84: Prashant Kidambi | How Cricket Defined India As A Nation & An Expression Of Raucous Hyper Nationalism

🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/prashant-kidambi/

The following is a conversation with Prashant Kidambi.

Prashant is an Associate Professor in Colonial Urban History, at the University of Leicester. His work is largely on the history of British imperialism and the geographical expression that we today know as India.

It is in this interest that Prashant overlapped another great interest of his, cricket, that he published the book Cricket Country which also doubles as the subject of this podcast here.

Cricket country is the story of the first all Indian cricket team. 

Today cricket is completely synonymous with India, and for good reason. It is truly the only sport in a country of more than a billion people, and the fanaticism with which Indian cricket fans celebrate their sport, rivals anything you get out of Spanish football fans, EPL die-hards or even central coast NRL tragics. 

My hope is to more on this subject, particularly with cricket in the subcontinent, so if anyone has ideas, please do reach out. 

In This Podcast With Prashant Kidambi, You Can Expect To Hear About…

• India’s Caste System
• The Role Cricket Plays In Defining The Indian Culture
• Cricket A Modern Expression Of Indian Hyper Nationalism
• + More & More & More…

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• 00:00 – Introduction
• 03:48 – The Role Of Cricket In Defining A Culture.
• 10:22 – Lowest Rung In India’s Cast System.
• 15:44 – Technical Interruption.
• 16:34 – India As A Geographic Expression.
• 20:33 – Brief History From East India Company To Indian Independence.
• 26:18 – Does Today’s Indian Cricket Team Still Represent Indian Society?
• 32:18 – Does India Celebrate The Underdog?
• 42:03 – How Important Is Sport In Forming A Cultural Identity?
• 49:18 – Cricket As An Expression Of Raucous Hyper Nationalism.
• 1:02:13 – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka?
• 1:06:48 – Does Cricket Transcend Class In India?
• 1:11:28 – Different Styles Of Cricket.
• 1:15:42 – What Else Did England Leave Behind?
• 1:17:28 – Country You Are Most Bullish On.
• 1:19:08 – Conversation Between Any Two People.
• 1:22:24 – Afterthoughts & Ambition For The Podcast.

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Episodes Of The Curious Worldview Podcast Similar To This!

• Tim Butcher | Blood River & The Congo

Links To Prashant Kidambi

• Cricket Country

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The following is a conversation with Prashant Kidambi. He's the Associate Professor in Colonial Urban History at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. His work is largely on the history of British imperialism and how it relates to and the is the history of the geographical expression that we today know as India. And using that phrase of geographical expression that we know today of India is going to make more sense as the conversation goes on, since the central topic is really what is the identifiable factor of India and Indian when historically they were many, many different ethnicities and religions, and it was in fact only cricket that they would come together and identify as an Indian on. But it is in this interest that Prashant has worked most of his life, the history of British imperialism and India, mapped over an overlapping interest of his, which is of course cricket, that he published the book Cricket Country. And it is this book and its themes that we speak about on in this episode of the podcast. So Cricket Country is the story of the first all Indian cricket team. And it was in 1911, I think, that they uh ended up debuting on English soil against uh the English. Today cricket is completely synonymous with India and for good reason, and anyone who knows just a thing about cricket knows exactly what I'm talking about. Cricket is the only sport of note in a country of more than a billion people. And the fanaticism with which Indian fans celebrate cricket and their sport rivals anything that you get out of the most devoted Barcelona fan, the most devoted Real Madrid fan, the most devoted English Premier League diehard, and even the most devoted Central Coast NRL Tragic. The Indian cricket fanaticism is unparalleled and unmatched. Cricket is often used as a hyperbolt in India and described as a religion. With the deities the likes of MS Dhoni, Virat Kohley, and the great Sash and Tandoka. Cricket is these days often used as an expression of hypernationalism, which is so interesting because it was only 100 years ago that this extremely diverse amalgamation of people that exist in India only agreed on coming together for one thing and one thing only, and it was cricket that would have someone identify as an Indian. For everything else you delegated to your local culture, ethnicity, trade, or some other form of identity. I think the question of what sport does in creating a culture and forming a unified identity is just so interesting and very difficult to explore as well. But with Prashant in this book cricket country, he does just that alongside the wonderful story of this eclectic bunch who ended up making up the first Indian cricket team. My hope is to do more on this subject, uh, particularly with cricket and the subcontinent. So I appeal directly to you, dear listener, if you have any ideas or know anyone who would be a good voice speaking about this, please do reach out and let me know. I find it beyond fascinating. In this chat, you can expect to hear about uh some of the following. India's caste system, the role cricket plays in defining the Indian culture, a very, very brief skinny history on the East India Company. Cricket as a modern expression of Indian hypernationalism is more and more and more. Finally, do hang around to the end to hear my afterthoughts and as well for me to explain what my ambition is for this podcast. And with all the facts, here is the great Prashant. Lovely. Okay. Well, good evening, um, Mr. Kadambi Prashant. Thank you so much for joining me, mate.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Good evening, Ryan, and it's great to be on your show.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

