Cricket And Politics In Colonial India - )

Past & Present, Nov, 1998 by Ramachandra Guha

I

NATIVE CRICKET VERSUS EUROPEAN POLO

In October 1881, four years before the Indian National Congress was formed to advance the political rights of a subject population, a petition addressed to the Governor of Bombay defended the sporting rights of the Indians of the city. The sportsmen appealed (as the Congressmen would) to the principles of fair play and justice so often forgotten in the colonies. The petitioners began by recalling:

   That ever since the introduction of the noble game of cricket among the
   natives of Bombay nearly twenty years ago, they have been uninterruptedly
   in the habit of playing the game on the Esplanade known as the Parade
   ground.

   That there are more than five hundred young men of all ages and of all
   castes who pursue this healthful sport on the Parade ground where alone
   they are permitted to play and which is the only ground suitable for
   cricket.

The prospects for native cricket had, however, recently been threatened by a two-pronged attack by European sportsmen. On the one side, the all-white Bombay Gymkhana had stealthily cordoned off one-third of the Esplanade to better protect and maintain its cricket grounds; on the other, the Gymkhana's polo-playing members were in the habit of colonizing the unenclosed open space every Tuesday and Friday, pushing the cricketers off the terrain. The displaced Indians thought it `a little unfair':

   that the comforts and convenience of the half-a-dozen gentlemen, who
   generally play polo, should be preferred to the necessary healthful
   recreation of over five hundred native youths, still for the sake of the
   respect due to the ruling race and to high officials and rather than
   trespass upon your Excellency's valuable time, your Petitioners would
   cheerfully forego their games for two evenings in the week, were it not for
   the fact that the polo ponies completely ruin the turf and render the
   ground unsuited to cricket. Your Petitioners need scarcely remind your
   Excellency in Council how much good cricket depends upon the state of the
   turf, and if any proof of the fact were wanted it would be furnished by the
   circumstance that the [Bombay] Gymkhana carefully preserves its own cricket
   field from being trampled upon by the ponies and even by passers by.

A technical complaint was thus added to a straightforward racial one. The petitioners asked:

   under the circumstances above narrated and in consideration of the
   necessity for healthful exercise and recreation such as cricket affords to
   the young men of this over-crowded city, your Excellency in Council will be
   pleased to request the Bombay Gymkhana to play polo on some other spot, or
   to allow your Petitioners to play along with themselves on the ground at
   present reserved for the exclusive use of the Gymkhana cricketers and which
   is much too large for their requirements.(1)

In the end, the tone of deference cast away, the petitioners made a daring claim for the cricket facilities of the Bombay Gymkhana. Six months later, and after several supplementary petitions, the Governor acceded to the lesser of their demands. Instructions were issued `to permit the Native Cricketers to use the Esplanade Parade Ground when not required by Government for military or other purposes', haughtily conceding that native cricket might take precedence over European polo. The polo players struck back a year later, when a Government Order passed at their urging explicitly allowed polo on the disputed ground two days a week -- this a victory of `the most powerful European gentlemen', `all hot-burning with the fire of prestige', over `the weak and pigmy [native] cricketers with absolutely no influence or importance'. But when a new Governor, Lord Harris, arrived from England in 1891, the pigmies rose again. Over a thousand cricketers -- Hindus, Muslims and Parsis -- sent him a letter, which after outlining the history of the controversy, asked pointedly if this transgression would be allowed in cricket's original home. They knew Harris to be a famous cricketer, a former captain of England and a pillar of London's Marylebone Cricket Club.(2) The cricketers of Bombay, noted the petition, `fully believe that your Excellency is fully aware that even in England there are vast grounds reserved for cricket alone and the very idea of the turf being spoilt by the polo ponies would not be for a moment tolerated by the authorities' (or indeed, by the cricketers).(3)

Harris, cricketer and authority, deftly defused the situation by diverting land newly reclaimed from the sea for the exclusive use of native cricketers. This was divided up into three plots, one apiece for the Parsi, Hindu and Islam Gymkhanas, placating the major religious groupings of the city. The struggle between (European) polo and (Indian) cricket thus resolved, the historian of the conflict drew this sombre conclusion: `No Government, and no governing class in the world, ever gave to the governed voluntarily, readily, or cheerfully any rights or privileges which in fairness belonged to them. These are always, as history teaches us, obtained after struggles of more or less persistency'.(4)