Introduction

A lot of historians have largely ignored the role of socially endogenous processes in the creation of ‘colonial masculinity’ in British India. Many of them emphasise the decisive influence of colonial conceptions of masculinity on the formation of masculinities among communities in British India by focusing on changes in political institutions, administration, and the economy as critical determinants. This literature sheds insight on the exercise of bureaucratic power in colonial India through recruiting individuals from diverse areas, faiths, castes, and classes into various colonial agencies. It also considers the ramifications of colonial stereotypes of ‘effeminacy’ being internalised by the Indians. Furthermore, it examines the evolution of an intricate colonialist ethnography of ‘martial’ and ‘non-martial’ races in British India following the Revolt of 1857, with the goal of restructuring the enlistment of Indians into the Indian Army.² Much of this literature has concentrated on the Bengali Hindu bhadralok (elite), which was arguably best known during the nineteenth century for its strangely symbiotic connection with the colonial British elite.³ In Bengal, the Bengali bhadralok’s self-perception of effeteness took on a physical component, which blossomed in the nineteenth century with the emergence of the new physical culture of akharas.⁴ Prem Chowdhry argues that “colonialism provided that historically specific phenomenon which moulded a particular societal conception of masculinities in Punjab.”⁵ According to Ashis Nandy, the hyper-masculinity of British imperial ideology in India reflected the strict dichotomy between the masculine and the feminine that was part of post-Enlightenment Western gender theories. This changed Indian tradition’s more flexible and dispersed gender identities. According to Nandy, many of the nineteenth-century Indian male elite adopted the masculinised attitude of aggressive-but-gentlemanly competitiveness among the British. The existence of British dominance was seen by the Indian elite as evidence of masculine supremacy, which they should imitate.⁶

This research contends that such a focus has been insufficient in explaining the creation of masculinity among Jats in Haryana in several ways. The research finds a straightforward effect response schema difficult when approaching the subject from the standpoint of a religious, cultural, and social environment. Further, while recognising the specificities of the colonial context, the paper tries to demonstrate the socially endogenous forces which went into the making of dominant masculinity in this region. The paper draws upon vernacular language materials and newspapers to analyse the different ways in which the socially endogenous forces constructed this masculinity. It finds that masculinity was shaped primarily by the historical traditions of the Jats, who commanded the triple domination in the social, economic and numerical spheres in Haryana. Jat masculinity evolved within the worldview of these traditions, some of which were inherited but most were invented, and the religious paradigms of the Arya Samaj. In Haryana, Jats cultivated and popularised the notion of a distinct masculinity that was an amalgamation of popular religious traditions which were redefined and streamlined with the onset of the Arya Samaj and British military recruitment. The paper argues that a complex interaction of popular religious traditions, qaumi narratives, military recruitment, marital caste designation, ownership of land, superior caste behaviour and strong bodily physique came to ideologically link and construct dominant masculinity in colonial Haryana.

Socio-Economic History of the Jats

Where did the Jats come from and who are they? The Jats reside along the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers and in Rajputana and the Punjab. They are thought to have originally emerged in Sind in the 17th century. They slowly migrated into the Punjab and the Yamuna basin, before eventually settling in the Indo-Gangetic doab. According to early historical chronicles of Sind, ‘Jat’ was often used to refer to a “low and servile creature, or to an impudent villain tied to his qaum.”⁷ They were despised by the Persians, Afghans and Brahuis. Agriculture provided a meagre subsistence for the Jats, who roamed the arid plains caring and raising camels. At the beginning of the 18th century, the non-Sikh Jats, who dominated southern and eastern Delhi, are described by sources as “plunderers and bandits preying on the imperial lines of communication.” They became infamous for ambushing caravans on the crucial Delhi-Multan corridor, which passed through Panipat, Hissar, Sirsa, Hansi, Jhajjar and Mahim – the qasbas on the borders of their locality. They colonised the region surrounding the shores of the River Yamuna at about the same period and were slowly metamorphosed into a broader group of “warrior-cultivators” and “semi-pastoralists.” The Jats were not a strict caste, but were a socially inclusive community with an outstanding ability to integrate “pioneer peasant castes, miscellaneous military adventurers and groups living on the fringes of settled agriculture.”⁸