I'm very excited to speak with you, which I think um you might have been able to pick up in what we were just talking about off-air. But you wrote this magnificent book, Cricket Country, which sort of talks about the first Indian cricket team. Um, and it's in the 19th century that it happened and it was sort of their tour of England. And what's very interesting about this is that a theme that I want to carry out through this chat, and I want you to really lean on heavily, is the role of cricket in defining a culture or sport in defining a culture more broadly. So, could you talk about India forming a cricket team that represents them as a whole before they were actually a unified country where they agreed on nothing and they could not identify with someone else in that country except for the one thing, and that was cricket.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yes. Uh it's a very interesting point to uh kick the conversation off with, uh, Ryan. Um, as you rightly note, my book is about the making of the first ever Indian cricket team, a cricket team that claimed to represent all of India. And it's a story uh that's set in the uh early 20th century, but going back into the late 19th century. Uh this team comes out and takes on the English in Britain in the summer of 1911, and I really tell the story of how this happened and what happened to that team. And through that I I look at the question of how cricket becomes a way of imagining a nation. Right? So it's about how the idea of India takes shape on the cricket pitch. At a time, as you rightly point out, when India was not yet a politically independent nation. India in 1911 was part of the British Empire, it was one of the most valued colonies of the British, um it was governed directly by the British Crown, and it only became independent a good 36 years after this particular tour that I talk about, uh, which happened, as I said, in 1911, and India only became independent in 1947. So the book is really about this interesting uh uh feature or phenomenon of how a nation comes to be represented on the sporting field even though it doesn't exist as a politically independent entity. And that raised all kinds of questions because, of course, today when we think of the Indian cricket team, Team India, as it's called, it's really seen as a symbol of the Indian nation. I mean, Indians are divided along all kinds of lines. We know about divisions between Hindus and Muslims, and you know, so divisions along religious lines, religious uh divisions along uh caste lines, divisions along language, region, you name it. Every kind of social division um finds some expression in India. And yet there are two things that seem to unite Indians uh and and allow them to imagine themselves as a nation. One, of course, is films, and the other is cricket. And the cricket team in particular is seen very much as a representation of the nation itself. Team India stands for the nation. Um, when the Indian team does very well, it's seen as a national triumph. When the team does badly, it's regarded as a national disaster. Players themselves are seen to represent the diversity and plurality of India.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Oh, really? That's an interesting point.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah, and so there's such a close and intrinsic connection between uh the idea of nationhood and and cricket that that then became for me the uh question that I wanted to explore in this book. Um, so you can say the book operates at two levels. One, it's about this cricket team and the cricket tour that they undertake, but it's also about this larger story of how cricket becomes a way of imagining um nationhood. Um and and and really I try and explore both these two, you know, both the both the making of a cricket team and what happens to it, but also through that story, I look at this other level of how you know the cricket team becomes a way of representing India itself. Um and I also argue that it's an interesting story because today cricket is so much a focus of nationalism. In fact, one would say it's almost uh it's it has almost acquired hyper-nationalist overtones, you know, in the sense that uh so much hinges on India's performance on the cricket uh pitch, uh not just as a sporting team, but as a nation itself, uh, that it's hard for people to imagine that that there could be other ways in which cricket was associated with nationhood. So the point I'm making is that today, if you think of India, for example, one way in which cricketing nationalism plays itself out is in the in the matches with Pakistan, for example, or in the representations of um India's cricketing history in relation to the colonizer. So you will you will regard you you will recall that there's a or you might know that there's this very famous Bollywood movie called Lagan, which was about a village cricket team taking on the British, uh a team of British soldiers and defeating them on the cricket pitch. It was India's Oscar nomination entry. That sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I can't believe I've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, it's it's it's it's a it's it's one of these epic films, you know, and which it was India's entry for the Oscars in 2001. And there it's very much, you know, cricket is a way of representing the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. And it's very much a story of domination and resistance. But in my book, I tell a very different story. The idea of India on the cricket pitch, I argue, was forged not in opposition to empire, but to demonstrate the loyalty of India to empire. And the team itself was brought about, was put together by a coalition of British and Indian interests. So it's a story of a time which is very different from ours, but which still has meanings for you know the place of cricket in Indian sport today.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Talk more about the players representing the diversity of India because the story uh the team that you put together in your book uh represents sort of maybe the ethnic and religious uh diversities, but they're all extremely sort of from the highest, highest end of society. Um yeah, could you start there and then move to today how that actually looks like? Because I think that's uh that's such a fascinating point that I've never considered.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah. Um, well, as we know, um in any of the uh any sort of theme sport, the theme is quite central to the story, isn't it? Uh whether it's films about team sports or books about team sport, the the team itself is often at the heart of the narrative. And in fact, that's how this book began because I started with uh the team itself. The research began with the team itself because that's that was the one aspect when I began the book that I knew something about. I knew that this was a team that featured Indians of different religious identities. I knew it was a team that had been captained by a prince. I also knew that India's most famous um sort of Dalit uh player, uh the Dalits are um a very sort of discriminated against community. They're regarded as the lowest, they were regarded as the lowest rung of India's caste system. Uh often lived, you know, they were treated very badly, they had to face all kinds of social discrimination, uh, uh a bit like the place of blacks in you know American society.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Through till today, the Dalits. Where are they in India?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Well, they're spread all over India, and uh the Dalit is a very politicized term. Um, there's you know, uh to reflect the community of you know, this vastly dispersed um community of those who were uh dispossessed, discriminated against, treated as uh to put it in uh quotation marks, untouchables. That that's what they were known. You know, these are people, these were people who are like beyond the pale of society.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Really? Yeah. What was this? So this is very fascinating to me, and sorry for interrupting you on it. I promise I won't be a continuing theme. Um, but I really know nothing about the caste system, only what a caricature view might be from the outside, that it exists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, could you what are some defining characteristics of this um Dalit that you were just uh speaking of? Like what what what was it that made them so untouchable?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Okay, so the basic principle was that of purity and pollution, right? These communities were regarded as being defined by certain forms of pollution, largely on account of the uh occupations that had been historically assigned to them. You know, they were often in villages, they were often assigned the most degrading tasks, you know, um uh skinning dead animals, um, sort of clean, you know, maintaining sanitary arrangements in the uh villages and so on. So they were, you know, the the the occupations that they were historically associated with were seen as polluting, and their presence was seen as somehow defiling the other communities, the other castes. And so the the Dalits were in a sense the most discriminated segment of Indian society. They were almost, in a sense, even beyond the pale of caste society. So the caste order has four elements, four rungs to it. So you have the Brahmins with sort of the priestly intellectual class at the top, and you have the kshatriyas with sort of the soldier uh, you know, warrior uh caste, then you have the Vaishyas with sort of the trading mercantile castes, and below that you have the Shudras who are the peasant castes. And the Dalits were actually regarded as even below the Shudras in some senses, because they were, you know, they were even below the peasantry, they were sort of they were regarded as communities that were beyond the pale of this caste system because of the kinds of activities, as I said, that they that they were historically associated with. So the uh famous uh Dalit cricketer in this team was basically uh a leather worker, and um he his family um had you know performed uh they came from a caste of leather workers, which was again because of its association with tannery and you know, with the uh uh tanning, was regarded as a polluting um um occupation because Hindus uh caste Hindus would regard it as a degrading profession. Right now, his father had played, his father had um his father and grandfather had served in the British Army, and that is how he was actually able to acquire a degree of social mobility. So so I knew some of these elements. I knew that there was um, you know, I knew something about the members of the team. Of course, it's only when I started doing the research that I I I came to know a lot more about you know the players themselves. But I began the book with the team, and what is of course very interesting about this team is that in a way it's it it represented all the different elements of Indian society.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Sorry everyone, at this stage my software that I record on Riverside.fm completely shat the bed. So unfortunately, we missed uh can't remember how much of it it was, but I think it was between five and ten minutes. However, where we pick back up, Prashant had finished making a point about how India was considered a geographical region and not in fact a country. Within the geographical region we know about India, it was in fact 20 plus smaller countries. And so again, with the overall theme of how cricket actually shaped the nation of India, I thought that was a fascinating place to go to. So I'm not sure exactly what was lost in between here and now, but this is where we pick back off. So you made the comment that um it was the English that uh considered India a geographical um uh uh place rather than a country itself. Was that also the way that India itself and the various people throughout India uh view themselves?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Excellent question, that. Yes, I mean what happens at this point is that the colonial authorities and the British in general view India, as I said, as a geographical expression. But this is also the period from the late 19th century onwards that Indians are beginning to acquire a nationalist consciousness and you begin to get the emergence of an Indian nationalist movement. And this nationalist movement begins to imagine India as a political entity. Now, at this point in time, I'm talking of the late 19th and early 20th century, this nationalist imagination is not yet one that uh requires India to be entirely independent of the British. That only happens after the uh after the end of the First World War, 1919 is a key turning point. Uh, you will recall that one of the most famous, infamous rather, episodes in the Indo-British uh relationship happens in uh April 1919 when you have a massacre at uh Jalian Bala Bagh in Amritsar uh following the uh actions of uh the British um uh soldiers and you know who fire on an Indian crowd um under General Dyer. Um now after that there's a growing sense amongst Indian nationalists that India's future lies outside the British Empire, and that's the view that Mahatma Gandhi increasingly comes to um express. Uh before 1914, however, patriotic Indians who harbored nationalist ideas did so within the framework of the British Empire. What they were really wanting is the kind of self-governing status that Australia and Canada had, you know, to be dominions which govern themselves but would be part of the empire. So that was what the nationalists wanted. And so this cricket tour and this the creation of this first Indian cricket team really happens in a context where India itself is being imagined politically, but the India that's being imagined politically is one that is seen as being part of the British Empire. And that is why this team and this tour is so interesting because it's conceived as a way of assuring the British that India is loyal to the Empire, India wants to be part of the empire, and what better proof of that could there be than creating a cricket team that would travel to Britain to play in Britain and express its uh adherence to British values. So the cricket, uh the imagining of the nation on the cricket pitch is happening side by side with the imagining of India on the political pitch. And one of the things that the book does is to look at the intersections between these two stories.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Yeah, and those two absolutely go hand in hand, right? If you're gonna prove that you um both respect the the empire um and can maybe prove your ability to coordinate yourself to be able to do it there. That that's very interesting. Um could forgive me if this is a little bit um of a sidebar, but what is the date where India goes from sort of the sort of unorganized subject of the East India Company to the uh subject of the British Empire? Like what is that crossover date?

