appreciated and recognized. In this regard, I would like to draw the attention of two agents primarily the State Government and AMFA have to help our players with money.[52]

It has been a persistent complaint in Manipuri sporting circles that the Government continues to neglect its women footballers. Even when the State Government does offer jobs to female footballers, they are hardly positions commensurate with the players’ abilities.[53] Accordingly, Chouba Devi, who represented India on numerous occasions since 1991, was forced to refuse the job of a constable offered by the state police force. Speaking to journalists about her rejection of the offer, Chouba Devi, financially well off, declared that the state police authorities should have realized that they were not doing her a great favour by offering her the job of a constable. The fact is that women footballers, citizens who had won laurels for their country in international competitions, were hardly given their due in the state. She concluded saying that by offering her the job of a constable they were insulting an international sportsperson, who has given her best for her country. Finally, she clarified that she was not against joining the police force, but insisted that the rank should be in accordance with her status as an international footballer, who had done her country proud.[54] Others, like Kumari Devi, coming from a lower-middle-class family, was forced to accept whatever was on offer. She confessed that as member of a poor family, she had no other option but to accept the job of a constable after representing the country for many years.[55]

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Problems and Prospects The central problem that continues to plague the development of women’s football in India is lack of financial support. The problem has intensified owing to the negligent attitude of the Indian sports officials towards the game.[56] They continue to treat women’s football as something unimportant, hardly significant in comparison to men’s soccer in the country. Rarely is a women’s encounter played under lights in India. The reason given for not playing under floodlights is that at night it might result in a law and order problem, as most spectators are women. It is an acknowledged fact that more than 30 per cent of the spectators in one-day international cricket matches in India, matches mostly played under lights, are women. So the only tenable explanation for not organizing women’s matches under lights is that the organizers do not wish to bear the expenditure that will be incurred. They hardly make an effort to market the women’s game, failing which the financial conditions of the players continue to remain precarious. It is only recently that a US-based Keralite women, member of a football team in the US, has returned to India with a mission – to promote women’s football in Kerala: Margaret Miller, along with a few others – including senior national coach Shaji Cherian Oommen, has launched the Kerala Women’s Football Club, the first of its kind in the state. It is aimed at regaining the lost glory of women’s football in the state. Affiliated to the Kerala Football Association, the team will be attached to the regional coaching centre of the Kerala Sports Council. More than just extending initial funding, Miller, who is the president of the club, hopes to raise more funds from Kerala associations in the US. Her husband Thomas Miller is the chairman of the club, brother Giles Francis, the treasurer, and coach Shaji Oommen, the secretary.[57]

These initiatives, if taken up on a far greater scale, might contribute to improving the state of women’s soccer in India. Also of significance are efforts by the leading clubs of the country, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, to form quality women’s soccer teams. The IFA has recently started a women’s soccer league, a tournament expected to play a significant role in stimulating the development of the women’s game.[58] The stagnant nature of the women’s game throws up the question as to why have Indian sports administrators, over decades, remained aloof from promoting women’s football? Why, in a soccer-crazy society like India, has the women’s game remained marginal? Why has this picture remained unchanged after the formation of the Women’s Soccer Federation in 1975? Moreover, why is it so in an age when women are matching men in almost all other walks of life in the country, and when in sport, too, a woman earned the only medal for India at the Sydney Olympics?[59] As depicted in Bend it Like Beckham, the origin and development of Indian women’s soccer can only be meaningfully analysed by placing it against the wider canvas of colonial and post-colonial Indian society. In other words, considerations of tradition and efforts to reinforce male superiority over the realm have pushed the development of women’s soccer, as in the film, to the backburner. The roots of such opposition go deep – in an attempt to reinforce patriarchal control over a society where women are gradually coming to challenge male supremacy. Efforts to promote women’s soccer, which

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could have emerged as an index wherein trends governing day-to-day life in India could be assessed, in turn making the sport a contested arena between the sexes, have thus been often nipped in the bud. In contrast to India, in England, as Vivek Chaudhury asserts: Last season, the FA had 61,000 registered women players, compared with 55,000 women classed as netball players. Another 20,000 women are believed to play football informally each week. The FA is drawing up a blueprint for a full time women’s professional league, which, it hopes, will be formed within five years.[60]

He quotes Bev Ward, the FA’s spokeswoman on women’s football, who has declared, Football is now the most popular sport among women, and the World Cup will increase their interest in the game. Many companies now realize there are huge financial benefits from having football merchandise aimed at women. The game is more accessible to women, footballers are now like pop stars and their celebrity status has helped attract women to football.[61]

Chaudhury concludes saying: Women make up 15% of the 21,000 members of England Fans, the official England supporters’ club. The FA has introduced subsidised travel packages for England away matches so that women can travel with children. The ticket allocation system has also been changed to give women a greater chance of buying tickets for England matches.[62]

Unfortunately in India, the craze for women’s soccer or women’s attraction for soccer is nowhere near its British counterpart. As depicted in this essay, with initiatives being undertaken gradually by leading clubs and individuals, the prospects for the women’s game at least seem brighter than they were a couple of years ago. A history of women’s soccer in India, as has been evident, cannot be written without attention to the day-to-day developments in contemporary Indian society. The birth narrative of the women’s game in India only makes sense when we take into account the social context, reading this narrative in terms of power equations governing gender relationships in the country. Existing studies on sport in India have hardly given any importance to the women’s game. In most studies, the specificity of the women’s game and its immediate context is lost. There is hardly a mention of the attempts to develop women’s soccer in colonial India, attempts motivated by ideas of self-cultivation and self-worth. Soccer was promoted, and played, by women in colonial India not simply to facilitate women’s emancipation. Rather, the game had become a mirror through which Indian women’s identity assessed itself, and in this respect the appropriation of soccer by women could be seen as early breeding grounds of feminism. Such feminist articulations on the sporting field, it may be argued, were a good reason for men to thwart attempts to develop women’s soccer in post-independence India. Commenting on the prospects of women’s cricket in the contemporary world, Tanya Aldred has recently argued: So is there to be no Wie (the phenomenal female golfing sensation) for cricket? Is it not possible that there is a four-year-old girl somewhere in the world who will watch India playing Pakistan or England playing West Indies on television this spring and

The Gendered Kick 163 pick up a bat this summer on the beach and just fly? Will no one say of a female cricketer as Arnold Palmer said of Wie: ‘She will change the scene, without question, with her golfing. She’s probably going to influence the golfing scene as much as Tiger Woods or more. She’s going to attract people that even Tiger didn’t attract, young people, both boys and girls, and families.’

The experts seem to think it unlikely, but as she goes on to argue, ‘no woman is ever going to mis-hit a ball for six’. But twenty, ten, even two years ago Wie would have been a pipe dream. Underestimate the young girl in the whites at your peril.[63] May her prophetic words be relevant for the future of Indian women’s soccer. Notes [1] Chaudhury also noted in the same article: Female football merchandise is one of the fastest growing areas in the marketing of the game at club and international level. There has always been England merchandise aimed at men during a world cup, making it a multi-million pound industry, but many firms now feel that similar merchandise for women could prove just as lucrative. Umbro, which makes the England kit, has produced an England team shirt taking into account the female body, and an England team dress bearing the three lions crest. Top Shop has England World Cup products aimed at women in all of its 300 stores, with a glitter England bikini and England beach towels proving the biggest sellers.

[2] [3] [4]

[5] [6]

[7] [8]

[9]

In another article written by Chaudhury in The Guardian, ‘World Cup marketing directed at women for first time in attempt to cash in on sport’s popularity’, he mentioned, Lucy Palmer, 22, who had already bought an England replica shirt, which she had planned to wear for the World Cup. ‘She has entered a television contest where the first prize is an all expenses paid trip to watch England in the World Cup. If she does not make it, she plans to watch the team in the pub. Last season Palmer joined the Tottenham women’s team in north London. She also plays for her pub in a five-a-side league composed of men and women players. Her ambition is to get paid for playing football.’ The Guardian, 16 May 2002. The Guardian, 16 May 2002. It is only recently that women are taking to play football by choice. The game is taking off among Indian immigrants, a fact depicted in the film, Bend it Like Beckham. In 1998, Permi Jhooti, a Fulham Ladies Player had been selected to play for India in the Asian Women’s Soccer Championship. For details, see, ‘News for the month of October 1999’, in www.indianfootball.de. Established in 1975, the organization continues to face severe financial crisis. In accounts describing the passion of fans during Mohun Bagan versus East Bengal contests it is often mentioned that women do not eat if their favourite team loses. For details see, Khela (Calcutta: Ajkal Prakashan, Sept. 2000). Satires have been written on how women, who go to the cricket ground, spend their time in knitting sweaters, socializing and having a huge feast; Grahamandal, Dec. (1960). In all existing works on Indian sport, it has been accepted that women’s soccer in the country had started in 1975. There is no mention of any attempt undertaken in colonial India to spread soccer among women. Some sporting films, which have failed at the box office are Awwal Number and All Rounder. Others, which have been successful include Lagaan, Ghulam and Jo Jeeta wohi Sikander.

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[10] A three hour forty-two minute film with a budget of 25 crores, Aamir Khan and Asutosh Gowarikar’s Lagaan has been accepted as the most successful Bollywood blockbuster of recent years. It was nominated for the Oscars in 2002. For details on Lagaan, see Boria Majumdar, ‘The Politics of Leisure in Colonial India: Lagaan-invocation of a Lost History’, Economic and Political Weekly, 1 Sept. (2001). [11] England Captain, Beckham is currently one of the costliest football players in the world. His injury before the world cup in April 2002 had sent shockwaves through England. [12] Arguably the most written about football club in the world, with more than fifteen monographs to its credit. [13] It allowed her to tour Hamburg, Germany, as part of the Hounslow Harriers team. [14] The movie starts with a fictional scene where Jess is seen scoring for Manchester United against Anderlecht at Old Trafford. Commenting on the game, Gary Linekar, Alan Hansen and John Barnes see her as the answer to England’s problems in the World Cup 2002. However, when they asked her mother, Mrs Bamra, as to whether she was proud of her daughter, she mentioned that she was not. Rather, by her own confession, she was ashamed, as her daughter did not know how to cook, a skill expected of all Indian women of her age. [15] Dato Peter Velappan, ‘History of Women’s Football in Asia’, Keynote address in ‘Symposium sur le Football Féminin: Intégralité des interventions’; for details of the speech, see, www.ifrance.com [16] Arunava Chaudhuri, ‘Gender and Sport in India: Aspects of Women’s Football’, in www.indianfootball.com [17] Through the 1920s, women in most of the Indian states earned voting rights. Sarojini Naidu’s campaign for women’s suffrage was to a large extent responsible for this development. [18] This argument, advanced by Lata Mani, has been extremely influential in recent writings on Indian History. Lata Mani, Contentious Traditions (California: University of California Press, 1998). [19] Meye Mahal (Calcutta, 1934). [20] Ananda Bazar Patrika, 13 Aug. 2000. [21] Detailed descriptions on attempts undertaken to promote women’s football are available in Brajaranjan Ray’s unpublished account of the genesis of Bengali sports journalism. In this essay, he mentions that it was only in the 1930s that attempts were undertaken to develop women’s football in Bengal. [22] The early years of the twentieth century was a phase of intense political turmoil. The partition of Bengal carried out by Curzon in 1905 and the Swadeshi movement launched in protest against the partition dominated Bengal social and political life of this period. Revolutionary terrorism was also popular, especially in the first decade of the twentieth century. [23] Dave Russell, Football and the English (London: Carnegie Publishing, 1997), p.96. [24] Brajaranjan Ray, Banglay Krida Sangbadikatar Adiparba, unpublished. [25] Ibid. [26] Gymnasiums, which had become extremely popular in the 1930s. [27] Ray, Banglay Krida Sangbadikatar Adiparba. [28] The Economic Times, 27 Dec. 1997. [29] Ibid. [30] Ray, Banglay Krida Sangbadikatar Adiparba. [31] Ibid. [32] Ibid. [33] Most women wore sarees in colonial Bengal. Things have changed drastically after independence, more so in the course of the last two decades, with the result that most women are now seen in modern attires like jeans, salwar kameez and the like. [34] Ray, Banglay Krida Sangbadikatar Adiparba. [35] Ibid.