The Jatiyat or Jatiyar – the Jats’ homeland – included Panipat, Gurgaon, Rohtak and Hissar, with its khudkasht (farmer landowner) and bhaiachara (co-sharing) tenures. The Pachchade or Dhe and the Hele or Deswali or Hele Jats lived in this territory. The absence of a monarchical or political authority was a major aspect of Jat society in pre-colonial Haryana. With a dislike for chieftains and leaders, the Jats had their villages governed by a panch, or elders’ council (headmen of families).⁹  The Jat clans (gots) shaped hierarchy and domination. These clans were constantly quarrelling with each other. This also implied that a few clans commanded economic resources and exercised authority, while the less fortunate clans had to make a livelihood in regions that were not necessarily suitable to crop production. This resulted in long-term economic and social conflicts among the Jat clans.¹⁰

In the 18th century, the Jats established militarised roaming gangs, like all other nomadic pastoral and peasant tribes in northern India. A trigger was the foundation of the Bharatpur Kingdom, which introduced the Jats to military culture. They were enlisted in Begum Samru’s irregular army throughout her rule. The Jats were among the 5,000-6,000 soldiers who George Thomas enlisted in his army. He gave them pensions and encouraged them to reside in Haryana. In the 1790s, land colonisation by giving pensions to soldiers played a part in Haryana turning into a reliable military labour market.¹¹ Thomas gradually recruited a force of eight infantry regiments including 1,500 Rohillas, 1,000 cavalry, fifty pieces of canon and 6,000 men, as well as 2,000 soldiers managing his numerous fortresses in the empire.¹²

During the colonial era, modern-day Haryana was part of Punjab’s south-eastern region.¹³ By the Surji Arjangaon Treaty, agreed on 30 December 1803, Haryana was ceded to the English East India Company.¹⁴ Imperial authority was implemented with two essential aspects. First of all, the Jats were settled in irrigated areas. The second was their initial enlistment in the irregular army, which was followed by enlistment in the regular army. The East India Company aimed to convert the region’s nomadic and militaristic inhabitants into sedentary, revenue-generating cultivators. In 1826, the re-opening of the western canal of Yamuna stabilised the settlements of Jat in Rohtak and Hissar. Around 1833, the peasants started using it. As a result, agriculture became more stable. The transition of the Jats from a nomadic tribe to a more stable and revenue-generating farming community in the 20th century was accelerated by the rising land prices and the population pressure on lands.

The British provided the Jat farmers with permanent agricultural settlements by allocating around 3,000 acres to each village commune (mauza).¹⁵ After 1847, lower revenue assessments resulted in a remarkable growth of agriculture. The Jats’ prosperity was aided by the bhaiachara land structure, including their historic and consistent employment of women for agricultural work, as well as a larger family and communal network. This distinguished them from the other rural communities. Landlords did not dominate the bhaiachara system. Rather, it rested on the strength of the khudkasht affiliated to a specific Jat got. Most of the peasant landowners were farmers. The tenant class was minimal until the end of the nineteenth century.¹⁶

In the renowned Irregular Horse of Skinner in Hansi, Lt. Col. James Skinner (1778-1841) enlisted several Jats as irregulars. This was the expansion of the strategy of Geroge Thomas to settle armed farmers and herdsmen. His irregular army was recruited among the Gujars and Jats, who also toiled as farmers on his estate. He provided them with jagirs and pensions, as well as land and army service. This elevated their standing in the villages, resulting, in the end, in a more stable pattern of life in Haryana.¹⁷ The British colonial rulers praised the Jats for their assistance to the British in 1857. As a result, Jats were recruited in large numbers in the following regiments: 48th Pioneers, 12th Pioneers, 10th Jats, 6th Jat Light Infantry, 14th Lancers (Murray’s Jat Horse).¹⁸ The highest enlisting regions in the Rohtak-Hissar area were Hissar, Bhiwani, Bhatti, Fatehabad, Meham, Sonepat, Gohana, Dighal, Sampala, Bahadurgarh, Badi, Chuchakwas, Jhajjar and Rohtak. The Jats from all these places made a name for themselves as soldiers in military operations in China and the North-Western Frontier of India (1900-03), East Africa (1898), Burma (1884), Afghanistan (1878-80) and Bhutan (1864). The Punjab contributed almost half of the Indian men in the British Indian Army at the beginning of World War I, and this percentage grew over the next two years.¹⁹ During World War I, Jats were classified as “one of the best and most trustworthy of the fighting races of India.” Therefore, a Royal Battalion was created of the Jat Light Infantry’s 6th Battalion.²⁰