SPEAKER_00 20:42

So what happens is that uh essentially India is governed by the English East India Company from about the mid-18th century um to the rebellion of 1857. Um so the English East India Company really transforms itself. They've of course been in India from the early 1600s, right? Because they got their charter to trade with India from Queen Elizabeth the last day of December 1600, and then they start trading with India and they have a monopoly. They're given a monopoly. Uh the royal charter is meant to establish their monopoly of trade with India. They stay as traders till the 1750s, and the 1740s, really, but it's it's in 1757 that they first conquer the province of Bengal and make the transition from being traders to political rulers. And then from 1757 to 1818, they conquer vast parts of India. So over that period from the mid 18th century to the early um uh sort of 19th century, the English East India Company transforms itself from a trading company into a political uh into the political rulers of India. And that continues until 1857, when suddenly you have this great rebellion, which starts as a military mutiny and then spreads to different sections of society in North India and Central India, and which almost leads to the overthrow of the British in the English East India Company. The English, of course, manage to hang on and um and then you know they they beat back the rebels and so on. But the price that the English East India Company pays for this the rebellion is that the British Crown directly takes over the rule of India after 1857. After the rebellion ends, the rule of the English East India Company ends, and then you have India is governed directly by the British Crown. And of course, by that point, by 1857, most of India has been unified under British rule, and that process continues in the late 19th century. And by the end of the 19th century, of course, while the British Empire in India is at its zenith, that is also the time in which a class that was created by British rule, which is English educated Indians, begin to gradually emerge in the uh major cities like uh Calcutta and Bombay and begin to express nationalist ideas. But as I said, this uh nationalist consciousness is one that doesn't demand the exit of the British from India. Rather, it sees British rule as generally being a good thing, but they argue that the British in India are not living up to the values that they practice at home. So they see the colonial government in India as not uh adhering to the best uh practices and values that are associated with the British in their own self-image and discourse. And and they basically their criticism is that you should give us that is give the educated Indians a greater say in running their own affairs, and eventually what we want is a form of self-rule, like the self-governing dominions have. And the story of the cricket tour uh intersects with this because in 1911, at the time that this tour happens, the relationship between the British and Indian, the educated nationalist class, had become very, very uh fractious. Um the period the years immediately preceding the tour had seen educated young people taking up the gun and the bomb and attacking individual British officials because they had become increasingly frustrated with uh the way the British ruled India and also felt increasingly that the only way of political change, of bringing about political change was through violence. And that is why this tour was put together by those Indian promoters who saw themselves as loyal British Indians who were loyal to the empire as a way of allaying the growing uh anxiety in both India and Britain about you know the future of India's place in the empire. And and these people said, look, if we can play cricket and we send a cricket team out to you to your country to kind of demonstrate our loyalty, then then you should take that um uh you know for what it represents and and and uh stop viewing all Indians with suspicion.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

I I just asked because um to make that uh point of whether India was a geographical expression or a bunch of myriad um small uh smaller sort of regional, I suppose, tribal uh people. Um was I was thinking, was it a sort of incentive from uh was that an easier way to manage or whatever, just as uh background, that's why uh I wanted to figure out. But that was a that was a great short history in actually the East India Company up until then. Take us to today. Um, does the modern Indian cricket team still broadly represent Indian society?

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Yes, um, I think it does. Um, but I would make uh two big qualifications. Um I think it does because in the cricket team does have people from different regions. Um it also has people from different religions. The two qualifications I would make is that it is still dominated by the middle classes to a large extent, and that includes, I would say, the lower middle classes too. So the middle class is a very elastic category. It doesn't have as many people, players from very poor backgrounds, as one might expect in a society like India, where you know uh levels of poverty in some parts of the country are quite high. You would imagine that you know that a country of India's size and that population, there would be more players from poor backgrounds. Uh, that is not as much as it might be. Of course, it's growing because the IPL has clearly shown that cricket is a very important and um significant route for social mobility, and there are more and more um sort of kids from deprived social backgrounds who are taking to the game and playing it and so on. But it's not, but it's still the the middle classes still dominate cricket, you know, as players, as administrators, as um consumers of the sport, uh, and as also the people who produce most of the discourse uh, you know, about cricket.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Or the media show.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Exactly. Um so class is still, you know, the the class dominance of the middle class uh still persists, even though I think one of the important features uh that we see uh over the last uh two decades is cricket growing, sort of uh, you know, attracting more people from less well-off backgrounds. Um, though I have to say they are still not the abject poor of which there are millions, you know. I mean, they are not uh they're still, I mean, most of those who are economically um um sort of from um uh poorer backgrounds, they're still they would still be from what one might call the lower middle class. I mean, we don't see as we don't see as many uh players from outright working class backgrounds, you know, or peasant backgrounds, for example.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

So working class is equivalent to peasant.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