The Gendered Kick 165 [36] Ibid. [37] Ibid. [38] All the leading newspapers of the country, Amrita Bazar Patrika, The Statesman, Ananda Bazar Patrika carried detailed reports about this ongoing tussle throughout the 1930s. [39] Amrita Bazar Patrika, 14 May 1936. [40] Russell, Football and the English, p.97. [41] Ibid. [42] Ray, Banglay Krida Sangbadikatar Adiparba. [43] Ibid. [44] A term used to refer to the whites. Often used with disgust and anger. [45] This was the case throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. [46] S. Sabanayakan, ‘Manipur Unstoppable’, Sportstar, (6–12 April 2002). [47] Ibid. [48] Even in 2002, Bengal was destined to have met Manipur in the finals had it not been for Kerala deliberately conceding two goals against Orissa in the quarter-final. This resulted in Bengal being pitted against Manipur in the semi-final. [49] Ibotombi S. Longjam, ‘Women’s Football: Manipur’, in the manipurpage.tripod.com [50] Ibid. In this tournament, ESU (Eastern Sporting Union) was the winner, while TRAU (Tiddim Road Athletic Union) bagged the runner-up trophy. [51] Ibid. [52] Ibid. [53] Ibid. [54] Ibid. [55] Ibid. [56] Commenting on the lack of facilities for women footballers, Arunava Chaudhuri states, The Indian women’s team was criticised for conceding 36 goals in the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games, losing 0-7 to South Korea, 1-13 to Taiwan and a humiliating 0-16 against China but the team was neither given an exposure trip nor proper exposure before the Asiad. As a practice match, the girls were made to play against the Bengal under-16 boys team at the SAI Eastern Centre in Calcutta, that was all. On the other hand, after the women’s team got an exposure trip to Germany in 1997, they played a successful Asian Women’s Championships in China, winning by a record 10-0 against Guam, 3-0 against Hong Kong and losing only 0-1 to Asian giants Japan. Due to a worse goal difference, the Indian women’s team was unlucky to miss out on a semi-final spot and a chance to qualify for the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, played in the United States. The trip was made possible not by the All-India Football Federation, but due to the hard work and help put forward by some Non-Resident Indians in Germany. The group of NRIs from the Stuttgart-Heilbronn area provided the women with training facilities which they had never enjoyed before, due to contacts with local clubs and the German football federation, DFB. During their trip to Germany, the women were very well taken care of by the German federation, something they sadly do not get from their own federation. For details see; Chaudhuri, ‘Gender and Sport in India: Aspects of Women’s Football’. [57] ‘NRI Boost for Kerala Women’s Football’, in www.rediff.com, 2 Aug. 2000. [58] However, rivalry and jealousies among the officials often plague women’s football in Bengal. Commenting on Bengal’s failure to reach the finals of the national championships in 2002, S. Sabanayakan asserts, ‘Bengal’s cup of woe was complete when the state body appointed two coaches having their own views on team composition. As the coaches were waging a silent yet

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[59] [60] [61] [62] [63]

A Social History of Indian Football sustained war between them, the team suffered badly. Poor conditioning, lack of match practice and above all complacency, typical of most Bengal sides, especially in football, brought forth shame on the state.’ Sabanayakan, ‘Manipur Unstoppable’. Karnam Malleswari won the only medal for India at the Sydney Olympic games in women’s weightlifting. The Guardian, 16 May 2002. Ibid. Ibid. Tanya Aldred, ‘If There’s a Wie, There’s a Way’, in www.cricinfo.com, 6 May 2004.

Looking Beyond the Sleeping Giant Syndrome: Indian Football at Crossroads [email protected] 000000June/September 203/1 BoriaMajumdar /3 Bidhan SaraneeCalcutta700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106477 FSAS110630.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 62005 and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

In the valedictory session of the ‘Conference of Indian Football’ held in March 2003 at New Delhi, Dato Peter Velappan, General Secretary, Asian Football Confederation (AFC), exuded confidence in India’s future potential: ‘The time to act is now, for yesterday was past, tomorrow is the future and the present is the transition. Decide where you wish to be in the Asians Cup final or the World Cup?’[2] The immediate antecedent of this confidence is important. Velappan presented in the same conference a paper titled, ‘Vision India – The Way Forward’, which when implemented is expected to revolutionize football in the country. He said ‘if there is a will then blessings begin to shower. A nation of over one billion population with 33 per cent of them in the U-14 years category presents a vast segment of potential footballers who need to be tapped, moulded and brought up on the right lines.’[3] He also highlighted the eleven elements, like eleven men of a team on a football field, which need to be looked into for a way forward: National State Associations, Marketing, Youth Development, Coaches Education, Referees, Sports Medicine, Men’s Football, Women’s Football, Futsal, Media and Communications, and Fans.[4] The project would start, he affirmed, with

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the building of a permanent headquarters of the AIFF in the capital, and would be followed by football offices in various states and expertise at every step. Urs Zanitti, Head of the Development Division of FIFA, who was a delegate at the conference, lamented a few months later: ‘It’s a scandal from an outsider’s point of view. FIFA’s job is to provide the money but, in countries like India, we are forced to deal directly with the people to whom the money is paid eventually.’[5] Pointing to the FIFA House project – the plan to build a permanent office and much more for the AIFF in New Delhi’s Dwarka area, he exclaimed: ‘We are dealing directly with the architects and contractors, because nothing seems to get done otherwise. It was supposed to have been built a year or so ago, but it’s still not in functioning condition.’ His experience with the AIFF top brass has been more revealing: They seem interested enough but where’s the administration? Where are the administrators? You have some people in Delhi. Some in Kolkata. Some in Goa. There are no people. The human resource is very poor. The financial resources are poor also, but that’s where we come in. But here we need to take part in creating the human resource also.[6]

In terms of the genealogy of soccer as a modern sport, India certainly ranks as a giant. So long as she was a colony, her true potential as a soccer power remained undetermined. After Independence, however, India emerged as a formidable Asian force on the international stage. With India’s startling victory in the Jakarta Asian Games in 1962, the nation seemed ready to have a crack at the international level. But the momentum was lost quite astonishingly within a decade. The decline set in and the giant had fallen asleep again. Yet, the slumber has been mostly dreamy with intermittent magic spells of insomnia, albeit without any sustained impact on the nation’s soccer fortune. This essay, looking beyond this much-publicized metaphor of sleeping giant, deciphers the long-term underlying processes and the cultural politics of soccer that explains both the anomalies and the prospects of Indian football linking thereby its past, present and future. From Asian Force to Spent Force: India in International Football[7] The concept of an Indian nation in international football is arguably a post-colonial development. Since the late 1920s Indian teams began to undertake soccer tours to countries such as Australia, South Africa, Burma, Singapore, Malay, China, Japan and Ceylon, while Indian national and club teams played against invited foreign teams in the 1930s. These friendship matches could by no means judge the true worth and standard of Indian players. The results of the annual Indians-Europeans matches since 1920, however, did testify to the quality and standard of Indian football to a certain extent. Yet, there was no question of India’s participation in any international tournaments of worth under colonial rule. After independence India got its first toast of participation in international competition in the London Olympics of 1948. India played well to match a far superior French side although it ultimately lost the game 1–2. India continued the good work by performing well against some amateur sides that she played in a post-Olympic tour of

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Europe. Barefooted displays of quality football impressed many in the west. Meanwhile, India had qualified for the World Cup in 1950 to be held in Brazil. Despite having a rich band of footballers, however, she could not take part in the only World Cup she qualified for. Most commonly ascribed reasons for this withdrawal are: lack of foreign reserves, barefooted playing style, the long sea journey and apprehension about India’s chances against the world’s topmost teams. On the Asian circuit, India began with a bang. She clinched the gold medal in the first Asian Games in 1951 by beating a booted Iran side in the final by a solitary goal. This success, it may be surmised, made the Indian soccer administration complacent. The AIFF failed to realize the changing priorities of the global game and did not really object to the barefooted playing style which, increasingly becoming out-of-date, would prove fatal against quality sides in the future. The illusion of barefooted brilliance was shattered in the Helsinki Olympics of 1952 when a formidable Yugoslavia drubbed India 10–1. The debacle, despite creating huge dejection among players, officials and football lovers, drove home the most important point: the time had come to bid adieu to barefooted football. The AIFF, acting on this realization, resolved to make the wearing of boots mandatory for Indian players. This step, albeit much delayed, was a momentous measure in the history of Indian football and seemed to pay immediate dividends. India reached the semi-final of Olympic soccer as the first Asian nation and earned fourth place in the tournament in 1956.[8] In the 1958 Tokyo Asian Games India finished a modest fourth. In the Rome Olympics of 1960 India again put up a spirited display of stylish soccer and fought neck to neck with much stronger teams.[9] Although India made an early exit at the group league stages, its overall performance seemed to impress European spectators. More importantly, the exposure and experience the players gained from the tournament was to prove handy in the Jakarta Asian Games two years later. In the 1962 Asian Games India staged her performance of the century and went on to win the soccer gold by beating South Korea in the final. This success can be attributed to a well-knit combination of some creative and skilled players, as well as to the guidance of the team’s coach S.A. Rahim. The victory at Jakarta was expected to raise Indian football to new heights. As Jaydeep Basu argues: The victory in Jakarta could have been the turning point of Indian football. India had a dream team, capable of playing quality soccer against any opponent. It was a golden opportunity to use the success as a launching pad for the future of the game in the country and to get into the mainstream of world football.[10]

Yet, the fervour in the wake of the victory proved ephemeral and the performance of the national team went steadily downhill in the 1960s. The death of Rahim was a major blow to the trend of progress while retirement of such key players as Chuni Goswami and Tulsidas Balaram without immediate suitable replacements destroyed the balance of the team to a great extent. It was, however, the internal politics of AIFF that really aggravated the healthy flow of the game by reducing ‘the post of national coach into a contest of musical chairs’.[11] While India were runners up to Israel in the second Asia Cup at Tel Aviv in 1964, it failed to qualify for the Olympics. In the 1966 Bangkok Asian Games, India failed to cross the hurdle of the group league. Matters reached rock