Wrestling and Military Labour Market

In this respect, under the British colonial administration in India, wrestling and related practises were necessary accompaniment to military preparations.²¹ To make a career out of soldiering, to be able to survive the battlefield, a man first needed to build a foundation; that foundation was wrestling. Dirk Herbert Arnold Kolff, who developed the idea of the “military labour market,” argues that this rural martial tradition of wrestling permeated every aspect of Indian society, affording caste mobility (a skilled lower-caste fighter could find his and his family’s status raised to a higher ‘kshatriya’ or martial caste as a recognition of his valour), and the chance to upgrade from a poor peasant to landed gentry through service.²² As Rudraneil Sengupta puts it: “If kushti was the way to transform one’s body, military service offered the possibility of a complete complete transformation of one’s life.”²³

Northern and Central India’s military labour markets gave farmers a crucial avenue of employment throughout the dry season. It was a way of living, combining agriculture and regular military employment. Moreover, it was available to anybody with the required martial abilities for survival and who identified with a Rajput or warrior ethic. As Kolff has argued, “in these settings where armed service was a feature of the farming year, military sports such as wrestling were a part of daily rural life and leisure.”²⁴ To ensure that the peasant could turn himself into a soldier when the time came, they needed to develop physical power, endurance and the ability to handle weapons. There were innumerable specialisations on offer for weapon skills – musketry, stick-fighting, various kinds of bladed arms and archery. But, for the overall development of the body, the essential foundation for any kind of martial activity, there was only one way to go: kushti. One could not fight without strength and agility, and kushti offered the most well-established route to acquiring both.

As Seema Alavi has argued, “when the English East India Company started to exploit north India’s changing military labour market, it found one that was already expanding, since the regional states of the eighteenth century sought to diversify the sources from which they drew their sepoy soldiery and looked increasingly to military brokers and entrepreneurs to recruit bodies of professionally-trained peasant soldiers.”²⁵ Therefore, the army of the East India Company inevitably constituted the principal venue for continuing this tradition of wrestling and military preparation. These military games would become firmly entrenched into the colonial Indian army in the decades that followed, especially after its post-Mutiny re-organisation.

In North India, British observers pointed out a decrease in wrestling abilities beyond the main recruitment area of the British Indian Army. The accounts of popular athletic activities which took place as part of the festivities stated that several of the Jat regiments’ “competitors came mostly from central Punjab.”²⁶ Military recruiting patterns influenced the popularity of combat games as a form of rural entertainment, and as the emphasis for recruiting turned to colonial Haryana, so did the prominence of sports abilities in conjunction with military service. Wrestling and its accompanying activities therefore constituted an unavoidable part of military training in the camp and throughout the campaigning season, and in the rural communities from which peasant recruits were enlisted. These hybridised forms of martial training were highly popular in the camps of the eighteenth-century mobile armies, where they were an essential component of the warrior peasant soldiers’ repertoires. Thus, the deep roots of kushti and its great popularity in Haryana stemmed from this peculiar and unique north Indian phenomenon called the military labour market.

British Colonial Policies and Martialised Masculinity

Haryana was kept underdeveloped throughout the colonial period, with agriculture being discouraged except for cattle fodder cultivation. Women were actively engaged in agricultural and livestock farming during this time period, since most males were recruited by the British Army. Wrestling became famous because of these men, who were recruited from communities throughout North-West and Central India. Rudraneil Sengupta writes that “kushti was a common sport among the Indian sipahees (soldiers) of British Raj when the army was on a temporary halt.”²⁷ Akh?r??s arose as a result of the popularity of wrestling amongst the troops where wrestling centered “on the importance of the body as a psychosomatic whole.”²⁸ The wrestler embodied virility and strength. These traits were assigned to Haryana and Punjab males, who were regarded an excellent martial race for military recruitment. “Being declared a martial race,” states Prem Chowdhry, “denoted masculine qualities, honor and respectability.” These constructs of specific caste groupings were responsible for sharpening and creating inter-caste distinctions between Jats and others. Along with the Jats, there were other agricultural castes in the area: Mali, Moghal, Ror, Biloch, Ahir, Gujjar, Sayyed, Pathan and Rajput. Colonial authorities, on the other hand, created a separate category for Jats. The Punjab Alienation of Land Act of 1900 designated them as an agricultural tribe for administrative purposes. However, under the judicial categorisation, Jats were lumped together with lower caste Hindus.²