No, uh, I mean the working class is urban, uh, the peasant is the rural category. We don't see uh cricketers who come directly from a peasant background or who have come from the very lowest element of the urban working classes, you know. Most of the uh less well-off cricketers still come from what one would regard as lower middle class families. Um and the other qualification is that alongside uh class, caste is the other uh sort of key um element of exclusion, which is that one of the interesting things uh in relation to my own book is that in this cricket team there were two players from what one might call Dalit communities, right? Um and both of them happen to be brothers, and two Dalits haven't played side by side for India ever since. We've had occasionally a Dalit cricketer has come up and played for India, but you can count their numbers, you know, so they're very on the fingers of one hand, they're very, very uh few, and certainly two Dalit cricketers haven't played simultaneously for India um since 1911. Now, just to imagine, put that in context, try and imagine a South African cricket team in which you wouldn't have had two black cricketers playing in the same team, you know. I mean, it's it's so so I think the absence of Dalit cricketers uh is is very significant to my mind. And one of the interesting things is that in this respect, I think it does map on to my earlier point about the class exclusion. So I think given that most Dalits are the ones who perform the continue to perform the lowest levels of you know the working class occupational spectrum on the working class occupational spectrum, and and they're the ones who perform the most demeaning uh or activities regarded as demeaning uh in Indian society, the fact that Dalits haven't, you know, that you don't have more Dalit players does suggest that there's this very significant, interesting overlap between caste and class, exclusion-wise. So so Indian cricket is diverse in so far as region and religion is concerned, less so when it comes to caste and class.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Yep. Um, is is Jasper at Boomer an exception to that? Uh, just because I remember when they toured Australia, there was a lot of talk about how he was from one of the lower classes. I'm just interested to see.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Um I'm I don't I'm not sure what Boomrah's uh caste status is, but I know that he comes from a um, you know, from what one might regard his background, I think, was he that from you know he was from the lower middle class, I would imagine. Um I don't think he comes from a working class background. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Interesting. Um it was just a quick qualifier I wanted to ask. Um would this is now more of a question of um the culture um within India? Would India celebrate a cricketer rising from the peasant class or the Dalit class who, despite the odds against him, or is it more the case of this like ugly side of things that no, they would in fact not want to see someone from that class join the prestigious ranks of a national cricketer? Um so is it a question of economics or is it a question of culture, basically?

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Well, I think that's a very, very interesting question. My answer would be that insofar as this hypothetical cricketer, Dalit cricketer, was to be successful and break into the ranks of the Indian cricket team, I believe they would be celebrated because um any story that is seen in terms of you know uh the overcoming of personal disabilities and making it and social disabilities and making it to a to the very top uh is one that exercises a very powerful hold over um the Indian imagination.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Okay. So you love the underdog.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Exactly. But many Indians are, I think, reluctant to consider, for example, affirmative action of the kind that South Africa did with black cricketers uh when it comes to you know um uh the inclusion of say Dalit cricketers in the Indian cricket team. Um, so there is this kind of uh situation in which individual Dalits who play for India and have risen uh to put it in quotation marks on the basis of their merit, uh, you know, overcoming social disabilities would be celebrated. So there would be no, there would not be any issue in in uh according them um respect and according them um praise and and and social approval. I think uh but when it comes to um addressing the systemic barriers that might prevent Dalit cricketers from playing for India, I think there there is a far greater resistance, largely because it is somehow seen as antithetical to the principle of merit. So, so you know, so that's why Indian uh India has not had affirmative action with regard to cricket in the way that South Africa has had, you know, with the inclusion of black cricketers in their cricket team.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah. I was actually surprised to hear you say that um the majority of the sort of uh national Indian cricket team would have come from this middle class. I was under the impression it would be very an elitist sort of uh section of society that would be the ones that end up in the national team just because of the economics of it, you know, sort of how expensive it might be to maintain a kit, to join a club, to travel around the country, to really show your chops. So it suggests that there actually is maybe a great domestic cricket program in India that does support people who might not otherwise be able to um afford to play cricket, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Yeah. You're right. I mean, uh cricket might if you know if to play it in its most uh formal um in its most formal uh settings, of course, would require a lot and in the most formal way, you know, with the right equipment and all of that, would require uh money. But cricket as it's played in the subcontinent is is is a popular street sport, you know, the way street football in Latin America is. So a lot of the cricketers from uh less well-off backgrounds, as I said earlier, are really these cricketers who come from what one would regard as lower middle class occupation. Very few of them, I suspect, come from genuinely working class uh backgrounds, you know, as sort of being employed as say factory workers or um and in fact, even factory workers today would probably be, you know, if you if you're in the formal sector, you're more like the lower middle class than like no disposable income type situation. Exactly. Yeah, there are, I mean, there are relatively few uh players like that who have played for India. I think the IPL teams may suggest that actually there are more of those coming through now. Um, but it's not a working class uh sort of the working class element, and certainly as I said, we've had very few who've come directly from peasant backgrounds or whatever, you know. So um so I think in that sense, um you class and caste, I think, are quite significant. Don't forget, too, that the uh you know, this elastic middle class can encompass up to 500 million people, you know. So you're talking of an you know, so you're talking of a very vast spectrum and and a very vast number in absolute terms.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

There's this um there's this superiority that the Australian uh media always gives whenever India tours Australia and we you know sort of come away with a winning in the series and they go, they've got a billion people. Surely they can find a wrist spinner, surely they can find a good opening bat. It's just hilarious how they say that. Um but you do make a good point. Yeah, 500 million people to choose from exceeds the 20 million in Australia or so forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We started off. The first question was how there was an Indian cricket team before there was even an idea of India. Um well, an idea, but at least a an a unified expression. Is it still the case today that India in India that it is cricket that is sort of the one thing that might glue people together uh as representation of India? Do people still say, and this is me, I've never absolutely fascinated in India, but I've never been there myself. But um, for example, you know, do you walk around and say, well, no, I'm you represent yourself by your region or by your religion. And even maybe if you were rubbing shoulders with people from other countries, you might not necessarily proudly say, no, I'm in fact an Indian. And it's just cricket where you say, no, I'm decisively Indian. So is it is that dynamic still at play or is that kind of weaned off a bit?

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Um, I would say that, you know, I mean, most it's it's a context-related question, I suppose. But most Indians would would see themselves as Indians um in ways other than just simply cricket. But there's no denying that cricket does provide a focal point for that sense of national identification and identity, uh, and that its appeal cuts across uh religion, um caste, region, language, because in all those, um along all those sort of um uh forms of identity, you have divisions, you know, and and yet cricket is the one thing that can get you know that can transcend these divisions in a way. And so it seems to me that uh you could say that cricket is a very powerful, if not the only or the exclusive form of national uh expressions of identity. It's certainly a very powerful one, and um and it does provide a focal point for some sense of national unity, uh, you know, which transcends many of the divisions that are otherwise in the news, you know. I mean, when you read about India, you're often reading about all the things that divide the country, but but cricket is certainly one of those elements that has acquired, it's not natural or innate to the sport, it is something that has happened through a historical process, and the beginnings of that process are what I trace in my book. But through the that historical process, the game has come to acquire a symbolic value in Indian society that allows it to become the focal point for national unity and a sense of nationhood and national identity. Um, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