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bottom when India went to Rangoon in 1968 to play in the Tehran Asia Cup Qualifiers without a coach. The result was obvious: India failed to even qualify for the final stage. The Indian soccer tiger roared for the last time in the Bangkok Asian Games of 1970. Winning the bronze in the Games was what may justly be called the swan song of the Indian national team on the Asian circuit. The same year India earned the third place in the Mardeka Tournament at Kualalumpur. These performances certainly gave a ray of hope for a rejuvenation of Indian football. But the momentum could not be sustained. In the 1970s, India achieved dismal results in the international tournaments she participated in. The series of shameful defeats began with an unprecedented rout at the hands of Burma by 1–9 in the 1971 Mardeka Tournament. Although India staged a slight recovery by emerging joint champions with South Vietnam in the Pesta Sukan Tournament at Singapore in 1971, she tasted ignominy in the Tehran Asian Games of 1974 when she was again routed 1–7 by China. In the next Games at Bangkok, India maintained the trend of suffering humiliation by conceding a huge defeat against Kuwait, the score line reading 1–6. The decline thus begun continued unabated through the 1980s with rare flurries of excellence in sporadic matches and tournaments.[12] In her pre-Olympic campaign before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, India lost to Saudi Arabia 0–5. In fact, India never qualified for the Olympics after 1960. India’s poor performance in the pre-World Cup encounters also reflected this down swing of Indian soccer. The 1990s proved no better for Indian football as the Union Government decided against the nation’s participation in the consecutive Asian Games in Seoul (1990) and Hiroshima (1994). In the pre-World Cup Qualifiers for the USA World Cup 1994, South Korea thrashed India 7–0 while in the 1998 France Cup Qualifiers India suffered humiliation at the hands of Qatar 0–6. In the 1996 Asia Cup Qualifiers, too, the Indian team was humiliated in both their matches. Indonesia routed her 7–1 and Malaysia beat her 5–2. India’s decline in soccer becomes more evident if one considers her performance in south Asian tournaments such as the SAF Games or SAFF Cup. Even while playing against far inferior teams and late-comers such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, India won the SAF Games soccer gold only three times in its nine editions to date, while she performed a little better by winning the SAFF Cup three times in five occasions. In the midst of the national team’s continuous disgrace at international level, Indian club teams such as East Bengal always staged gallant fights and quite often achieved stunning victories against far superior foreign teams that played in different national club tournaments in India since the late 1960s.[13] India’s plight in football during the last three decades of the twentieth century can be most meaningfully explained in terms of an unresolved dichotomy between the interests of nation and club as well as a long-term failure of the AIFF/Sports Ministry to appreciate the importance of professionalism and commercialism in Indian football. The first point has been handled in the essay on regionalism and club domination. We shall turn to the second factor in later sections of this essay. At the turn of the millennium a few bright patches seemed to appear in the dark and gloomy horizon of Indian soccer. In 2001, in a World Cup qualifier India beat UAE 1–0 at home.[14] Overpowering UAE, who were ranked much better in FIFA

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ratings, was a substantial achievement. In the away match India went down, but not without a fight, to the same opponent 0–1. Although India failed to qualify from a four-team competition, the performance certainly looked to be a comeback for Indian soccer to the Asian circuit that it used to dominate at one point in time. The year 2002 made this contention stronger. India won the LG Cup, an international trophy, after it was held for a long time in Vietnam.[15] Meanwhile, as part of her preparation for the 2002 Busan Asian Games, the national team went on a tour to England from 26 August to 2 September where it played the Jamaican national squad. India lost the first match 0–3 while the second ended in a goalless draw. Hardev Jadeja, leader of the delegation to the UK, mentioned in his report on the tour that it ‘was a great success and the players gained a lot of experience and international exposure’.[16] India also fared well against the Uzbekistan national team at New Delhi in two preparatory matches for the Games.[17] Despite these performances prior to the Asian Games, the Government of India did not clear the national squad for the Games. Ultimately the AIFF had to send the team at its own cost.[18] In the Asian Games, India in its group league encounters defeated Bangladesh and Turkmenistan convincingly but lost to China, the 2002 World Cup qualifiers. Since then, however, the Indian national team has not done anything worthy of mention at the Asian/international level. Its latest disgrace at the hands of Oman and Japan in the World Cup qualifiers at home seems to turn the clock back to a further spell of gloom.[19] At club level, however, East Bengal made an impressive mark on the Asian circuit by winning the ASEAN Cup held at Jakarta in July 2003. Tata Football Academy: An Oasis in the Desert Amidst the commonplace trend of decline that characterized Indian football from the 1970s, a few sincere attempts were made to serve a more national cause by establishing football academies in a planned manner. The Tata Football Academy remains a classic example of this trend. The Academy, a unit of Tata Steel Sports Foundation (TSSF), at Jamshedpur was a unique venture by one of India’s pioneering industrial giants, Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO). It supplements efforts to improve the standard of Indian football by developing youngsters in the age group of 14 years, and injecting fresh talent into the nation’s premier spectator sport. Founded in 1987, the academy’s foundation can be traced back to the year 1902 when Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the founder of TISCO as well as the model township of Jamshedpur, advised his son, Sir Dorab Tata, to earmark ‘areas for Football, Hockey and Parks’.[20] Tata Steel’s commitment to sports, in fact, preceded the building of the township. J.R.D. Tata, a keen and skilful sportsman himself, gave fruition to J.N. Tata’s vision by providing encouragement to most sporting disciplines. Sport thus became an integral part of Tata Steel’s corporate philosophy: It is part of this very same commitment that made Tata Steel set up the Tata Steel Sports Foundation, to inculcate among the young men and women of India the sporting spirit, the zeal to excel, to win, and above all the discipline and dedication that brings out the winner in the individual. The Tata Football Academy, conceived

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The objective of the Academy is ‘to provide mainstream of national football with a perennial pool of young footballers trained and oriented to international standards’.[22] The strategy is simple: ‘“CATCH THEM YOUNG” and give them the best; in terms of training them with modern technique, tactics, physical and psychological conditioning and related inputs.’[23] Keeping this objective in view, promising youngsters are selected from tournaments at various grass-root levels[24] for induction into the Academy. Budding talent is scouted all over the country in the age-group of 14 years, trained for four years and fed to the mainstream after graduation and at the expiry of a conditional contract, to seek a career in professional football. The institutional set-up and programme of the Academy matches that of a modern western football-training institute. As the TFA brochure states: The Academy not only provides intense training but also all-round developmental opportunities with facilities for formal education and vocational training. The fully residential programme includes special features such as free board and lodging, a handsome monthly stipend, free playing kits, free summer and winter clothing, ceremonial kits, comprehensive medical care, free education, a group insurance scheme and other benefits.[25]

The Academy also offers other prime amenities that include a floodlit playground, a sophisticated gymnasium, a swimming pool and a shooting wall, conference rooms, a comprehensive library and video-aided lecture rooms. In order that the candidates are equipped to match international standards, selected TFA cadets are regularly sent to globally-renowned institutions, such as the Sports University of Cologne, PSV Eindhoven Club of the Netherlands, and Sao Paolo Club of Brazil for specialized training. Foreign coaches[26] of international repute are also invited from time to time to boost the standard. Moreover, to maintain a balance in education vis-à-vis each cadet’s individual development, they are admitted to local schools so that their formal education is not neglected. TFA, at least in its first decade of existence, amply proved that systematic training at the right age, in a proper ambience pays rich dividends. The juniors of TFA achieved a string of impressive victories against reputed national and international teams in this short period.[27] Its promising display impressed spectators not only in India, but as far afield as Brazil, USSR, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, Iran and Thailand. A look at the composition of the teams doing well in the National League since its inception reveals the presence of a number of players from the TFA. P.K. Banerjee, one of India’s most renowned coaches, puts it in correct perspective: Just imagine, if one academy can produce so many players who do well against foreign opponents, what will happen if we have a few more similar breeding grounds? … Make no mistake, our administrators can’t afford to relax now because this is the time to make the transition from feel good to feel better.[28]

The point Baichung Bhutia made in 2001 becomes more valuable in this context:

Looking Beyond the Sleeping Giant Syndrome 173 TFA has indeed done a great job. We do have a repository of talent and TFA has been nurturing them effortlessly over the years. And ever since its inception in the early eighties, the Indian football has been represented by TFA wards. It still holds a key place in Indian football … What I personally feel is that the TFA should scrutinise five or six top players from the batch and give them the facilities which any international player gets. Representing Mohun Bagan or East Bengal shouldn’t be their goal – TFA should reiterate this point to them. Grooming just for the sake of it wouldn’t help much.[29]

The Indian Soccer Administration Corruption and lack of professionalism go hand in hand in Indian football. The sport’s apex body in India, AIFF, has not played it expected role to perfection. The anomalies of the organization have already been elaborated in an earlier essay. So far as the question of professionalism is concerned, it fares little better. Since its birth in 1937, AIFF showed an utter lack of professional attitude towards the game. It took eleven long years to get affiliated with the world apex body, FIFA. It played its flawed part in India’s failure to participate in the 1950 World Cup. The unresolved dichotomy of national and club football has been, to a great extent, a result of its failure and amateurish duplicity. Moreover, factionalism, favouritism and infighting within the Federation are plain to see since its inception.[30] As one of the better administrators of Indian soccer/ AIFF argued in 1961: In our country, however, things are absolutely different. Whether it be in the AllIndia sphere or in the State sphere, you will find very few people in the administration who could claim to be players themselves. Unless this vital change is introduced in the selection of the administrative personnel, I am afraid, our football will never attain its rightful stature. I have travelled throughout the world and had an opportunity to see the football set-up in all those places … There football is guided by experts; here by all sorts of people, and the difference is there for all to see.[31] [emphasis added]

If this conception of experts seems a bit drastic, then here are a few more radical updates: ‘It may be a co-incidence that our football began to grow pale, to the point of no redemption, ever since the late 1970s. In the face of a series of disasters, a number of heads have rolled.’[32] Comments can be multiplied. It is, however, ahistorical to put the entire onus on administrators and the like. In fact, one must acknowledge that it is Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, the President, who has almost single handedly kept the National Football League afloat. It was his initiative that roped in financial giants like ONGC as title sponsor before the National League in December 2004. In fact, it is rather the peculiarly amateur set-up of soccer that explains the deep-seated ills of Indian football. This is not to deny that AIFF officialdom has been the major villain in this system. This tendentious amateurism has not only made footballers’; status confusing, but given birth to a sizeable group of non-professional, non-technical officials, both at club and association levels, who allegedly reap personal gains by virtue of their lucrative positions in the sports bureaucracy. Even the top string of India’s present soccer bureaucracy agree that

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amateurish management is the main hindrance towards ushering in professionalism in Indian football, be it NFL or any other meet. As Alberto Colaco, the present AIFF secretary, argues, ‘What we need in India is professional and paid people to run the clubs as well as the federation. Then only can we achieve the target.’[33] It has become evident by now that Indian footballers by themselves are no longer crowd pullers as they used to be in the past. This reflects a growing aversion even among the genuine supporters of Indian football to watch domestic matches. With ample opportunity to watch high quality European and Latin American games on satellite sports channels like ESPN-Star Sports, DD Sports or Ten Sports, watching Indian football has become a matter of disgust for many. In such a situation, as A. Vinod points out, the AIFF has done precious little to stem the tide by chalking out meaningful programmes for the development of the game in this country. Instead, it has preferred to remain a silent spectator, caught in the cobwebs of the power struggles within itself, untouched by the consequences of its own ineffectiveness. Should it fail to get its act together without any further delay, it certainly would not take much time for the epitaph of Indian football to be written some day or other in the none-toodistant future.[34]