In the agrarian milieu of the Haryana region of Punjab, generally the agricultural castes and, particularly, the landowning castes among them came to colour and determine its cultural and social ethos. The Jats emerged as the dominant caste among the agricultural castes. The Jats were numerically and economically the strongest among all the other castes. They also fulfilled one more criterion of the “dominant caste.” In the caste hierarchy, the Jats occupied a high ritual status. Majority of agricultural lands were owned by the Jats as proprietors. For instance, in Rohtak district in 1910, sixty per cent of the total land that was cultivated was owned by the Hindu Jats. In a very large number of “Jat villages” of this region, they had an exclusive control of ownership of land ranging between eighty-eight and ninety-nine per cent. Besides, most other castes in the region were in the state of being completely subjected to the more powerful landowning Jats. They were the biggest beneficiaries of the services performed by these other castes. Even though in the ritual index of the caste system, the caste rank of the Jats was somewhat difficult to place, the accepted social dominance of the Brahmans was not found in Haryana. While in ritualistic terms the Brahmans were the dominant caste, but their social status was equal to the “lowest of the low.” ³⁰ By the 1920s, the social dominance of the Brahmans exercised sharply declined owing to the propaganda of the Arya Samaj, which found a favourable reception among the Jats of Haryana. On the other hand, even though the Jats were ritually placed below the Khatri, Rajput and Brahman in the Punjab, the 1901 Census of the Punjab stated that “there is no caste above the Jat.” ³¹ In this agrarian society, the functioning of the caste system, which was also supported by the British, did not comply with the traditional concept of the caste system where ritual considerations formed the basis of one’s caste rank. The caste rank of a particular caste was directly related to the portion of land that was owned by them. In this exact sense, numerically, economically and socially the Jats appear as the “dominant caste,” which is also evident from their domination in the politics of Haryana. According to Prem Chowdhry, “this ubiquitous domination by a single caste set the tone and shaped the customs and attitudes followed in rural Haryana.” The emergent customs followed amongst most of them regardless of various strata came to be accepted and projected for the entire region, especially as many of these customs could be seen to be followed by nearly all lower castes as well as classes.³²

Prem Chowdhry argues that “the conflation of males of certain caste groups only, with military service increasingly virilised masculinity, differentiating it even more emphatically from the non-martial castes.” Martial standing served to reinforce the worst stereotyped caste characteristics of the non-martial castes branding them as effeminate and cowards. The “inferior castes” were prohibited from military service, which was reserved for the region’s martial castes. As a result, military duty in the region became inextricably linked to izzat, which denoted masculine characteristics. ³³ Those populations that were barred from military employment opposed the growing monopoly over service in the military. The urban residents and lower castes were conspicuously absent from this list, rejected for “a want of warlike instinct and manliness.” The British Army in India hardly ever enlisted soldiers from the cities and towns. They were seen as “mixed, degenerate and potentially threatening.” ³⁴

Local Cultural Resources of Masculinity

Although there is no doubt that during British rule, dominating hegemonic masculinity and associated beliefs solidified and became impenetrable and, that the Jats’ notion of masculinity was influenced by the colonial structures and beliefs, this process of masculinisation can be traced all the way back to pre-colonial times. There is a perceptible internal masculinisation process generated by the local and unique cultural elements accessible to the Jats. The religious life of the Jats in Haryana centered around local cults, gods, saints, pirs, tombs and sufi saints, and that they had been for centuries carriers of a broadly “pluralist religious tradition” through the medium of allahs (a rural story narrative), sangs or swangs, kissas, kathas, shakhas. This is best illustrated by the stories of Allah-Uddal, Guga Pir, Bhura Badal, Hadi Rani, Amar Singh Rathore, Vir Jawaharwal, Bhau Ki Shakha that did the rounds in Haryana. Much of the poetry, based on these stories, was recited or sung by the jogis, members of the low caste, to celebrate the valour and gallantry of local heroes. ³⁵