To to to expand on that from a more broader perspective, um, how important is sport, right, at forming a cultural identity? I know this is something you've thought about um quite a bit. So I'd just be interested to hear um whether it's India specific or you pick it up somewhere else. I mean, you live in the United Kingdom, so you see it all around you. Um, you know, regionally people can be defined by the sport they follow. That's certainly the case in Australia. Um I think it's a fascinating question. The in how sport both yeah, is a form of nationalism, but then as well how it may form a culture.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Yes, and and I think the two are related, that the reason it is able to be a focal point for national identity is because of the cultural its cultural moorings and the and the and the symbol symbolic value that it has acquired as a form of cultural activity. Because sport, you know, in many ways um is a cultural activity, it's it's culturally produced um and culturally consumed. Um I think it's worth uh bearing in mind that sport can both serve as a unifying element, but it can also become a dividing element within society. I mean, if you take Indian cricket itself, it has it has served at various points to both bring together Indians and to divide them. And that's why uh if you read Ramachandra Guha's uh book, uh A Corner of a Foreign Field, which is about the history of Indian cricket uh in the 19th and 20th century, he makes this point that how cricket at various times has allowed Indians to come together, but it has also divided them on the basis of religion, uh, on the basis of caste, um, and uh on And and also because of the kinds of uh regional politics that that it can be uh caught up in. So I would not take it for granted that the nation is the only kind of identity that sport can foster. In fact, um that sport inevitably fosters cultural unities, it can also fracture societies. And we see this at various levels. I mean, you can think of the rivalries between, say, London football clubs, or you can, you know, all the great rivalries, um, sort of domestic rivalries that happen in sport. And of course, within the British Empire too. I mean, if you think of the Anglo-Australian relationship, you know, um, cricket was both a way of and sport in general was both a way of affirming the bonds between England and Australia, but also the divisions, you know. So I think sport can be both a unifying force, but it can also be a force that makes for um conflict and and dis and um internal dissension.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Can you give me an example of it being fractional? Because whilst it might be true that um people will uh care about their English Premier League teams, you know, to the point of having ruthless fights on the street, I forget Green Street Hooligans maybe was the movie. Um you know, about the sort of anyway. Um what but that they those people will still then get together and represent and then be proud to uh represent the England national team or the Welsh national team. Yeah. Is there examples of it being fractional at the at the national level, right? Or or are you just sort of saying that people can be so passionate about the sport as a defining um factor of their identity or of their culture that you know they would be willing to get into a fight with someone just because they follow a different team? But then yeah, uh does that question make sense? Uh an example of fractioning at the national level?

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Yeah, I mean, it there you you can answer it in terms of two different time periods. If you take um the colonial period, the most popular um cricket tournament in domestic cricket tournament in colonial India, the time when India was under British rule, was a tournament called the Bombay Pentangular. And the Bombay Pentangular was played between teams that were organized on religious lines. So remember I said earlier that cricket in late 19th century India evolved very much within the framework of sectarian identities, right? By the early 20th century, that had become formalized in this cricket tournament. So that was a cricket tournament in which you had a team called the Europeans, that were basically the white British uh elite, you had the Parsis, you had the Muslims, you had the Hindus, and from 1937 you had a team called the Rest, which included all the religions that were minorities. So basically the rest had Indian Christians, right? Um it had Buddhists, Jews, all the categories that didn't fit into the main religions came into this category of the rest. So, and this tournament was played until 1946, it was only abolished in 1946, on the eve of partition, because suddenly it became apparent to everyone that you couldn't have in an India, independent India, uh it would be in Congress to have a cricket tournament based on religious identity when India itself was moving towards the notion of a secular citizenship. Um, and the and the tone, and and there was a campaign launched against it by the Indian National Congress through the 1930s and 40s, which culminated in its abolition in 1946. And very swiftly, the players who had played against each other on religious lines fell into playing against each other uh for zonal regional cricket teams. After independence, you have another kind of example where these regional teams, you know, Delhi, Bombay, etc., each had their cricket team, would compete in the Ranji trophy, and those rivalries would be quite um fierce, and the followings of the different teams would also sort of be very fiercely committed to their teams. And yet these cricketers would come together and play for the Indian cricket team simultaneously. So it's a bit like Australians playing for their state teams and then coming together and playing for the national team. So that that obtains even in an Indian case. So uh so you could say that you know, uh you you have all these examples of cricket being both um you know played along sort of religious lines which tended to divide uh the populations and then lead to ugly situations, but you also had you know um the uh sort of the coming together of people who would otherwise be divided on the cricket pitch to play for the national team.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Yeah. Um I think I read this whilst researching your work, but I I could I can't be certain. Um but I read that uh increasingly uh the Indian cricket team is an expression of raucous hypernationalism. Yes. So do you agree with that statement? And if so, could you explain what that means?

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Yes, I mean I think there's little doubt that because of the association of uh the national cricket team in India with the nation itself, uh Team India as it has come to be known, is carries the weight of the nation on its shoulders. And this is accentuated by the fact that India doesn't perform all that well in many other sports, you know. We struggle to uh sort of compete in international tournaments like the Olympics and so on, and that leads to a lot of um internal uh sort of soul searching in India about why we are not competitive and so on. So cricket is one of the few sports in which India the Indian cricket you know the Indian cricket team uh is really uh a top team you know at the international level. Uh and that then means that there's a very close association between a sense of national pride and the cricket team, and and conversely, if the team loses a sense of you know uh national outpouring of grievance against the cricket team and so on. But that may have obtained at different points over the last 50 years or so. What has made things different in the last 20 years or so, to my mind, is the growing tensions between India and Pakistan have meant that cricket nationalism has played out very much, you know, through that relationship. And so the hypernationalism is really on display when India plays Pakistan. And Pakistan, of course, has had a very uh Pakistan and India have had a very difficult relationship over the last 20 years, lots of tensions, and cricket has become the vehicle for articulating and expressing many of those tensions. Um of course, cricket nationalism, a certain kind of hypernationalism is also on display when India plays Australia, which is regarded as the big rival, you know, of India in the international arena, cricketing arena.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

So there's an edge to the yeah, because India now So India views Australia as their main rival.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Yeah, yeah. I mean, to an extent South Africa, but it's really Australia. I mean, uh, and uh it has displayed uh you you know, I mean it uh Australia has displaced England, you know, England earlier used to be the team you had to beat because of the colonial relationship and so on. But that changed about 30 years ago. I think the last 30 years, Australia has since the early 1990s and certainly since the uh since the 2000s, Australia has emerged as the because Australia has been the dominant uh cricketing uh team, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Um had generational teams come through.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

Exactly. And and you know, Australia has since the decline of the West Indies, Australia has dominated the sport, and so now India, which fancies itself as you know as a cricketing superpower, and the Indian cricket team is constantly, you know, uh being exhorted to be the world number one, uh their main rival, cricketing rival is Australia, and England, of course, an important um uh sort of cricket team, and and you know, there is still a historical resonance uh to the Anglo-Indian um sort of rivalry, but it's no it doesn't have the edge that the rivalry with Australia has. But the hypernationalism is really manifest when India plays Pakistan, you know, that's where it ceases to be a sport, as Mike Marcuse you know famously said, you know, titled his book, it is War Minus the Shooting, you know. So there the cricket has really kind of um taken on this uh identity as a way of of of um sort of expressing India's national um hatred for Pakistan, and and you know I think that's where you see it uh most obviously.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

Yeah. Is there any truth to um this fact? I remember in the last one-day international World Cup where Pakistan versed India, it was the highest viewed television program of all time. Do you know if there's any truth to that?