If there is any worthwhile boost the AIFF provided to Indian football, it was the introduction of the National Football League (NFL) in 1996. The event certainly infused new vigour into Indian soccer. But the NFL is still found wanting in several key aspects: organization, marketing, publicity, itinerary and, above all, adequate sponsors. Soccer-wise it proved to be a keenly competitive league in the last four years, with a lot of twists and turns till the end, but it left a lot to be desired on the organizational front. But the major hiccup that has only recently been solved thanks to the efforts of Das Munshi is the utter inadequacy of sponsorship. After Philips had withdrawn prematurely at the end of the second edition in 1997–98, the AIFF, for some inexplicable reason, had been unable to find a viable sponsor. The AIFF also had a spat with ESPNStar Sports, which telecast the league initially. The Central Government’s refusal to provide up-linking facilities to the official broadcaster was cited as the official reason for the row. The irregular telecast of matches therefore has become a bane for NFL. Many, however, hold AIFF ways responsible for the shortcomings of the national league. It has also been argued that some of its officials are responsible for ‘the AIFF breaking up with the IMG, ESPN/STAR Sports and also for not finding a sponsor’.[35] It is also argued that the NFL itinerary and logistics have been a topic of ridicule, as teams have had to crisscross the vast country with very little or no gap between matches.[36] Also, while promoting the NFL, the AIFF has systematically undermined important and prestigious tournaments such as the Durand Cup, DCM Trophy, Rovers Cup and IFA Shield which used to act as breeding grounds for soccer talent in the country as well as to nourish a sound club culture. It is urgent to restore them to their erstwhile status and their importance in broadening the base of the game throughout India. At present, regular football leagues take place only in a handful of states including Kolkata, Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Kerala, Delhi, Hyderabad and Punjab. The rest of the AIFF

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units have nearly proved ineffectual. Even with FIFA support, the AIFF has not been able to implement to perfection the most rudimentary soccer development programme. For this, as Bill Adams points out, its ‘cronyism, ageism and amateur ineffectiveness’ are much to blame.[37] The AIFF has also shown its culpability in the organization of international tournaments in recent times. Its millennium venture – the Millennium Sahara Cup – which came off in January 2001, was much publicized as the biggest football show in Asia. It, however, turned out to be a faking glaze. In fact, it promised much but delivered nothing for Indian football. The co-ordination between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and the organisers, Studio 2100, was so poor that they could not compensate for the last-minute withdrawals of teams from Iraq, Indonesia and Cameroon. Among the participants, only the team from Chile brought a few Olympians in their rank while the remaining teams used the tournament to experiment with young players. It was alleged in some quarters that the AIFF did not provide the organizers Studio 2100 adequate technical information and trained personnel.[38] Henna Juneja, frustrated CEO of Studio 2100, was said to have remarked that the tournament was sabotaged due to factionalism within the AIFF.[39] Novy Kapadia has argued that ‘some officials used the build-up for this tournament as part of their election campaign and once their purpose was achieved, shirked all responsibility in organisation’.[40] Finally, as regards the appointment of foreign coaches with the avowed aim of raising the standard of Indian football, AIFF has done little. In the last two decades or so, the AIFF experimented with at least six foreign coaches for the senior Indian national team, most of who failed to deliver any long-term benefit for Indian football. The list includes Dietmar Pfiefer from East Germany, Ciric Milovan from Yugoslavia, Josef Gelei of Hungary, Jiri Pesek of Czech Republic, Rustam Akhramov from Uzbekistan, and the current coach Stephen Constantine from England. Except Milovan, none really looked impressive enough to transform India into a sound fighting combination. And even when they tasted occasional success it was more due to the exceptional ability of some talented Indian players such as I.M. Vijayan, Jo Paul Ancheri or Baichung Bhutia than due to proper planning by the coaches. However, the foreign coaches too have had their points to offer. Novy Kapadia argues: ‘Inadequate foreign exposure, limited opportunity with the national team and interference in team selection [by the so-called soccer bureaucrats] dampened the enthusiasm of the foreign coaches and they did not devote adequate time with either the senior team or the age group teams.’[41] What India requires from a foreign coach is a sensible approach towards the anomalies of the Indian game as it is played right now. As Mario Rodrigues points out, ‘a dedicated foreign coach who understands the Indian psyche (as John Wright is said to have done in Indian cricket) can help Indian football take the much-needed strides in the strategic department’.[42] The AIFF needs to rope in the likes of Guus Hiddink, who played a pivotal role in South Korea’s remarkable success in the last World Cup, as coach of the national team. In fact, lack of a long-term perspective has been a hallmark of the organization’s long history. Wake up calls to AIFF from various concerns of sport became common since the 1980s. Some of these sincere voices even found a place in souvenirs of international

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tournaments conducted by the AIFF itself. To that extent, perhaps, the organization deserves some applause. An instance is befitting in this context: India has proved time and again that the talent is there. It has rarely been harnessed properly. The AIFF had, in the past, announced grandiose plans but they never could be implemented, petty bickerings, parochialism and perpetuating oneself in the high offices are the present state of affairs in our soccer set up. The casual attitude of the ‘super stars’, and the growing indiscipline among them are the aspects that the AIFF must address itself now. Let us hope the AIFF wakes up now. The talent is there to spot. But it has to be groomed properly and if it is done methodically, starting from schools, India can re-establish itself at least in the Asian scene, in the near future.[43]

Danny McLennan, the veteran football coach of Churchill Brothers, offered some suggestions for the rejuvenation of Indian football that may be of contextual value here: Indian football is like a racing car with damaged engine and flat tyres. I can only pray and hope that it repairs itself and tries to keep pace at least with the Asian countries. It’s better not to talk about world football. The whole infrastructure, if it exists at all, should be updated and the All India Football Federation should be manned by professional people having sound technical background. In other words, it is better if former National level footballers adorn top posts. A country’s football should not be run like this. There must be a well-thought out calendar, which should be followed till the end. There should be good leadership. The leader should be backed by an eager and knowledgeable committee, which is keen to improve. If you are a proper leader you should know how to delegate powers. The AIFF President could be seen at the inaugural match of the National league and then, perhaps, we only see him in the last match or at the prize distribution ceremony. On a number of occasions it has been observed that the President announces something but the secretary denies it. There must be more harmony at the top.[44]

The big question therefore is: will the Indian football administration be able to rise to the occasion by redefining its old priorities? Or will the AIFF be able to shake off its age-old amateur status and wear the global apparel of professionalism? The transition has certainly begun in Indian football. To achieve the desired goal, the Government is also required to play a crucial role in the process.

Reformed State Units Leading the Way While the AIFF is uncertain about the gravity and reality of the changing terms of the global game and therefore hesitant to take recourse to radical measures, a few of its affiliated state units such as the Goa Football Association (GFA) or the Indian Football Association (IFA) have already taken quite a few strides towards a proper appreciation of the game’s changing global priorities. It was GFA, as already elaborated in the essay on regionalism and club domination, which initiated the process first in Goa. The lead provided by Goa inspired other young state units including the All Manipur Football Association to act in a similar vein, as discussed in the same essay.

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The IFA in Bengal has also taken up the cause of promoting professionalism. A brief survey of its activities in the last season or so under the guidance of its energetic secretary, Subrata Dutta,[45] would amply illustrate the point. The 2003–04 football season in Bengal began in a most novel fashion when the IFA organized a ‘One Day Football Tournament’ featuring the four top Calcutta Super League clubs – East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, Tollygunge Agragami and Mohammedan Sporting. In this curtain raiser tournament of the season, the teams were expected to gauge their performance – strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, it was intended as ‘a day of entertainment for the football fans to take the leading sport of the Entertainment Industry to the top of their minds before the advent of the football season of Bengal’ [emphasis added].[46] This venture was distinctly professional with a strong emphasis and determination to promote soccer as Entertainment. To broaden the appeal of the game throughout the state, IFA organized inter-district and interschool tournaments and also a nursery football league every year. New vigour was instilled into these by the attaching of a compulsory sponsorship package to each of them and by making clear their respective specific purposes at the press meets. The IFA’s concept of the commercialization of minor tournaments, hitherto mostly untapped by worthy sponsors is simple, interesting and alluring: Taking into account the positive effect brands enjoy from their association with sporting events, it was felt that an integrated package for District Tournaments would allow longer visibility for the sponsors. This package offers a unique opportunity for sponsors to reach out across the districts of West Bengal. Onsite advertising would ensure natural exposure to the viewers. Moreover extensive coverage by both print and electronic media would increase brand recall. This joyful association spanning over a period of six months is bound to touch the hearts of the people staying in the districts.[47]

The IFA has also started a State Football League from 2003–04. Cashing in on tremendous soccer enthusiasm in the districts, this league is designed to create a strong support base for district teams apart from injecting fresh football fever among the masses.[48] One of the major drawbacks of the state football associations has been the failure to cultivate and mobilize youth interest in soccer through a set of realistic programmes. IFA marked a major breakthrough in this regard in 2004. On 10 April it re-launched the Duckback Elliot Challenge Shield, the inter-college tournament for the soccer maniacs of Kolkata. As already noted in the first essay, this tournament dates back to 1894, and has had a glorious past. It witnessed rough weather in the past, especially during the political turmoil accompanying Partition and Independence in the late 1940s. It was closed again from 1993 to 1999 to be revived in 2000 for only one season. 2004 saw the tournament revived with the support of a title sponsor, Duckback. The co-sponsors of the tournament were Aajkaal, a popular Bengali daily newspaper (official media partner), 93.5 Red FM, a popular radio channel (official radio partner), and Dash Miniter Khel, a popular Bengali satellite sports channel (official TV partner). On the occasion of the press conference to inaugurate the tournament, Subrata Dutta rightly observed: ‘it is a historic tournament and IFA has strived to continue it in order

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to encourage the city’s youth to be drawn towards the game; however we must mention the sponsors here without whose constant support it would not have been possible to go on with the tournament’.[49] Another important landmark was the foundation of the Football Academy in Haldia. The IFA, along with the County Sports Foundation, formed this Academy to promote and develop football from the nursery level in a methodical and modern way. The plan is to start residential coaching for U-13/14 boys over a span of three years after which they will start playing in the main stream of club football. The chief purpose of the Academy is to permanently solve the dearth of a continuous supply of good players within the state.[50] With a similar aim in mind, that is, to create a pool of quality referees, the IFA has recently joined hands with the Calcutta Referees Association to form a Referees’ Academy. Other novel initiatives on the part of IFA to promote the game in a professional way include the annual ‘Football Bazar’[51] that takes place in the month of April every year, promotion of ‘Global Football’ through Bangla Ekhon channel,[52] and making Mithun Chakraborty, the greatest Bengali film hero, the ‘Ambassador of Bengal Football’.[53] Besides this, the IFA has also proceeded to have its own tent at the maidan and appealed to the state government and concerned authorities to provide a football ground for the IFA’s own training programmes and competitions. A professional outlook towards achieving a proper commercialization of Indian football becomes more evident from a somewhat different, yet interesting, incident. In the meeting of the Task Force Committee held at Club Mahindra, Goa, on 11 May 2003, with regard to the ‘Report on the Conference of Indian Football’ (held in March 2003), Dutta drew the attention of other members of the Task Force to the noninclusion of AFC General Secretary Dato Peter Velappan’s comment on the marketing of Indian football.[54] On Dutta’s urging, the Task Force agreed to include those remarks in the approved report.[55] It was primarily at his insistence that it decided to have a Department for Marketing, which would function in combination with the Finance Department.[56] The attempt made in this section to highlight the most important and enduring achievements of the IFA should not be construed as one to laud a specific organization out of bias. Rather, this overview of the IFA’s activities in the recent past lay bare an underlying reality of Indian football. In a much-publicized and well-appreciated process of transition from amateurism to professionalism that is said to have begun in Indian football since the late 1990s, the IFA can boast of reforming its sporting infrastructure for the control, organization and promotion of Bengal football in tune with the principle of professionalism despite having a more or less amateur institutional setup. The AIFF too seems to follow suit. The best efforts of the President creates hope that a reformed AIFF at the helm of affairs will lead a spirited Indian fight-back to regain its soccer status in Asia. The Changing Order of the Global Game: Where Does India Stand? Amidst the gloom surrounding Indian soccer in general, encouraging signs are also discernible. First and foremost, Baichung Bhutia’s rise to stardom has had a positive