Guga was one of the most widely venerated pirs in Haryana. Popularly known as Guga bir (hero) or bagarwala, Guga was born, according to a lok-katha (popular story) in a Chauhan Rajput ruling family in mid-twelfth century and was a contemporary of Prithvi Raj Chauhan, the last Rajput ruler of Delhi. ³⁶ A specific genre, known as Guga ji ka Rasawala and written by Mehaji, gained wide currency during eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Haryana. He was portrayed as a hero and his heroism was recounted through the medium of sangs. ³⁷ Around 1819, Bansi Lal composed the sang, Guru Guga, ³⁸ which was made popular by Ahmad Baksh from Thanesar in the akh?r??s.³⁹ There were two important akh?r??s in this region: Bhadar and Khadar, and Ahmad was known as a Khiladi of Bhadar ka Akh?r??. Bansi Lal began the song with an invocation to the guru, asking for his blessings. ⁴

Guga’s identification with the non-Brahmanical popular cults and heroes endeared him to the lower castes, ⁴¹ who saw him as their guardian, comrade, and saviour, the Zahir pir or vir, ⁴² mater pujak (worshipper of mother), and a guru. ⁴³ He was just, merciful and benevolent, though harsh towards those who drank alcohol, smoked tobacco, accepted bribes or dowry, or offended women. ⁴⁴ He was venerated as a gau bhagat, ⁴⁵ for he came “to the world to protect the cow.” A popular myth, one that reflects the values of a pastoral society, was that Guga laid down his life while protecting cows. ⁴⁶ Guga’s feast day were popular in Rohtak, Silanah and Jhajjar. ⁴⁷ On such festive occasions, wrestling bouts in the akh?r??s was an important event. ⁴⁸

Another important sixteenth century cult was that of Gorakhnath. Its origins have been traced to a female disciple, Bimla Devi. ⁴⁹ The Naths were Shaivites or Tantrics. ⁵⁰ They were attached to the math of Kanpatha jogis Asthal Bohar in Rohtak district. Their akh?r??s, visible symbols of warrior culture, were spread out in Haryana.⁵¹ Prominent amongst them were the akh?r??s of Barapanthi Naths in Pehowa and Pagalpanth is and Aipanthis in Asthal Bohar. Here the Naths were trained to use arms, eat meat, and drink alcohol. They did not worship idols, stayed clear of vedic and puranic rituals and puranic injunctions. Their physical exercises, meant to counter diseases and equip them to lead their lives independently of the upper castes, included breach and voice control. ⁵² They accorded centrality to the concept of guru or yogi. ⁵³

Wrestling was a significant part of Jat self-assertion since it allowed him to demonstrate his masculinity.⁵⁴ Wrestling contests, tug-of-war, and rope competitions also fostered a sense of community and the concept of masculinity.⁵⁵ Hanuman is primarily a deity of the men folk, as he is a brahmachari (celibate) God with great power. Women in rural areas have been found to refrain from touching his iconographic depictions. His celibacy is said to be a source of strength for him. In Indian culture, there is a link between sexual abstinence and the attainment of strength. ⁵⁶ Saving rather than losing semen is said to be the secret of virility. The embodiment of Hanuman’s virile strength is also recognised as the provider of offspring in this region. Hanuman is also the guardian deity of wrestlers, making him the supreme embodiment of physicality and masculinity. ⁵⁷ In the formation of the masculinity of a wrestler, Hanuman is the key figure. In this region, wrestling is a traditional popular game which needs a strong physique. Wrestling exhibitions and competitive bouts are commonly held on important events like as melas (local carnivals or fairs) and festivals and are strongly associated with Hanuman. Without chanting the name of and greeting Hanuman with “jai bajrang bali or langote wale ki jai (hail the loin-cloth warrior),” wrestling, which emphasises body development, weight lifting and bodily strength, cannot begin. As the patron god of every akh?r??, a picture of Hanuman is kept. The relationships of the wrestlers with Hanuman extend to worshiping the image of Hanuman, chanting songs or reciting poetry in his honour and devotion and service of the guru, whose strength is equal to Hanuman’s.