SPEAKER_00 54:04

It's possible. It's possible.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

It's definitely possible. I just I just I just I I heard it said with such confidence. I wasn't sure.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

India-Pakistan matches have become so intense uh in the emotions they arouse. And and the thing is, it's not that I mean, there are still many liberal Indian fans who look at this with distaste and who would like it just to be about sport, but their voices are drowned out by this much larger collective uh sense of you know that Pakistan has to be shown its place, and cricket pitch is one place you do that, you know, and and uh and and and of course every time the relationship hits a new low in terms of you know their mutual um the international in the international arena, whenever there are tensions between India and Pakistan, uh cricket always comes into the picture because the question is always asked, you know, should we be playing cricket with them? Uh I think Pakistani cricketers are no longer seen in the IPL. Um, you know, uh so there are all sorts of ways in which uh interesting.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

Okay, so that's a fascinating um angle there. Yeah, that's at its uh most manifest. A free market domestic league that accepts players from all across the world will say no to their direct neighbors despite the fact that some of the best cricketers in the world, purely on political grounds.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Yeah, yeah. And and and and that and that that indicates how intense the um Yeah, I had no idea about that.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

That needs to be a more widely spoken about fact, because that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Yeah, and and I think um, you know, India and Pakistan um, you know, don't travel to each other's countries to play cricket anymore. Um it's not safe to do that.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Australia only just decided to go.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Yeah, exactly. And and you know, and so uh the only time you watch them play then uh is in international tournaments, and precisely because those occasions have now become so rare that each time it happens, there's a huge political symbolism that it accrues. I mean, you know, had the relationship been normal, had they played each other regularly, each individual match would not acquire this level of emotional um sort of uh meaning and emotional investment and symbolic meanings that you know that it now has, you know. So, and and because now they play in international tournaments, and usually there are consequences for those matches, you know, in terms of you know one team may get knocked out, or you know, uh it one team may not be able to progress in a tournament and so on. So these matches then you know become important in sporting terms, but all the wider interpretation is, I guess, the backdrop of this very uh antagonistic relationship that has evolved in the last uh three decades.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

If we're gonna be talking about the role of um cricket in spurring nationalism and the role of popularity of these guys in there, we spoke off air before Bavirat Colleen Sash and Tendulka. Sasha is sort of almost a caricature, it's cliche now to say he's a godlike figure. Um Imran Khan is the president of Pakistan who's a very, very famous cricketer pre-minister, sorry. And uh something I've loved doing over the recent days is reading in between his tweets on the Russia-Ukraine war and then you know an update on the flat pitch in Karachi. I think it's really it's been like funny to see that dynamic side by side. But if you think about the popularity of Imran Khan, who you know is, I think you can I'll take this argument against anyone who wants, but um, he's an enormously corrupt man uh and is in charge of um a nuclear state who has extremely hostile neighbours uh to its right. It's quite hostile. And he's a cricketer, right? He's he's not a he's not a diplomat, he's not a politician. Anyway, so that's just uh I think a very tangible expression of the role that cricket can play in a society, and you know, it's almost like the celebrity in America, you know, their most sort of admonished figure who can become now uh into their political uh stratospheres. In in Pakistan is Imran Khan. In India, why has there not been a cricketer who's risen into the political ranks yet? Um, or at least all the way to the top, because it seems like in a country that worships the cricketers, they might be able to ride off a wave of populism to get in.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Um It's an interesting question because in India uh you have had cricketers who have joined politics. Um just in recent times, we've had Navjot Singh Siddhu, who was um in the Congress party. He's just had to step down as the um leader of one of the Congress's provincial um state level units, um, because of his eccentric behavior.

SPEAKER_02 59:16

Well, what's the eccentric behavior?

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Give us a well he was president of the Punjab State Congress uh party, and he was supposed to lead the party in the recently concluded elections, and he spent much of his time trashing his own party and and has just uh he's just uh been asked to resign and has his first statement after resigning is to praise the opposition party that won, saying, you know, um sort of congratulating them, which is fine, but also somehow implying in his congratulatory message that his own party had not ruled the state very well, which may have you know may well be true, but the fact is if you are in politics and you're trashing your own side and and appraising the other side, you have to think that's a bit odd. Um, and of course, he's had other sort of very uh sort of very eccentric forms of behavior, really. Um you've had uh Gautam Gambhir, who's uh joined the BJP, uh in and he is in uh in politics and he's a member of parliament and so on. So you've had you've had you know cricketers joining as uh you know uh various parties and so on. But you're right, none of them has kind of risen to the top of their parties. It may well happen down the line, but it hasn't happened thus far. What's more interesting, of course, is that in the Indian case, it's politicians who have taken to cricket. So all the state units are essentially cricket when it comes to you know all the constant elements of the uh BCCI, the Board of Uh Control for Cricket in India. All of them are career politicians who've taken to investing in cricket, you know, uh as patrons and promoters and so on, have institutional power, and uh, you know, are are basically running the game. Uh, in fact, the present BCCI chief is the son of India's home minister.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

So it's the and and it's not only his uh an accusation of nepotism there, or is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

No, I'm I'm just saying that it it's uh uh well nepotism may may well be involved, uh and is probably involved, but the um the question, the point is that you know, um for for decades now uh Indian politicians have been investing in cricket um and have been acquiring positions of power and prestige within it, you know. Um I think the uh current dispensation um is is in this sense at least uh in a tradition that is that that goes back uh over a much longer period of time. Um and it's of course very problematic.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

