Cruelty to animals

 A particular emphasis has been placed in the current government’s policy documents on the idea that India always had a strong culture towards sports. While probing this further, we came across a fascinating book, Nation at Play, written by Ronojoy Sen, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore. In his book, he traces the history of sports in India from the very beginning – the ancient and medieval periods – to contemporary times. The role of caste in accentuating socio-economic inequalities can hardly be understated. In the context of sports, Sen notes that India’s culture and caste traditions have played a role historically, since social stratification meant different castes tended not to play together. There have been mentions of sports in some rudimentary form of fitness activity or entertainment throughout the ages. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata mention chariot racing, hunting, wrestling, swimming and archery as forms of training and entertainmen...

 A particular emphasis has been placed in the current government’s policy documents on the idea that India always had a strong culture towards sports. While probing this further, we came across a fascinating book, Nation at Play, written by Ronojoy Sen, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore. In his book, he traces the history of sports in India from the very beginning – the ancient and medieval periods – to contemporary times. The role of caste in accentuating socio-economic inequalities can hardly be understated. In the context of sports, Sen notes that India’s culture and caste traditions have played a role historically, since social stratification meant different castes tended not to play together. There have been mentions of sports in some rudimentary form of fitness activity or entertainment throughout the ages. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata mention chariot racing, hunting, wrestling, swimming and archery as forms of training and entertainmen...