By Brian Stoddart, Distinguished Fellow
In 1896, Colonel His Highness Shri Sir Ranjitsinjhi Vibajhi II Jamsaheb of Nawanagar, better known simply as ‘Ranji’, became the first non-white to play cricket for England, scoring 62 and 154 not out against Australia in his first test. Touring Australia the following year, he scored 175 in the first test, completing the tour with an outstanding average of 60.89.
Politically controversial and socially idealised, as in the Orientalist Vanity Fair print by Spy (Sir Leslie Ward), Ranji criticised Australian playing conditions and crowd behaviour, singling out in particular the “barracking” (jeering) the players received.
Three years earlier Alfred Deakin, the future architect of Australia’s Federation in 1901 and the country’s second Australian Prime Minister, published two books – Irrigated India: an Australian View of India and Ceylon, and Temple and Tomb in India. Both envisaged a strong bilateral relationship between Australia and India within the British imperial framework.
The Ranji and Deakin examples illustrate the beginnings of what remains a complex nation-to-nation dialogue.
The cricket relationship stands as an allegory for the broader bilateral one, oscillating between enthusiasm and scepticism and traversing everything in between. Australia-India relations have sharpened over time through differences in global outlook and domestic legislation, with recent rapprochement driven as much by geopolitical necessity as mutual benefit.
Seven years after Deakin’s books appeared and little more than two years after Ranji’s Sydney century, the new Australian Commonwealth inaugurated a White Australia policy that immediately dampened Deakin’s imagined Australia-India interchange. At best, the policy reflected Australia’s relationship with British India as a political entity rather than Indians as a nation.
Ordinary late nineteenth century Australians had occasionally met Indians travelling their country as merchants, and during World War One Australian soldiers met Indian counterparts throughout the Middle East, Europe and the Dardanelles. Given the racist White Australia policy, few of those meetings were regarded as being between equals.
But from 1915 onwards, sports began to nuance the relationship.. Frank Tarrant was one Australian who began to work more closely with India through cricket. A talented player and networker who knew Ranji, Tarrant stayed in India for many years. Employed by the Maharajah of Patiala, he played prominently from 1915 into the 1930s, coached India’s first two touring sides to England (1932 and 1936), organised the first unofficial Australian tour of India in 1935-36 and established the pitch at Bombay’s famous Brabourne Stadium.
Tarrant was linked to another Australia-India “soft power” connection, claiming to have made more money in one year importing Australian racehorses to India than from all his cricket years combined. Indeed, from the 1870s to the 1950s Australian trainers, breeders, jockeys and officials made fortunes in India. In an offshoot, the Ashton brothers of Goulburn sold polo ponies into India.
World War Two repeated the military interchange, and once that conflict concluded Bertram Stevens, ex-Premier of New South Wales, reprised Deakin’s earlier writings on India with his book New Horizons, outlining the major advantages to be gained by n forging stronger bilateral links.
India meanwhile gained test cricket status in 1932 at time when Gandhi was leading the Civil Disobedience campaign for political independence, but Indian didn’t finally play Australia until their 1947-8 tour in which the team was hit by injuries, player unavailability and the transfer of some stars to the new state of Pakistan. India lost four tests and drew one, but outstanding players like Vijay Hazare and Lala Armanath showed what was coming.
Some players, though, echoed Ranji’s earlier concerns with crowd behaviours and attitudes –a by-product of both the White Australia policy and an imperial outlook that denied India political autonomy but allocated Dominion status (or autonomy) to countries like Australia.
Cricket-mad Indians were eager to see Don Bradman, Australia’s and arguably the world’s greatest batsman, play in their country however he reached India just twice, and never played a test there. In 1948 Bradman was in the Australian team that on route to England stopped at Bombay but most players didn’t disembark the ship, fearing smallpox and plague. Then in 1953 he visited Calcutta on a flight layover where he was forced into a public appearance and complained to the airline.
This hesitant cricket relationship was underscored by a newly-independent India and its non-aligned position that contrasted with Australia’s firm commitment to the so-called Western democracies, led by the US.
Tours continued during which Australian cricket officialdom regarded itself as an overlord of a subservient India. Tours to India were feared by Australian players and officials given outbreaks of smallpox and plague scares withadded concerns about food and customs. It was the classic fear of the Orient, stoked by stories (and fabrications) about dubious umpiring decisions and pitches being prepared deliberately to favour Indian spin bowling.
The relationship then turned as India gained authority in both the governance and playing arenas. As India’s non-alignment in international relations receded and Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister 2004-2014) began opening the economy, Indian cricket also began to capitalise on the team’s increased playing success. After India won the 1983 World Cup, cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya adroitly mobilised support amongst International Cricket Council associate members – dominated previously by England, Australia and South Africa – to secure the right to host the 1987 tournament.
As Australian governments noticed India’s economic rise from the early 1990s on, Australian cricket officials like Bob Merriman developed stronger relationships with Indian counterparts like Dalmiya. However controversy and misunderstanding based on old views persisted, as in the 2008 “Monkeygate” affair. Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds, of English and Anglo-Caribbean descent, claimed to have been racially vilified by Indian spinner Harbajhan Singh who was found guilty at a disciplinary hearing but, to Australian chagrin, cleared on appeal.
This was a novel twist given that from the 1890s onwards Ranji and others had claimed to have been racially victimised by Australian crowds.
Unexpected remediation came with the establishment and growing popularity of the Indian Premier League where Indians and Australians began playing together, the latter enticed by enormous salaries but some also becoming great devotees of India.
The change has been reinforced by growing ties between the two countries in areas like trade, defence, business, intellectual-exchange, and scientific research.
Further signs of closer integration is reflected in the growing presence in Australian cricket of Indian diaspora players like Lisa Sthalekar, Jason Sangha, Nivethan Radhakrishnan, Param Uppal, Harmanpreet Kaur, Poonam Yadav and Jemimah Rodrigues.
Ranji and Deakin might both have been impressed, and a century on there are better prospects for their wider vision finally being realised.
Brian Stoddart is a Distinguished Fellow at the Australia India Institute and Professor Emeritus at La Trobe University, where he served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and as Vice-Chancellor. He completed a PhD at the University of Western Australia assessing the rise of nationalism in south India. That work led to his major work ‘Water, Land and Politics in Coastal Andhra, 1850-1925’, and to the biography of a maverick Indian Civil Service officer ‘A People’s Collector in the British Raj: Arthur Galletti’. Brian has also worked on higher education reform projects in the Middle East and Southeast Asia as a consultant to World Bank, Asian Development Bank and European Union projects.