Um so so in India it's really the politicians who've taken over cricket, um and and especially when it's um I just want to get a quick word in uh not word in, I want to get a quick word from you uh about some of the neighboring countries as well. Um and uh you know please don't go too deep into it. But just a word on Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, whether what everything we're saying about um cricket's history in India is relatively mappable onto their experiences with it as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Um well, I think at one level there's no doubt that the popular passion and investment in cricket is a common strand that ties together all these different countries. Um and that is very much an outcome of a long historical process because in all these I mean, of course, India and Pakistan and Bangladesh were one unified subcontinent before partition before 1971. Um and and cricket was popular in in all these places through the colonial period, and that goes for Sri Lanka too. I think what is also undeniable as a common strand is the fact that the middle classes have dominated the sport in all of these countries, you know, and and that has to do with the kind of institutional structure which they all share with Indian cricket, you know, the fact that there's a very well-established network of schools, cricket, college cricket, um, city-based cricket, etc., which allows you know the spotting of talent and the promotion of the game and so on. Um and and the middle classes have historically dominated this, and I would imagine that is the case even to this, to this day. Um, like in India, I think the game is now, I mean, Pakistan, it seems to me, of all these countries, Pakistan and and uh Sri Lanka, it seems to me, have uh, but Pakistan in particular, it seems to me, does attract cricketers from very plebeian backgrounds. Um, and I would imagine plebeian backgrounds, you know, people yeah. I mean, I and I would imagine that this is also true to an extent of Bangladesh, you know, uh people who come from either the countryside or people who are from the working classes, I think much more so than India, I would imagine. But there's no doubt that the middle classes in all these places have institutionally dominated the game, you know, when it comes to the institutional organization of the game. Uh, the third strand that is common to all these places is that cricket historically has been about more than just a sport, it has been very closely tied up with political identity and particularly national identity. I think cricket is very central to Pakistan's national identity. I mean, they even have a prime minister who's a former cricketer. Cricket is very central to Sri Lankan identity and to Bangladeshi identity, increasingly. So I would say cricket is very central to political identity and especially national identity in all these contexts, and that is something they share again with India. Where they differ, of course, is a the sheer level of money that India now commands because of its the size of its economy and its dominance of the global game. I think India is far ahead, you know, when it comes to the resources that it has because of the size of its market. And I think that size is a very significant differentiator, you know, between India on the one hand and these other countries, which are much smaller, um, because it Means India has a mar a larger cricketing fan base, it has a larger market, it has a much larger pool of talent to draw on. And of course, it plays at a very global level. I mean, it's a key player in global cricket, you know. Um, so so that's where I think India is is different from these other countries.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

It's funny you say how they're you know much smaller in comparison to the behemoth of India, they are much smaller. But I think Bangladesh is what, 160 million people, Pakistan, 200 million.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

I mean, I was I was talking relatively I mean compared to India, most places uh seem small.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

Yes, no, I was talking about compared to India, we're all tiny countries apart from Europe.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

I mean when you have 1.3 billion in one case, then everyone else seems like you know, sort of uh they're smaller. So, yes, no, I was talking largely in the Asian media.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

Yeah, um I know that we have ventured away from a direct discussion about the first Indian cricket team, but uh for me at least, the most fascinating part was the sort of cultural uh meta theme that underwrote the the entire book, which is why my questions are mostly uh to do with this. Um I really don't understand the well, I understand it, you know, as it's written down, but I've never experienced it, this sort of caste system. We're living in a society where you you you do have definitive characteristics that you're born with that aren't well actually in some cases they are physically manifest, but in in most cases I suppose not. It's more of a cultural thing. Is does cricket transcend class, or is it just another way to represent class?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

I I I think that um because the markers of class have also significantly changed over the last 30 years since liberalization, I think that has had an impact on spectatorship uh and uh the practices of viewing. I think uh earlier on, when cricket was not televised so much, and the only way to watch it was to go and watch it in a stadium, um it was much more of a collective uh physical experience which took place on the ground itself. What television has done is created a curious sort of contradictory logic. On the one hand, people watch it in their homes or collectively in little groups, maybe in clubs and so on, too. And that is very much segmented by class. Because if you're watching a cricket match at say the Cricket Club of India or you're watching it in the Taj Mahal Hotel, that's a very different experience from watching it in a you know uh in a working class tenement, you know. Uh so the at one level, then that viewing experience is segmented by class, but on the other hand, because the focus of the spectatorship is the Indian cricket team, and now increasingly you also have these IPL teams that have emerged as the focus of loyalty, there is nonetheless some sense of a collective entity that transcends class, you know. So whether you're a rich person or a poor person, you're following India, you might be watching it in your one-room uh sort of uh working class tenement, and you might be watching it, someone else might be watching it in a five-star hotel, but you're still watching the same team, and you still see yourself as belonging, you know, as um that team is seen to represent both of you in a sense, you know. Um, so there's this contradictory logic where at one level there's a segmentation by class, but on the other hand, there's a the creation of a collective following that transcends class and is invested in this cricket team that is supposed to be above class and above you know every other kind of identity because it's the national team, you know. So it's it's so there is this uh contradictory logic. Whereas earlier, I think, um before the age of television, before the mid-1970s, really, you know, uh you watched cricket uh a test match at the ground, and that was a very collective experience, but it was not a collective experience that you were able to share with um others uh you know who might be listening to it on the on radio and so on, or who might read about it. But uh you don't have this the the uh this simultaneity that you have now, you know, of this on the one hand this segmented viewing experience, and on the other hand, this collective investment and this collective experience. I think it was much more um uh sequential in that you know you would watch the match at the ground, but you know, others who couldn't watch it would only participate in that collective experience at a distance and afterwards, usually, you know, by reading about it and so on. So I think the nature of technology, the nature of uh you know, um, the economic transformation that had happened over the last 30 years and so on has introduced new kinds of contradictions into this whole process, you know, and that's the difference between the post-1970s, you know, the last that's the difference between the last 50 years and what happened before.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

Uh a very cricketing-related question. So um in Australia, the sense is very much that uh 2020 and even largely one-day cricket is sort of pajama cricket, it's colour cricket, it's you know, you don't really pay attention to it, the c the result is inconsequential, it's just there for your entertainment. And the only contest that matters is Test cricket. Um, I think the United Kingdom have the same view. I I would love to know how India thinks about it, especially given the fact that the IPL is such a roaring success. Um does that question make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:08

Yes, of course. Okay, yeah, and I would say in India for the cricket watching public, the IPL and T20, the fastest form of the game, is undoubtedly now the most uh watched and most popular, you know. Um one-day cricket of the 50 overs kind uh it's still popular, but it is less popular, I suspect, than T20 cricket. And test cricket uh doesn't attract as many player uh uh watchers to the grounds, it may be watched on television, but it doesn't attract as many people um to the cricket ground the way a T20 match or a 50 overs limited overs game does. Um but Indians because they're invested in the game so much uh follow all three um when you know not in terms of watching, but they're invested in all three in terms of India's performance. So, you know, so if India does well in a test match series like it did in Australia last, you know, the year winter before last, you know, that's a huge uh occasion for celebration. Um so so in you know, so so let me just rephrase that. I think Indians want the Indian cricket team to do well in all three formats, um, and the success of the Indian cricket team in all these formats is closely followed, but that doesn't necessarily, as I said, translate into the kind of viewership that each format um gets. So, test cricket, you know, you can go to test matches now and grounds will be half empty, you know. Um the crowds largely tend to go for these the shorter versions of the game, especially the shortest one. And that is meant also that you know the T20 format has also meant that more women, for example, are going to cricket because people can now go and watch the game after they finished work, they're going to it as a family thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:21

