Who are these Australian fellows with ‘Grim determination and astounding stamina’?

Abstract

In light of the absence of living participants, this article extrapolates what the Australian cricketers departing on the inaugural cricket tour of India in 1935 may have known about late colonial-era India. This article argues that the depiction of India by the British Empire was a consciously evoked and celebrated construct perpetuated by orthodox ideology and popular culture. Through a close analysis of press reportage it is determined that the Australian public, and the departing cricketers, were ignorant of accurate knowledge of Indian culture and politics. The Australian media’s portrayal of Kipling’s writings, Indian religious practices and Indian cinema is compared with the cricketers’ response to these themes. Correspondingly, the Indian communities’ knowledge of Australia through evaluating the, at times, propagandistic promotional material generated for the tour is also critiqued. It is argued that representations of the Australian cricketers and the populist depiction of Indian culture are correspondingly implausible and driven by idealized expectations and stereotypes of national identity.

Notes

1. No primary material exists detailing the players’ expectations beyond the quote by Hendry so the press and popular culture has been perused to evaluate their potential awareness of India.

2. Harold Larwood was a professional English fast bowler and considered to combine a deadly combination of speed and accuracy. Although it is rather surprising that Leather is compared to Larwood, as the Englishman’s contribution to the Bodyline series made him an unpopular figure in Australian popular culture, the magazine reflects an Indian perspective.

3. The Golden Age of Cricket ran from the 1895 season to the outbreak of World War I. This period symbolized ‘the very essence of English, Victorian society and the promotion of white, Anglo-Saxon values’ (Allen 2012, 209).

4. A topee (abbreviation of sola topi) is a sun hat made from sola plants, commonly worn in the colonized East.

5. A search of ‘India, illness and disease’ in the 1930s in Trove brings up 3123 entries.

6. Enteric fever (of which Typhoid is a type) is a potentially life threatening bacterial infection.

7. Hugh Trumble was an Australian Test cricketer and secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club.

8. In 1929, the infection was responsible for 949 deaths (Wickens 1930, 350) and in 1935 it caused the demise of 481 Australians (Wilson 1936, 331).

9. First published in book form in 1901.

10. Tom Leather’s school records reveal that religious education was an important component of the curriculum.

11. Lankina and Getachew use the term ‘religious entrepreneurs’ to describe Christian missionaries in India. Tarrant’s role in cricket can be perceived in a similar light (2013, 105).

12. Gray was an Australian cricket aficionado who accompanied the team.

13. Leather’s school report observes his ‘attendance’ was ‘poor’.

14. For example, sound was introduced to cinema in the 1927 film, The Jazz Singer. Multiple attempts to combine audio into cinema took place throughout the 1920s.

15. In the twenty-first century touring cricketers routinely travel with their wives, partners and children. However, the practice is still challenged. Ex Australian cricketer and commentator Ian Healy questioned whether the presence of WAG’s [wives and girlfriends] was responsible for the loss of the Ashes in 2015.

16. Top Hat was a screwball musical comedy starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It was released in the USA in September 1935. Its projection in Calcutta in February 1936 reveals that India received films from the West relatively quickly.

17. Bose, a journalist and author, was born in India in 1947 and is now based in Britain.