It’s because we’re Indian, innit?’ Cricket and the South Asian diaspora in post-war Britain

Abstract

The South Asian communities who came to post-war Britain had numerous ways of maintaining links with ‘home’ even as they put down new roots. One conduit through which the interplay between old and new homes was reproduced was through the love of cricket many brought with them. The moral and ethical codes, which underpin much cricketing discourse, provided a language through which to reinscribe ideas of identity and belonging. Cricket helped create social networks and diasporic connectivity. These affective relations gave rise to South Asians who are today multiply rooted; secure in their Indian or Pakistani ‘national’ identities, at times identifying as a South Asian diaspora, but nevertheless also ‘loyal’ citizens of Britain. The story of South Asians and their relationship with cricket in post-war Britain sheds light on the complex politics of belonging in the post-colony, and illustrates that diaspora is ultimately an unstable assemblage of collective association.