Oh, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:22

Yeah, so it's become much more of a family uh occasion and so on. Though, of course, the ticket prices and also mean that you know it's largely middle class people again who tend to dominate, I suspect. Um, you know, because if you're a poor person, it would be a huge outlay, and so you'd much rather watch it on television. Uh, for the players themselves, I think test cricket is the most valued format. Um, most of the Indian players uh who express their opinions on these things make it very clear that they regard their performance in test cricket to be the most important. And you know, and while obviously they they're invested in T20 and so on, I think um it's test cricket that they really want to show their metal in. Though the most money that they earn, the the money that they earn mostly comes from IPL cricket. And so obviously that's yeah, it's the same for the Australian cricketers.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:15

I mean, this is the same for cricketers are in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

Yeah, so I think in a curious way it's it's the 50 over game that has now become a little more diffuse in this regard. I don't agree. You know, it's Test cricket and T20 that kind of that the players themselves seem to be most invested in.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:29

Yeah. Um okay, one final question on this theme, and then I'd like to ask you two questions that I try to ask every guest. There is this famous line that cricket is an Indian game accidentally invented by the English. And so although cricket in India doesn't represent um what the English might think it is, it is still a very clear wound on India as the former English occupancy of the country, as you could say similarly in Australia, South Africa, and all the Commonwealth, the West Indies, all the Commonwealth countries. Um is there any other hangovers that England left behind that still permeates through the Indian culture?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:19

You mean other than cricket?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:21

Other than cricket. Because cricket's so you know blaringly obvious.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:42

So even though English is not formally our national language, it is still by far the most used common means of communication. Yeah. I mean Hindi is our national language, but a lot of the southern states don't speak it and they uh are you know they react uh very um badly to the suggestion that they should all speak and and communicate in Hindi. And and so English by default has emerged as the language in which uh most Indians communicate. And also, of course, it's a key marker of social prestige and so on. So if you know fluency in English translates into a great deal of social capital, and which is why it is highly sought after, you know. So I would imagine then, you know, other than cricket, English would be the um big hangover, if you will, that colonialism is left behind.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:33

Okay, Prashant, the final two questions. Number one, can you tell me a country that looking into the future you're particularly bullish on?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

And particularly bullish on. That is a good question. Um It's a hard question to answer because so many countries seem to be having difficulties at this point in time. Um I have to think really. Um I like to think you know, a country that has very few um pretensions to being a great power um wants to ensure a basic level of dignity to its citizens. I don't know, maybe a place like Canada, I don't know. I mean, you know, funny, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:27

Yeah. It's the most popular answer, Canada.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

Because I just think that all the countries that want to be great powers end up, you know, uh screwing everyone over and um uh you know, um I'd have liked to have said India, but you know, India is you know, things have been quite rough these last few uh years and um you know, on lots of uh sort of criteria I think India has slipped up, so you know um I mean I I would still say that you know part of me b believes that you know that we will emerge out of this and so on, but at the moment things look very bleak.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:15

Finally, Prashant, my favorite question, and this is if you could listen to a conversation, so a podcast, between any two people of history, dead or alive, no language barriers, who do you want to listen to?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:28

Oh god, I'm really bad at this sort of question. Um a conversation between two historical figures, you say, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:38

No, anyone. Anyone it could be your mum and dad.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:45

Um I'm not sure of that, um, thankfully. Um I'm trying to think uh who would I perhaps yes, I would perhaps be interested in you know um conversations between I'm trying to think whether I should restrict my answer to cricket or whether I should widen it. Um obviously it has to be someone that I haven't heard before, you know, because that gives you a sense of something, you know, that you might learn something that that you didn't otherwise know. Um I guess I might be interested in conversations between Jinnah and Gandhi. I'd be very interested in what you know they said to each other and because they were both sort of um from Western India and they were both they'd both been to England and so on. And I'd be very interested, and of course they go on to found nations, but I'd be very interested in overhearing a conversation between the two of them, even though I could sort of predict the kind of things they may say to each other, but I think it would be interesting to have a chance to actually listen to a conversation between those two.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:16

Amazing. That'd be fantastic. The first entrance for them both uh on the list. Um is Gandhi considered the father of India?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:26

Oh, really? Fascinating, cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:28

He's the father of the Indian nation, and Jinnah is the father of Pakistan.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:32

And amazing. Yeah, I mean, of course, um you do have their political writings, and you know, that would have that gives one a flavour of their political positions, but I still think a conversation between these two, you know, um would be quite interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:53

For sure. Yeah. Well, Prashant, thank you so much. We've covered the role of uh cricket in the in the in in how it we've we've covered top to bottom how cricket is a plays a part in the culture of India. Um yeah, I will leave links obviously in the description to Cricket Country. I think it's fantastic. Thank you so much, mate. I really um appreciate you giving me the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:20

Thank you so much, Ryan, and um it's a real pleasure having the chance to talk about the book and much else besides, and uh really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:29

Well, thank you again, Prashant. Um really, really, really enjoyed it, and uh could a hundred percent uh do it again deeper and further the more that I learn. Um if anyone happened to watch this on YouTube, then you will have seen how deathly sick that I looked. I was deep into a flu during the recording of this. I had such low energy. But hopefully it didn't affect Perchance uh that much or at all. Um but it means that I definitely left something on the table. But I what like I said at the beginning in the introduction, I want to do more podcasts on this theme. I spoke briefly with Tim Butcher before we recorded about it specifically. That's a subject that is very close to him as well. He's trying to work on at the moment, sort of magnum opus on nationalism. What is it that creates cultural identity? But you know, for the more the role of sport as a way to identify yourself within a culture just runs so deep. And anyone who knows Sydney well understands the difference between someone into NRL versus someone into rugby, or maybe even if you're perhaps one of the weirdos who likes AFL. I imagine much of this has a similar application across the world. Whether you're in Boston, whether you're in London, whether you're in Amsterdam, whether you're in Ulombata, Mongolia. Who knows? Um the role that sport plays and sort of athleticism plays in forming cultural identity. So, what is my ambition for this podcast? Dear listener, it is very simple. My hope is to corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities in whatever country it is you're listening in from. So, what does that mean? How does that actually play out in real life? It means that hopefully I continue to produce the podcasts that I'm doing now, and they steadily become better and better and better as I become hopefully a better listener and a better uh question asker, and uh can get more and more out of the guests. That's my hope. Uh on the other side of it. I hope you, my dear listener, enjoys it and uh feels comfortable reviewing the show because that is really the only way that the show can see any sort of growth because the indexing for podcasts is completely broken. The one thing that they look at is reviews. There isn't like organic search that you might have on YouTube or Google or elsewhere where you can kind of serendipitously come across a show and it has to be recommended to you, or it has to um you get so lucky that one of the guests was someone you're directly interested in. So leave reviews. Pump that good juice into the algorithm. I'm talking Spotify five stars, Apple five stars, all of it five stars across the board. Get your friends, families, girlfriends, boyfriends, kids, colleagues, comrades, anyone who you come across, pull out their phone, leave reviews for the Curious Well Food podcast. That would make all the difference in the world. And thank you very much for listening. See you next time.