The stress on exclusivity, martial qualities, physique and race, together with the peasant attributes of courage contributed to the consolidation of the obsession with the masculine man. The historical narrative of the “Aryan origin” theory and the “Aryan invasion” promoted by the Arya Samaj also contributed to this identity. As a result, a virulent Hindu male was created based on valourised heroic actions, which tailored in tidily with the military employment dominated by the martial castes in this area. Remarkably, the British focus on the doctrine of “martial race” for their own purposes, and the Arya Samaj’s emphasis on the “Aryas” and “Aryan origin” for their own, converged in this area to impact the very same caste-class group of peasants. Together, they resulted in the formation of a masculine culture in the region.⁵⁸

Conclusion

In sum, socially endogenous forces, as expressed in popular culture, religious traditions, qaumi narratives and physical culture akharas, were fundamental to the creation of masculinity in colonial Haryana. Furthermore, the colonial experience itself created both the colonial British elite's hyper-masculinist discourse and its consequence: the contrast between a ‘manly’ and an ‘effeminate’ native, as expanded and given new meaning by a racialising colonial ethnography. The distinction between ‘manly’ and ‘unmanly’ indigenous races in India was based on British hyper-masculinity, which was not created in Britain and then simply imported to India. The dependent practises of colonial control moulded British masculinity just as much as local masculinity. Masculinity appears as both created by and constitutive of a diverse range of social connections in colonial Haryana. A complex interaction of popular religious traditions, qaumi narratives, military recruitment, marital caste designation, ownership of land, superior caste behaviour and strong bodily physique came to ideologically link and construct dominant masculinity in Haryana. Masculinity, in this sense, cuts beyond racial, caste, social class, sexuality, and religious lines. Thus, a hybrid masculinity was created that was at the same time inscribed with the dual marks of coloniality and tradition.⁵⁹

Conflict of Interests

The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding Source

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to my PhD Supervisor, Dr. Jyoti Atwal, Associate Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, for her feedback and constructive criticism in the development of this paper.

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43. Rajji, Sir P., Sri Guga Puran: Jawahar Vir Guga Ji Ka Sampuram Mahan Granth, Meerut, n.d., p. 637; Malik, Haryana Ke Lokgeet, p.p. 44-45.
44. Rajji, Sri Guga Puran, p. 638.
45. Ibid., Ch. 38; Sharda, Upbbasbaye, p. 387.
46. Sharda, Upbbasbaye, p.p. 375-76.
47. Sinhala, B.N., Guru Guga: Lokashrit aivum Atihasik Sakshya, Sapt Sindhu, September 1967, Vol. 14, p.p. 9-10; Government of Punjab, Rohtak District Gazetteer, 1910, Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, 1911, p. 67; Purser and Fanshawe, Report of the Land Revenue Settlement Report of the Rohtak District, p. 66.
48. Shastri, R.R., Haryana Ka Lok Sahitya, Chandigarh, 1984, p. 39.
49. Briggs, G.W., Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis, Y.M.C.A. Publishing House, Calcutta, 1938.
50. Erndl, K.M., Rapist or Bodyguard, Demon or Devotee? Images of Bhairo in the Mythology and Cult of Vaisno Devi, in A. Hiltebeitel (Ed.), Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees: Essays on the Guardians of Popular Hinduism (p. 247), State University of New York Press, New York, 1989.
51. Surajbhan, Haryana Ka Sant-Sahitya, Chandigarh, 1986, p. 11.
52. Juneja, V.P., Nath Sahitya Mein Ras Nirupan, Research Journal: Arts and Humanities, Vol. 17, Kurukshetra University, 1982-83, p.p. 81-87.
53. Ibid., p. 80.
54. Saraswati, D., Satyarth Prakash, Sonepat, 1974, p. 289.
55. Jat Gazette, 19 February 1918; Jat Gazette, 26 February 1918; Jat Gazette, 9 April 1918, cited in Datta, Forming an Identity, p. 83.
56. Babb, L., The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India, Columbia University Press, New York, 1975, p. 233; Alter, J.S., Nervous Masculinity: Consumption and the Production of Embodied Gender in Indian Wrestling, in D.P. Mines & S. Lamb (Eds.), Everyday Life in South Asia (p.p. 132-144), Indiana University Press, Bloomingdale and Indianapolis, 2002.
57. Alter, J.S., The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992, p. 201.
58. Chowdhry, Militarised Masculinities, p. 729.
59. Bhabha, H.K., Location of Culture, Routledge, New York, 1994.