Article

The Muscular Monk: Vivekananda, Sports and

Physical Culture in Colonial Bengal
 March 2014
 Economic and Political Weekly 49(11)

Authors:

Souvik Naha

 Durham University

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Abstract
Swami Vivekananda's thoughts are a complex and multidimensional interplay of India's
ancient and medieval past and his 19th century milieu. He was an ardent advocate of
masculinity and sports. This article discusses the influential contributions to theories of
masculinity which provide a framework within which Vivekananda's physical activities and
gendered notions can be situated. His belief that football is not insignificant reveals his
concerns for the development of manliness among the so-called effeminate Bengalis. He
himself practised a number of colonial sports and expressed profound interest in golf though
these sports were not seen as a form of leisure. The lessons of physical culture not only
strengthened his body but empowered his mind against inequality and perils. Vivekananda
appeals to the Hindu sources for his construction of the body and mind of the spiritual
aspirant as a site delimited and shielded.

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Citations (3)
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... Sports stadia made of Tata Steel were promoted as sites that would build the clean minds
of Indian youth in healthy bodies. Here, advertising points to the nationalist obsession with
the body, variously expressed by nationalist leaders as a concern with control over the body
(Gandhi, 1909(Gandhi, /2010, strengthening the Indian body (see Vivekananda's views
in Chatterjee and Naha, 2014) and a niggling concern over the inadequacy of the Indian
physique in comparison to that of the British (Gandhi, 1927(Gandhi, /2009). As Ray (2013)
points out, the nationalist obsession with the body was, as is the case with much else about
nationalism, inflected by class and gender, with the pursuit of strong bodies seen as a
predominantly masculine, lower to middle class phenomenon. ...
Forging the nation state: an advertising history of Tata Steel, India
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