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impact on the status of Indian soccer. In Bhutia’s native state, Sikkim, the super star’s exploits have created a soccer revolution. Although opportunities are still limited, mainly in terms of club football, the Special Area Games scheme of the Sports Authority of India and the Sports Hostel movements of the state government, have provided a platform for young aspirants to display their talents. Needless to say, Baichung’s inspirational role has been instrumental behind such ventures. Not surprisingly, Sikkim has been doing well at the junior level national tournaments. The manager of the Sikkim team Nanga T. Bhutia have gone on record saying Baichung’s exploits certainly inspired the boys in Sikkim. And he was very optimistic of the future: ‘Football is our sport. It is the most popular game too and with Baichung turning out to be the first Indian to play professional football in Europe, Sikkim has been inspired. More boys are getting into football. People are forming clubs and plans are afoot for Academies.’[57] The direction and the pace at which Sikkim football is moving, we may not be far away from the appearance of more Baichungs on the national stage. But Bhutia’s transnational status as an Indian star implies a lot more for Indian soccer. That he has boosted the ever-declining morale of the average Indian footballer is beyond doubt. As P.K. Banerjee remarks: Though we are talking about a team game, there are individuals who can often make a telling difference. In the Indian context, Bhaichung Bhutia has to be applauded for making such a huge impact on the mindset of the average Indian footballer. He had a low-key three-year stint in the third tier of the English league, but returned with an attitude that is inspiring many. Belief is the key in every adventure human beings undertake and Bhutia will remain a pioneer in Indian football for instilling this in his peers at a time of deep despair. His footballing prowess may not be the best India has produced, but his determination and courage to challenge the unknown is exemplary.[58]

Moreover, Bhutia’s value as a footballing icon invites a rare comparison with Indian cricketers.[59] Urban, articulate and stylish, he brings with him a glamour of sorts associated more with cricketers in India. This heightens his potential as a marketable commodity. Bhutia was contracted by Ten Sports as an expert commentator during the FIFA World Cup in 2002. He also acted as an analyst from the ESPN-Star Sports studio during Euro Cup 2004.[60] Bhutia’s march as the first Indian footballer to sign with a European club, viz. Bury Football Club in the English Third Division, inspired European clubs to target more Indian footballers as reserves. Leicester City from the English Premiership signed a deal with Bhutia’s team East Bengal in February 2004, to tap into a potential player market.[61] More importantly, one expatriate Indian in England has even started contemplating massive investment in rejuvenating some low-ranked English clubs.[62] On the other hand, British Indians such as Michael Chopra and Harpal Singh are presently making their presence felt in the English Premier League.[63] And the AIFF too in recent times has woken up to tap players of Indian origin to play for India.[64] The global dimension of Indian soccer got a further boost when an NRI youngster, Arunava Chaudhuri, a student at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany, started the

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website www.indianfootball.com on 10 April 1998 to provide a historical database, updates and features on Indian football. Chaudhuri, along with his joint chief editors Chris P. Daniel and Abhishek Gujral, runs this comprehensive Indian football portal, which is a non-commercial website, with a dream to see the Indian team qualify for the World Cup. The site became popular enough to actually become the official website of the Indian national team’s tour to England in 2002–03. However, while both FIFA and AFC recognize the site officially, the AIFF needs to accord worthy recognition to it.[65] In recent times, most top NFL clubs have put a strong emphasis on professionalism and modernization of infrastructure as the only viable way to attain international worth. Indian clubs have slowly realized the need for doctors, physiotherapists and dope control.[66] Most of the teams have already opted for better training facilities, using modern gymnasiums and following modern training methods. The recent success of the East Bengal Club in the Asian club circuit bears witness to this trend. The Calcutta outfit East Bengal made history when it lifted the prestigious ASEAN Cup in July 2003 beating the best of Southeast Asian club teams, which included the AFC Club Championship finalist BEC Tero Sasana from Thailand. The club deserves credit for making people realize that whole-hearted effort in a planned manner to look beyond the local confines can pay rich dividends. While the club’s success at the Asian level points to the willingness of the team management including the coach Subhas Bhowmik as well as the players to work hard and succeed, it also highlights the importance of more international exposure. In the words of P.K. Banerjee, ‘It’s simple. You don’t win international games if you don’t play them. Go and play the better teams.’[67] The victory, however, was a direct pointer to a wider success of commercialism in Indian soccer: East Bengal’s success – India is not a part of the ASEAN group – began and ended with sponsorship. United Breweries, the team sponsor ensured there would be no interference in the coach’s work. That is a happy departure from the average Indian team (cricket, as always, an exception) which is ruled by government officials and politicians. The team’s participation in Thailand [probably printing mistake for Indonesia] came about because the tournament sponsors LG Electronics and the All India Football Federation are both clients of the marketing agents Strata. Strata has signed a contract with the ASEAN organizers to ensure that the Indian National League champions play in the tournament for the next three years. No government, ministry, officialdom anywhere, thank you, just corporate muscle.[68]

Looking Ahead: Will the Slumber Cease? AFC Secretary General Peter Velappan, who has been closely monitoring All India Football Federation’s functioning, recently warned: ‘As the “Vision” is a tailor-made programme, the future of Indian football totally lies in the hands of Indians. Some goals have been proposed, but the Vision India team has to agree upon it.’[69] In fact, the lead must come from the government and the AIFF. What Korea and Japan did in the recent past to attain soccer excellence and host the World Cup was no mere sporting venture; rather it was more a politico-economic project to raise their international

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status and strengthen national muscle. Sport, especially soccer in the twenty-first century, it can be justly claimed, is a thriving industry. Indians, from the sports minister to a lay spectator, urgently need to realize this truth. Baichung Bhutia, the only Indian footballing icon in the new century, puts it thus: The way India is going it might never become a football force to be reckoned within Asia; it may just continue the way it is. The above can only damage the outlook of the sport in India and endanger its future development. For football to survive and thrive in India, the right environment must be created. It must attract peoples from all classes, not just the lower and middle classes. It must attract, and keep, the interest of future generations that will ensure the success of Indian football for generations to come. Football can only improve if it is well managed, well marketed and run in a very professional way … Something must be done to put India on the football map. Who will give the helping hand? If no one does then, may be God should!!![70]

Notes [1] Keith Cooper, ‘Foreword’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation, Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2002), p.ix. [2] ‘Report on the Conference of Indian Football’, in Proceedings of the All India Football Federation Annual General Meeting, 10 Jan. 2004 (New Delhi: AIFF, 2004), p.86, housed in IFA Archives. We are grateful to IFA officials for access to this document. [3] Ibid., p.85. [4] Ibid. [5] Shamya Dasgupta, ‘India is Loser, AIFF Scoring the Own-goal of Corruption. Football: FIFA Official Slams Unprofessional, Corrupt System’, Indian Express, 13 Jan. 2004. [6] Ibid. [7] For a useful history of India’s place in international football through the ages, see Jaydeep Basu, Stories from Indian Football (New Delhi: UBSPD, 2003), especially chapters 3–6, 8–11 and 13; Also see Santipriya Bandyopadhyay, Football (Calcutta: Dey’s Publishing, 1985). [8] India went down to Yugoslavia 1–4 in the semi-final while it lost to Bulgaria 0–3 in the match to decide third place. [9] India lost to mighty Hungary 1–2, drew with France 1–1 and went down to Peru 1–3. [10] Basu, Stories from Indian Football, p.99. [11] Ibid. [12] India’s improved performance in the early 1980s was due mainly to the able guidance of its Yugoslav coach Ciric Milovan. Under his coaching India did well in 1984 Asia Cup Qualifiers and reached the finals, while at home it put up some spirited fights against world class sides in the Jawaharlal Nehru Invitational Gold Cup. [13] East Bengal’s most memorable victories against mighty foreign sides include those against Pas Club, Iran in the 1970 IFA Shield final (1–0), Piyong Young City, South Korea in the 1973 IFA Shield final (3–1), Al Zaora, Iraq in the 1993 Cup Winners Cup home match (6–2), and Kawasaki Verudi, Japan in the 1997 Cup Winners Cup home match (1–0). [14] Played at the Kanteerava Stadium, Bangalore, on 7 April 2001 the match proved to be a stunner for all concerned. India rode on Jules Alberto’s solitary goal to earn a memorable victory. [15] The tournament was hosted by Vietnam at Ho Chi Minh City from 2–10 August 2002. India drew with Singapore 2–2 and beat Vietnam U-23 by 3–1 in the group league matches. In the semi-final it thrashed Indonesia 3–0 while in the final it won a thriller against the Vietnam National Team 3–2. [16] Proceedings of the AIFF Annual General Meeting 30 Dec. 2002 (New Delhi: AIFF, 2002), p.15, housed in IFA Archives.

