In pre-independence India, while hockey players have invariably been Anglo-Indians, Muslims, Sikhs and tribals, Indian football was enthusiastically embraced only by the elite sections of society. The immortal IFA Shield winning Mohun Bagan team of 1911 had Hiralal Mukherjee, Bhuti Sukul, Sudhir Chatterjee, Manmohan Mukherjee, Rajen Sengupta, Nilmadhav Bhattacharya, Kanu Roy, Habul Sarkar, Abhilash Ghosh, Bijoydas Bhaduri, Shibdas Bhaduri who belonged to the bhadralok (gentleman) community in the pre-independence India.
The failure of hockey is a sign of the inability of the nation to accommodate its minorities. But it remains a mystery as to why football has also failed at the national level. As in the case of hockey, the game flourished in the immediate aftermath of independence, with tournaments like IFA Shield, Rovers Cup and Durand Cup attracted large crowds and featured clubs from all over the country. Many of these teams -- Andhra Pradesh Police, Punjab Police, BSF to the recent Kerala Police -- were great teams that fielded players of the highest calibre.
However, the fact that most of these teams were government-sponsored and not locally supported clubs suggests that the game was not organic to the areas these clubs were based in. When state patronage began to wane, these teams disintegrated rapidly. Another reason to this theory could be the localization of football in just two states -- Bengal and Goa.
With all the interest generated by EPL and Champions League, why football couldn’t spread beyond this limited geography, remains a big mystery. The very manner by which football became a popular sport in these states proved to be an impediment for further growth. Interestingly, in the case of Bengal, football became a tool which was used to construct a modern Bengali identity in the wake of the large influx of immigrants from East Pakistan now (Bangladesh) after Partition in 1947.
Bengalis devoted their time and energy more in a East Bengal and Mohun Bagan rivalry than just dedicating towards a greater programme to find out talents and popularise the game beyond Bengal. All this meant that football was totally internal to the cultural system and couldn’t capture a significant portion of the market in the new economy. Globalization has caused its appeal to diminish even in Calcutta.
In Goa too, football was used to construct ethnic identity. Once again, the game remained restricted to a small region. Why football has failed to spread wholeheartedly in India? How is it that a sport that elicits so much passion in one Indian state fails to do so in another? To be honest, there is little literature on Indian football and also how different ethnic groups impact on each other. In fact, the mystery surrounding the collapse of football could be better elucidated if we possessed a theoretical framework for analysing such phenomena.
Thats a interesting and thoughtful post. Keep it up !
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