Playing it the nation’s way: tradition, cosmopolitanism, and the native-masculine of Hindi sports films

ABSTRACT

The generic popularity of Hindi sports films has been overwhelming in recent years. The article examines this genre of Hindi films through the thematic construction of the sports‘man’ and its evolutionary manifestation from a masculine figure symbolising India’s national unitarian ethos to a megalithic, tradition-backed, orthodox patriarchy post-2010s. It elaborates this seemingly linear transformation through decade based phases, starting from the social-emancipatory athletic phenomenon of the pre-globalisation era to the neoliberal Hindi sports films of the early millennial phase. The study then explores the slow dissolution of the ‘composite masculinity’ that considered the ethnic variegation of Indian nationalism, and the emergence of sporting cinema on patriarchal and athletic superheroes. The article further discusses how it was nurtured within deeply insular, and ethno-religious gaming traditions of antiquity like the akhara wrestling, in fictional/biographical sports films like Sultan (Zafar 2016) and Dangal (Tiwari 2016). While commenting on this transformation of the ‘national athlete’ into the ‘heritage’s surrogate’, the article attempts to provide a detailed methodology of understanding the expanding canon of Hindi sports films so far and how it aligns itself with the re-ethnicisation of India’s polity in the last two decades.

KEYWORDS:

• Sports films
• nation-building
• athletic masculinity
• Sultan
• Dangal
• re-ethnicization
• neo-nationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The akhara is the Indian sub-continental term for a gymnasium, the history of which is steeped in mytho-religious tradition. Traditionally constructed outdoors with an abundance of natural elements (earth, air, water, and trees), this space is utilised throughout South Asia for practicing indigenous forms of martial arts and other exercises (Alter 1993).

2 We are talking about the resurgence of the ultra-nationalist, conservative bent of national politics especially after 2014. Ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the popular psyche of India is undergoing a paradigm shift characterised by unitarian politics, populist patriotism and political/ethnic othering. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data has observed an upward trend of communally violent incidents from the mid-2010s, with 2020 witnessing an increase of such events by12.2% (Jacob 2021)

3 The very signification of the term decolonial, according to Anibal Quijano and Walter D. Mignolo, comes with an innate struggle of delinking the post-colonial from abstract universals which attempt to replace the existing ones (Quijano 2007; Mignolo 2007, 500). In the case of ethnic sports cultures in India, Hindu majoritarianism re-surfaced as the controlling national ethos supplanting British colonialism, impairing the attributes of decoloniality.

4 Although a pan-genre tendency abounding military, historical epic and family romance, the sporting narratives during the post millennial years have ‘been ascribed the symbolic power to put a place ‘on the map’’, frequently factoring into nationalist myths of strong nationhood (Koch 2013, 43).

5 This also underlies the fact that what gets normalised in mainstream Bollywood is the ‘visual, emotional, and cultural iconography of a broad-based North Indian experience’ (Mazumdar 2007, 42), simulated as the national experience.

6 Anti-Mandal sentiments indicate the Indian upper-caste populace’s displeasure (Balagopal 1990) with the Mandal Committee recommendations of 1989 that introduced 27% job reservation for the members of the Other Backward Communities (OBCs) in India in the Central government and public sector undertakings.

7 ‘Vidya Sharma (Vidya Malvade), the team captain stands up to her conservative in laws, while Preeti Sabarwal (SagarikaGhatge), one of the best players, turns down her fiancé’s (who also happens to be the glamorous vice-captain of the Indian cricket team) public marriage proposal’ (Banerjee 2016, 85)

8 This can be directly associated with Mahmood Mamdani's categorisation of ‘good Muslims’ and ‘bad Muslims’: ‘‘good Muslims’ were anxious to clear their names and consequences of this horrible crime [9/11] and would undoubtedly support ‘us’ in a war against ‘them.’ But this could not hide the central message of such discourse: unless proved to be ‘good,’ every Muslim was presumed to be ‘bad.’’ (2005, 15)

9 Panga (Tiwari 2020), based on the successful comeback of a former Kabaddi player, Jaya Nigam (Kangana Ranaut), is another example from the contemporary Bollywood sports films, where the sportswomen is bred within deeply nativised reinvented sporting cultures like Kabaddi and the validation for her athletic career stems only through the accord and benevolence of her family. Much like the Dangal girls, Jaya’s fitness is important for the masculine state, but one that is regimented by either native or familial conventions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pooja Radhakrishnan

Pooja Radhakrishnan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Ropar, Punjab, India. She works in the area of film studies with a focus on post-independence Hindi popular cinema. She takes a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses the field of film sociology, history, urban studies, spatial politics and postcolonial studies. She has presented papers in international conferences and published book chapters.

Dibyakusum Ray

Dibyakusum Ray is an Assistant Professor in English at the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Ropar, Punjab, India. He works mostly in two branches – speculative fiction and popular culture. Among his other publications, the monograph Postcolonial Indian City-Literature: Policy, Politics and Evolution has been published in 2022 by Routledge.