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[17] India won the first match by 2–0 losing the second 0–1 to Uzbekistan. [18] AIFF honorary secretary Alberto Colaco mentioned this in his ‘Report of Activities’ in the Annual General Meeting of AIFF held on 30 Dec. 2002 at New Delhi. Proceedings of the AIFF Annual General Meeting 30 Dec. 2002, p.5. [19] India suffered huge defeats at the hands of both: losing 0–5 at home against Oman and 0–7 against Japan in her away game. She once again lost 0–4 at home against Japan. In the away match against Oman, however, India surprisingly put up a better effort by holding the opponent to a goalless draw. The performance of the Under-23, Under-20 and Under-17 Indian teams, too, has been impressive in the past few years. Both U-17 and U-20 made India proud by qualifying for the final round of the respective Asian championship. [20] J.N. Tata’s letter to Dorab Tata, quoted in Tata Football Academy Brochure, Out of Small Wonders We Make Great Stars (Jamshedpur: TFA, 1995), p.2. [21] Ibid., p.6. [22] Ibid., p.9. [23] Ibid. [24] These grass-roots level tournaments include the Sub-junior under-14 school level championship, Subroto Cup and talent search contest organized by the Sports Authority of India (SAI). [25] Out of Small Wonders, p.10. [26] Among these foreign coaches, mention should be made of the British coach Tony Passey, Hans Fost from Germany, Jerry Pessi of England, Steurn Berhard Thoman and Armin Shnel and Moline Gonjalo from Germany, who came to work as TFA coaches. [27] The performance of the TFA juniors in the first ten years, as recorded in its Brochure, creates respect. Creditable performances on the national stage included runners-up in the Sanjoy Gandhi Tournament (1987–88), winners in the Sri Krishna Gold Cup (1989), runners-up in the IFA Shield and All Airlines Gold Cup (1990), runners-up in the Nizam Gold Cup (1991), champions in the All Bihar Champions Cup and runners-up in the All Airlines Gold Cup (1992), runners-up in the Nagjee Trophy (1995), winners in the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Memorial Tournament and runners-up in the Shaheed Rajendra Memorial Football Tournament and Durand Cup (1995), and runners-up in the D.C.M. Trophy (1997). During this period, they also lifted the local League conducted by the Jamshedpur Sports Association five times (1989–90, 1990–91, 1991–92, 1994 and 1995). At the international level, their display was no less interesting. In 1987, the TFA team occupied the third position in the prestigious Dana Cup at Oslo, Norway. The very next year, nine TFA cadets represented the country in the Under-16 Asia Cup held at Bangkok and six of them represented India in the tour of USSR, organized by the AIFF. In 1989 the TFA team secured the Group Championship in Norway and reached the quarter-final in the Dana Cup. Next year the team won the London Youth International Championship Cup. In 1991 the TFA team participated in the Coca Cola Harlem Cup in Holland and occupied the fifth position. However it won the Cup in a second attempt in 1992. In the same year the TFA juniors, during their tour through European countries, won the Euro Cup held at Bonn in Germany. For details, see Out of Small Wonders, pp.22–4. [28] The Telegraph, 26 Feb. 2004. [29] Bhutia made this remark in an exclusive interview to Indian Express, in December 2001. For details, see Aminul Islam, ‘Need for a Players’ Union in India’, Indian Express, 6 Dec. 2001. [30] To give one instance of such trends of factionalism within AIFF, the row between Pankaj Gupta on the one hand and Manindra Dutta Ray and Ziauddin on the other over the selection of the coach and some players assumed ugly proportions affecting the integrity and balance of the side during the 1952 Helsinki Olympic tour. [31] M. Dutta Ray, ‘Playing Experience Needed in our Football Administration’, in WIFA Golden Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: WIFA, 1961). Incidentally Dutta Ray was the president of AIFF at that time. [32] Gautam Roy, ‘No Hopers on a Sinking Boat’, in WIFA Golden Jubilee Souvenir (Bombay: WIFA, 1961).

Looking Beyond the Sleeping Giant Syndrome 183 [33] Jaydeep Basu, ‘Visionless NFL Clubs Ignore Long-term development’, Hindustan Times, 7 Dec. 2003. [34] A. Vinod, ‘Football is Groping in the Dark, and the AIFF Couldn’t Care Less’, The Hindu, 29 April 2000. [35] Qaiser Mohammad Ali, ‘National Soccer League Found Wanting’ from the Indian Abroad News Service, in www.indianfootball.com. [36] Ibid. [37] Bill Adams, ‘Saving Soccer in India’, www.indianfootball.com. [38] Novy Kapadia, ‘The Millennium Cup Flop’, indya.com football diary, Jan. 2001. [39] Ibid. [40] Ibid. [41] Novy Kapadia, ‘A Short History’, Sahara Times, 30 Aug. 2003, p.36. [42] Mario Rodrigues, ‘Hope and Hoopla’, The Statesman, 23 May 2001. [43] M. Madhavan, ‘Wake Up, A.I.F.F.!’, in the Souvenir of VIIth Jawaharlal Nehru Invitation International Gold Cup Football Tournament (Siliguri: AIFF and IFA, 1988). [44] Arnab Ghosh, ‘Indians Should Keep Pace at Least with the Asians’, The Hindu, 15 April 2000. [45] Dutta is the Director of the George Telegraph Group, a well-known corporate house of Kolkata. He comes from a family which has a long and prestigious legacy in sports administration. [46] ‘One Day Football Tournament’, Undated Private Note of the IFA Secretary, IFA Archives (hereafter Private Note). [47] ‘Introduction to Commercial Programme’ appended to ‘District Football Tournaments’, Private Note. [48] ‘West Bengal State League’, ibid. [49] Press Release of the Duckback Elliot Challenge Shield 2004, 10 April 2004, IFA Archives. [50] ‘Proposal for Sponsorship for IFA-CSF Football Academy’, Private Note. [51] The ‘Football Bazar’ introduced first in 2003 is aimed ‘to spot latent young talent in Football from the districts of West Bengal and the neighbouring states’. It also desires to help the affiliated clubs of IFA playing in Calcutta Football League to ‘select players of their choice through a series of practice matches organized at the Football Bazar’. On the other hand, the Bazar provides ‘a great opportunity for the young players of the various districts to showcase their talent to a ready audience’. The second Football Bazar took place from 8–13 April 2004 at two of the SAI grounds. For details, see Press Release of the Second Football Bazar, 7 April 2004. [52] As Abhijit Dasgupta, Executive Director, Bangla Ekhon, explains, ‘Global Football is the ideal weekly reference point for the latest in world football. More than just a highlights program, Global Football traverses the football landscape to update sports fans on what is taking place on and off football pitches across the continents.’ Telecast in Bengali and English separately, the programme covers World Cup Qualifiers plus all the major nation and club-based international competitions, previews, highlights, lead up features and in-depth reports to provide viewers with an exciting and entertaining weekly wrap of global football. For further details, see Press Release of IFA’s initiative towards the promotion of Global Football through Bangla Ekhon channel, 20 March 2004. [53] The IFA secretary wrote a letter to Mithun Chakraborty dated 25 March 2004 urging him to become the brand ambassador of Bengal football. Chakraborty accepted the offer immediately giving a note to that effect on Dutta’s letter. [54] Minutes of the Meeting of the Task Force Committee, 11 May 2003, Item 2 – ‘Report on the Conference of Indian football’. In his comment, ‘Velappan emphasized the importance of marketing in the National Associations. He compared the Marketing Department to the Central Defender in the Football Team. He added that Football is a Gold Mine and with proper marketing the Gold Mine can be exploited and this will help India to realise its potential.’ [55] Ibid. [56] Ibid., Item 4 – ‘Administrative Structure and Department’. [57] S.S. Shreekumar, ‘Sikkim Dribbling Ahead to Reach New Heights’, Times of India, 16 Feb. 2001.

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[58] P.K. Banerjee, ‘The Job has Just Begun’, The Telegraph, 26 Feb. 2004. [59] Recently, however, tennis sensation Sania Mirza and Formula One Indian youngster Karthikeyan have promised more as sporting icons. [60] The Statesman, 7 May 2004. [61] Incidentally, shortly after this deal, Adam Mynott, BBC India correspondent, wrote an interesting article that gave Indian soccer a mention in the mainstream British press. Appearing in BBC NEWS South Asia on 26 Feb. 2004, its title is revealing: ‘Soccer Seduces Cricket-crazy India: A Slow Revolution is Happening in Indian Sport – Children are Turning to Football’. [62] Jojar Dhinsa, a young Indian millionaire, is all set to buy the Coventry Football Club that play in Division One. He has also set his sights on recruiting Ronaldo and David Beckham into the team. Dhinsa is said to have claimed that he and a group of eastern European backers from the oil and gas industry are prepared to inject more than £2,000 million to revamp the club. For further details, see The Statesman, 22 May 2004. [63] Chopra plays for Newcastle United while Singh has recently joined Leeds United. Another player of Indian origin, Vikash Dhorasoo, proved his mettle for FC Lyon, a leading French club. Other players of Indian origin (PIO) include Kiran Bechan of Ajax Amsterdam in Holland and – famously reported – Aman Dosanj, whose life reads better than that of Jess in Bend it like Beckham. [64] Simran Singh, a promising Delhi-born young PIO footballer who played for Danish club AB Copenhagen had been called up to the final training camp of the India U-18 national team in Goa, ahead of the U-18 team playing in the prestigious Milk Cup in Northern Ireland and the Ian Rush Trophy in Wales in July 2003. Simran was the highest goal scorer in Denmark’s junior professional league in the 2002/03 season with 21 goals to his credit. For further details, see Arunava Chaudhuri and Chris P. Daniel, ‘Finally it’s happening…’, indianfootball.com feature, Oct. 2003. [65] For details of the website, visit www.indianfootball.com. For a useful coverage of the venture, see Frederick Noronha, ‘Indian Expatriate Launches Football Website’ for the Indian Abroad News Service on 1 Nov. 2003; and Shamya Dasgupta, ‘Spreading Indian Football across the World’, Indian Express – Delhi Sportsline, 19 June 2003. [66] The death of Junior, a Brazilian recruit of the Dempo Sports Club during the final match of the Federation Cup against Mohun Bagan has brought the question of an effective medical set-up to run any soccer tournament in the country into the fore. The AIFF, the regional/local football associations and the clubs have been urged to take appropriate steps in this regard. [67] Banerjee, ‘The Job has Just Begun’. [68] Suresh Menon, ‘The Season of High Fives’, Sahara Time, 9 Aug. 2003, p.16. [69] Nilanjan Datta, ‘The Future Lies in the Hands of the Indians’, Times of India, 13 May 2004. [70] Baichung Bhutia, ‘Slow Death’, in Game Plan, reproduced in www.indianfootball.com.

Conclusion [email protected] 203/1 BoriaMajumdar SaraneeCalcutta 700 006India Soccer 10.1080/14660970500106485 FSAS110631.sgm 1466-0970 Original Taylor 622005 000000June/September /3 Bidhan and & Article Francis (print)/1743-9590 Francis Society Group Ltd 2005 Ltd (online)

Thus commented Leopold von Ranke, the architect of ‘scientific history’. Although committed to the necessity for specialized research, Ranke was aware of ‘the danger of losing sight of the universal, of the type of knowledge everyone desires’ [emphasis added].[2] He acknowledged that ‘history is indeed a social necessity, the property of all humanity’.[3] Striving to Score drew initial inspiration from Ranke. Historical research on sport’s central role in the everyday life of a nation in modern society requires an eclectic approach that seriously reconsiders the long-lived dichotomy of the intellectual and popular in the study of history. As the greatest Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore lamented a century ago: A careful thought reveals that the difference between the educated and uneducated in our country lies in their knowledge of history. Common people have no idea of how men have grown strong, got together and achieved what they have; they fail to comprehend the flow of the thoughts and ideas of the educated and cannot join their activities. It’s pathetic on the part of humans not to know what man has achieved and has been capable of achieving in this world.[4]

Striving to Score is an attempt to reflect upon, and bridge, the intellectual gap that still persists between the two poles. Indian soccer, like Indian cricket, affords a domain where the social historian can honestly blend the intellectual with the popular without really disturbing their respective sanctities. The way we have approached the social history of Indian football in this journal intends to make the point that intellectualizing the popular and popularizing the intellectual can go hand in hand and generate a synthetic genre of scholarship. While the former trend is well established in Indian academia, the latter, we believe, still lacks adequate emphasis. In making this assertion, Striving to Score shares the concern emphasized by S.N. Mukherjee in the 1970s: ‘We must recognise that historians are made for history and the reverse cannot be true. We should not only concern ourselves

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with the problems which the man in the street faced in the past, but make them entertaining and instructive for the man in the street today.’[5] In India, soccer has long been a site, albeit ignored by historians, which articulates the complexities and diversities of the everyday life of the nation. In view of the complexities of Indian soccer, it is easy to comprehend that a single volume can only scratch the surface. Striving to Score attempts to reveal at least part, if not the whole, of the process of how significant soccer was/has become for India – politically, economically, culturally and emotionally. Sports history, it can be justly claimed, is peoples’ history. Starting from this premise, Striving to Score studies the role of soccer in shaping peoples’ lives in colonial and postcolonial India. What follows, therefore, is not merely a social history of Indian football. Rather, the work concentrates on exploring the relationships between the national, regional and local in Indian soccer’s social history. The macrocosm of Indian football, into which we have tried to weave the microcosms of regional and local scores, is expected to generate future forays into more specialized regional and local studies. As James Walvin has suggested, ‘more emphasis needs to be placed on local studies without losing sight of the broader context’.[6] Striving to Score also shares Walvin’s notion that ‘general structures do indeed have a place, but they will inevitably be subjected to the qualifications of specific and local peculiarities’.[7] Walvin has further remarked: Like many other forms of social behaviour, sporting activity is largely socially and historically determined. Thus the sports historian and sociologist need to reach beneath the surface, behind the obvious facts of sporting history, if their studies are to be any more than yet another quasi-antiquarianism masquerading as serious social history.[8]

Striving to Score, in the same vein, adopts a more didactic approach, which considers soccer as a mirror of Indian society. Therefore, it does not give much weight to results and scores, lists and tables, data and statistics (although they prove invaluable when used as tools of analysis). In this, it follows and draws upon an instructive perspective offered by British soccer historian Nicholas Fishwick: social historians ought not to feel obliged to describe matches which they never saw or to engage in second hand discussions of tactics and the like. It is important for our purposes to understand that Stanley Matthews and Herbert Chapman were geniuses in their own ways but not to attempt to explain what their genius consisted of in terms of what happened on the pitch … The point here is not to describe football matches but to study what football meant and why it mattered.[9]

In the Prologue to Football Culture: Local Contests, Global Visions, Gerry Finn and Richard Giulianotti maintain: no matter how football clubs do change, they must always represent some sort of difference in relation to social identity. The evolution of football clubs will not lead to conformity, let alone uniformity. Without some framing of difference in association with football clubs, there can be no contest: without some social difference there would be no social significance to this match between two opposed teams. The issue is not social difference as such: the issue is how we conceptualize social difference,

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how it evolves, and then how we sport social identities when we come together to compare how we match up.[10]

Football in India started as marker of a unitary social identity and progressed as an emblem of nationalism, which constitute the focus of the first three essays of the journal. The next four have sought to highlight the social difference expressed through communal, ethnic or regional overtones, premised upon which football thrived as a mass spectator sport in colonial and post-colonial India. These essays have attempted to establish soccer’s credibility as a viable theme in the study of national/regional/ local dichotomies in Indian social history and cultural studies. Use of a series of lively anecdotes throughout the monograph is a deliberate act to highlight this point. Drawing upon J.A. Mangan’s suggestion, Striving to Score brings forth the pertinent question of ‘the autonomy of sport as a manifestation of indigenous popular culture, and local, regional and national negotiation and resistance in the face of global movements’.[11] The rich heritage of local football culture in India is fascinating enough to invite comparison with those of Brazil, Argentina, Italy or England. Importantly, the uniquely myriad patterns of India’s local football culture defy any simplistic homogenization. India may rank 140 in current FIFA ratings, but the diversified cultural glow Indian football can still boast of sometimes renders this ranking a misnomer. In any case, given FIFA’s recent exercise in standardization, the mass following that club football still evokes in India is staggering. However, the moot question in the twentyfirst century for Indian football is: will the local and traditional football cultures survive the pressure of globalization? This question has been addressed in the last three essays. In sport, as in everyday life, performance and non-performance are equally revealing. If performing states and clubs in Indian soccer point to the respective regions’ soccer craze and status, under-performing or non-performing states or clubs bring to light the otherwise socio-political realities that act as obstacles to the game’s progress. And even in politically sensitive Kashmir, where the gospel of muscular Christianity and the games ethic of public schools seemed to take a firm root at the close of the nineteenth century,[12] unfolding of the soccer story at the turn of the twentieth century serves as an exemplar of a new reality: the present day Kashmiris play the game their own way and for their own sake. As Nilanjan Dutta argues: They [the Kashmiris] are not perturbed by bomb blasts anymore; they don’t even blink their eyes when shelling begins from across the border, on a daily basis. Majid Dar, Manzoor Dar, Wasim Feroze, all in their early-twenties, have been experiencing all this from their childhood in the Kashmir valley. There’s one more thing that they have grown up with: it’s the beautiful game. Football, they claim, has provided them succour and inspiration through all the turmoil. ‘Soccer has its own bonding’, Abdul Majeed, former India skipper, presently the coach of the Jammu & Kashmir Bank, who is in the Capital for the 116th Durand Cup, maintained. ‘Right from the eighties, we haven’t got too many exposure trips. But it doesn’t stop there. We people played the game whenever we were in distress, sometimes with our friends, sometimes with members of the armed forces’, he uttered. Coached by Syed Shahid Hakim, J&K Bank, are the first team from Kashmir in twenty years to play in the second oldest tournament of the world. ‘My team consists of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Various

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A Social History of Indian Football organisations may have their own demands over Kashmir. We just want to play’, the son of the legendary Rahjim-saab, said. Speak to Majid and Manzoor, and you can learn about their horrifying experiences. ‘What pains me is that we are victimised for being Kashmiris’, 21-year-old Manzoor, the skipper of the squad, says adding, ‘Once Rizwan (Sheikh) was kicked-out of the sub-junior national camp for being born in the valley’. ‘The other day, we were dancing to celebrate Diwali on our hotel-terrace here’, medio [mid field player] Manzoor informed. ‘The hotel-wallahs were stunned to see Muslims dancing on Diwali, but that’s the way we have been brought up’, he explains. The oldest member of the team, striker Dupale Srnghal, can only nod in agreement. ‘No dad will urge his son to take up the gun. We cannot find a remedy to the civic unrest and the widespread un-employment. But certainly, we can stay away from all that for ninety minutes’, Majeed, who had played for Mohun Bagan, says. ‘But only for ninety minutes’, he concludes. They have to come back to the grim reality sooner or later.[13]

Indian soccer is now confronted with the changing realities of the global game and the accompanying challenges of globalization: commercialization, professionalization and mediatization. In the face of these, growing inequalities among elite football clubs have become obvious. Access to capital, competitive mass media and sponsorship – new priorities under globalization – have altered the balance of power in regional and club rivalry. And if East Bengal Club’s recent triumph in the ASEAN Cup at Jakarta can excite nationalist enthusiasm among both the public and media, then the concept of a ‘Team India’, commonly applied to cricket, should be applicable for football as well. Provided, of course, Indians achieve excellence and success in soccer – a dream that still eludes us. Indians, it is often suggested, like talking, reading and writing on cricket. Indians love to watch their national cricket team play. They worship their cricketing icons. They also invest safely in the ‘cricket industry’. However, what is meant by cricket here is ‘international cricket’ where the Indian national team is the crucial adjunct. When it comes to the game on the domestic front, masses of Indians still love soccer. Even international football, where India is not even a marginal presence, is hugely popular. Thus if India were able to break into the privileged domain of world football, Indian soccer, it may be surmised, will regain its position as the nation’s ‘mass’ obsession. To be more explicit, Indian football ranks high in terms of its culture, tradition and mass following; what it requires to ‘take off’ is proper direction. Notes [1] [2] [3] [4]

Quoted in Arthur Marwick, The Nature of History (London: Macmillan, 1970), p.44. Ibid. Ibid. Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Shikhsha’, in Rabindra Rachanabali (Calcutta: Government of West Bengal, 1992), p.453. [5] S.N. Mukherjee, ‘The Citizen Historian’, in S.N. Mukherjee, Citizen Historian: Explorations in Historiography (Delhi: Manohar, 1996), p.8. [6] James Walvin, ‘Sport, Social History and the Historian’, The British Journal of Sports History, 1, 1 (1984), 10. [7] Ibid.

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[8] Ibid., p.8. [9] Nicholas Fishwick, English Football and Society, 1910–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), Introduction. [10] Gerry P.T. Finn and Richard Giulianotti (eds), Football Culture: Local Contests, Global Visions (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), p.8. [11] J.A. Mangan, ‘Series Editor’s Foreword’, in Finn and Giulianotti, Football Culture: Local Contests, Global Visions, p.viii. [12] For further details see J.A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000 [reprint of 1986 edition]), especially Chapters 5 and 7, pp.122–41, 168–92; also see J.A. Mangan, ‘Soccer as Moral Training: Missionary Intentions and Imperial Legacies’, in Paul Dimeo and James Mills (eds), Soccer in South Asia: Empire, Nation and Diaspora (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp.41–56. [13] Nilanjan Datta, ‘The Beautiful Game Keeps them going’, Times of India, 29 Oct. 2003.

INDEX Page numbers in italics represent Tables and page numbers in bold represent Figures access 2 Aldred, T. 162-3 All India Federal Council: proposals 57-9 All India Football Association (AIFA) 53, 158; birth 55-7; versus Indian Football Association (IFA) 56-9 All India Football Federation (AIFF) 54, 57, 114; club-nation conflict 125, 126, 1 27; criticisms 127, 168, 173-6; foreign coaches 175; formation as compromise 62-3; managerial instability 169, 175; organisational laxity 103; pecuniary anomalies 144-6 All India Women’s Congress 155, 156 All Manipur Football Association (AMFA) 176 Amrita Bazar Patrika 68, 70 Ananda Bazar Patrika 33, 94, 102, 157 aristocracy: relations with middle-class 4 Army Sports Control Board 58, 62, 111 Aryan Club 42, 46, 96, 97 Asian Games (1951) 47 Asian Games (1962) 168 Asian Games (1970) 170 Asian Games (1974) 170 Bandodkar, D. 121 Banerjee, P.K. 172, 179 Banerjee, S.C. 59, 59-60 Bangal: definition 94-5 Bangalore Muslims 116 bare-footed play 18, 46-7, 71; end 169 Barretto, J.R. 104, 146 Basu, J. 25, 125, 126, 169 Basu, S. 95-6 Beckham, D. 142, 154, 159 Bend it Like Beckham: and Indian women’s soccer 153-5, 159, 161 Bengal 4, 9; appropriation of football 17-19; early growth 12-17; Mohun Bagan’s 1911 victory 24-35; national resistance 10; sociocultural indigenisation 17-19; sociopolitical context of soccer conflict 72 bhadralok 63, 72, 73, 77, 98

Bhar, S. 133-4 Bhattacharyya, S. 101 Bhutia, B. 67, 68, 172-3, 175, 178, 179, 181 Bihar Olympic Association 111 Bombay 54, 109, 114, 115; building of stadium 54-5; Gymkhanas 111; Mohun Bagan visit 110; slow growth 110-11 Bombay Football Association 110 Border Security Force (BSF) 119 Bose, M. 67, 109 Brabourne Cup 99 Brazil 139-40, 141 Bury FC 68, 179 Calcutta 6, 58 Calcutta Club of Civilians 6 Calcutta FC 15, 32 Cashman, R. 47 caste discrimination 14 Celtic FC 67, 68, 69, 71 Chakraborty, M. 178 challenge: British superiority 9, 11, 32, 69; British supremacy 18, 19-20, 28 Chatterjee, P. 47 Chatterji, J. 72 Chaudhuri, A. 155, 159, 179 Chaudhuri, S. 96 Chaudhury, V. 162 Chiefs Colleges 8 Chopra, M. 179 Churchill Brothers 122, 128 club loyalty 125; bond intensification 101-2, 103, 104 club rivalry: Ghati-Bangal conflict 101-3; new challenges 103-4 club-based regionalism: and nationalism 49 club-nation conflict 125-8, 170, 173; 1982 Asian Games 125-6 Colaco, A. 174 college football 10, 11 commercial implications: 1911 IFA Shield victory 34-5 commercialism 180

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commercialization 103, 128; FC Kochin 120; minor tournaments 177; Vasco SC 122-3 communal amity 30 communalism 4, 77, 113 Communists 100 Comrade 30 Constantine, S. 146 Cooch Behar Cup 41, 95, 98 Cooperage 110 Cornell, S.: and Hartman, D. 93 Crepeau, R.C. 4 cultural nationalism: Eastern 47; and sport 40-9 cultural significance: 1911 IFA Shield victory 31-4 Dacca 95 Dacca Sports Association (DSA) 112 Dalhousie Club 6, 15, 32 Dash Miniter Khel 177 Dasmunshi, P.R. 127, 173 de Lima Leitao, N. 122, 123 Delhi 115-16 Delhi Football Association 115 Delhi Soccer Association 59, 61 Dempo 121, 122 Desai, M. 113 Devi, C. 160 Dimeo, P. 25, 28, 93, 97, 98, 103 discrimination 71; Bombay 110; British 33, 41, 42; East Bengalis 95-6; Mohun Bagan 41-2 D’Souza, N. 115 Durand Cup 41, 45, 100, 117, 174; winners (1981-2004) 131 Dutta, A. 102 Dutta, N. 187-8 Dutta, S. 177, 178 East Bengal Club 5, 49, 77, 81, 179; ASEAN Cup victory 171, 180, 188; history 95-7; Mohun Bagan rivalry 92-104; Pancha Pandavas 100, 117; promotion controversy 45, 46, 96-7, 98 East India Company 6 effeminacy 10, 24, 27, 28, 29 Elliot Shield 10, 11, 15, 41; revival 177 Empire 20 English Premier League 140, 141, 142 Englishman 27 FC Kochi 128 FC Kochin 120

Federation Cup 127; winners (1977-2004) 130 Finn, G.: and Giulianotti, R. 186-7 Fishwick, N. 186 Fletcher, G.C. 76 Football Association (FA): England 58, 60, 61, 63 footballing nationalism: patterns and forms 42-7 foreign imports: globalisation 143, 146 games ethic 8, 11, 25, 47; subversion 48 Ganguly, M. 18-19 gender relations 2 Gentlemen of Barrackpore 6 Ghati: definition 94-5 Ghati-Bangal conflict 77; football field 97-101; growing club rivalry 101-3; partition 93, 97, 99, 100, 103; society 94-5; spectator violence 86, 99, 100, 102-3 Giulianotti, R.: and Finn, G. 186-7 globalisation: foreign imports 143, 146; Indian soccer 139-46; televised football 90, 140-4 Goa 118, 120-5, 128; appropriation of football 121; de-colonization 121; patronage 122; Youth Development Programme 123, 124 Goa Football Association (GFA) 121, 123, 124, 176 government: football policy 127, 128, 180 Gulf Oil 115 Gupta, P. 56, 97 Hare School 12 Hartman, D.: and Cornell, S. 93 Hindustan Club 115 Hinrichs, A.C. 112, 113, 114 hooliganism 99, 100, 102-3 Hyderabad 117 Hyderabad Football Association 111 Hyderabad Police CXVII 118 identity 2, 48-9 IFA Shield 15, 83, 174; commercial implications 1911 victory 34-5; cultural significance 1911 victory 31-4; nationalist significance of 1911 victory 26-7; race factor in 1911 victory 27-9, 32, 35; social impact 1911 victory 29-31 India Culture League 115 Indian Football Association (IFA) 176; All India Federal Council 57-9; all-India body proposals 55, 57-9, 60, 61; biased refereeing accusations 100; Football Academy 178;

Index 192 formation XV 16; Mohammedan Sporting controversy 73-6; One Day Football Tournament 177; praise for recent achievements 177-8; rejection of proposals 57, 59, 60; State Football League 177; versus All India Football Association (AIFA) 56-9 Indian Premier Football Association (IPFA) 127 Indian Railways Athletic Association 111 Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) 117 Inter-Provincial Championship 112 international football 70; Indian performance 118-19, 126, 168-71 Islam, A. 131, 132 Jacob, Gen. J.F.R. 123 JCT Mills 119 Kalighat 98 Kallol Yug (Sengupta) 42, 44-5 Kapadia, N. 118, 175 Kelleve, A. 157 Kerala 118, 119-20, 128, 161; decline 133-4 Kerala Police 120, 133 Khan, A. 116, 117 Korea 141 Krishnaswamy, V. 142-3 Kumar, M. 56 Kumartuli 42 Lagaan 155 Leader Club 119 Leicester City FC 179 Longjam, I.S. 160 Lyons, W.R. 121 Macaulay, T.B. 27-8 McLennan, D. 115, 122, 176 Madras Football Association 111 Maharaja of Santosh 54, 55, 56, 57, 58-9, 60, 61, 62, 63, 74, 76 Maharashtra 128 Mahindra United 115 Majumdar, D. 80 Maley, W. 71 Mallya, V. 127 Mangan, J.A. 2, 7, 187 Manipur 114, 129-35; women’s soccer 159-60 Manipur Football Association (AMFA) 130, 133 Mardeka Tournament (1971) 170

masculinity 2, 10, 12, 26 Mason, T. 25, 28, 31 Merry Go Round 117 Meye Mahal 156 middle-class: relations with aristocracy 4 Millennium Sahara Cup 175 Miller, M. 161 Mills, J. 121 Mitra, C. 32, 33 Mitra, S. 24; AIFF report 143, 144 Mohammedan Sporting Club 17, 46, 49, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 84, 89, 98, 100, 128; IFA discrimination 71, 72-7; ignorance of achievements 77 Mohun Bagan 5, 17, 18, 41, 49, 77, 126, 144; 1911 IFA Shield victory 19-20, 24, 69, 71, 81; commercial implications of victory 345; cultural significance of 1911 victory 31-4; discrimination 41-2; East Bengal rivalry 92104; ethos 19; historiography of 1911 victory 24-6; nationalism and 1911 victory 26-7; race factor in 1911 victory 27-9, 32, 35; social impact of 1911 victory 29-31; visit to Bombay 110 Moitra, J.C. 98-9, 110, 114 moral training: soccer as 7-8 Mukherjee, S.N. 185 Mussalman 30, 69 Mysore 111, 116-17 Nandi, M. 140 Nandy, A. 48 Nandy, M. 94, 95, 99 nation-club conflict 125-8, 170, 173; 1982 Asian Games 125-6 National Association 18-19 National Football League (NFL) 127, 143, 173, 174; launch 129 national team: concept 113 nationalism 2, 18, 126; 1911 IFA Shield victory 26-7; and club-based regionalism 49; footballing 42-7; fragmented sporting 48-9; spectator culture 44-5 nationalist politics: and football 43 nationalist unity 48-9 Naxalite movement 101 Nooruddin, K. 75, 76 Olympics (1948) 168 Olympics (1952) 169 Olympics (1960) 160 organizational progress: 1930s 111

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partition 93, 97, 118; Ghati-Bangal conflict 93, 97, 99, 100, 103 patronage: and promotion 16-17 Paul, G. 43, 95 Pennell, T.L. 7, 8 Plamenatz, J. 47 power battles: regional 53-63, 114, 126, 158 Presidency College 8-11, 13 Procam Sports Private Limited 115 promotion: and patronage 16-17 PSV Eindhoven 172 public schools 6, 7 Punjab 118-19, 128 Punjab Police 119

social impact: 1911 IFA Shield victory 29-31 socio-cultural indigenisation: Bengal 17-19 Sovabazar Club 14-15, 18, 19 spectator culture: nationalist 43, 44 spectator violence: Ghati-Bangal conflict 86, 99, 100, 102-3 sports journalism: development 31-3 Stack, Prof. G.A. 13 Star of India 73-4, 75 Statesman 61 Striker (Nandi) 141 subversion 47-8 suffrage movement: women and soccer 155-6 Sugunan, G. 133 Swadeshi 18, 24, 26, 31

Qamar Club 117 race factor: 1911 IFA Shield victory 27-9, 32, 35 Rahim, S.A. 117, 118; death 169 Railway Sports Control Board 111 Raisina Sporting 115-16 Ranjitsinhji, K.S. 27 Ray, B. 33, 157 Ray, P.C. 72 regional conflict: and battles for control 53-63 regionalism: club-based 109; growth of rival centres 114-20 Rodrigues, M. 144, 146, 175 Rovers Cup 41, 45, 100, 109, 110, 116, 174; winners (1981-2004) 132 Roy, B.C. 100 Sadhbar Ekadashi 94 Saha, R. 32, 94 Salgoacar 121, 122 Salim, M. 77 Santosh Trophy 125, 128; origins 112-14; winners (1981-2003) 129 Sao Paolo Club 172 Sarbadhikary, N. 1, 9, 12-14, 15, 16 Sarkar, K. 32 Senegal 141, 142, 143 Sengupta, A.K. 42, 44-5 Sengupta, S. 101 Services Sport Control Board 111 Sesa Goa 122; Football Academy 123-4 Sharma, R. 127-8 Sikkim 179 Singh, H. 179 Singh, R. 91, 131, 133 Singh, V. 124

Tagore, R. 185 Tata Football Academy 132, 171-3 Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) 171 televised football: globalisation 90, 140-4 Times of India 33 Trades Cup 15, 19 Turner, E.J. 113 Tyndale-Biscoe, C.E. 7 United Breweries 143, 180 United Breweries Group 103, 127 Vasco SC 122 Velappan 180 Velappan, P. 155, 167 Velappen, P. 178 Vinod, A. 174 Vision India 167 Vision India 180 von Ranke, L. 185 Walvin, J. 186 Wellington Club 14 West Bengal Government 100 Western India Football Association (WIFA) 110, 111, 114-15 women and soccer: 20th Century India 152-63; Bend it Like Beckham 153-5, 159, 161; colonial India 155-9; England 152-3; first tournament 158; inter-war period 156-7; Manipur 159-60; opposition 158; post-Colonial India 159-60; problems and prospects 161-3; suffrage movement 155-6 Women’s Football Federation 153 Women’s Soccer Federation 161

Index 194 Women’s Sports Association 155, 157-8 World Cup (1950) 47, 169 World Cup (2002) 141

www.indianfootball.com 180 Zanitti, U. 168