The performance of the Indian women’s hockey team at the Tokyo Olympics has garnered praise from almost all quarters, with even Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeting: “We narrowly missed a medal in Women’s Hockey but this team reflects the spirit of New India — where we give our best and scale new frontiers.” While the praise for the team, which narrowly missed the bronze medal, is irreproachable, Modi also weds the team’s victory to a love for the nation, particularly his idea of a “New India”. This “New India” is different from a pre-2014 India in its ambition and also its aggression.
The idea of a “New India” is not new but has gained wider currency in recent times. It is often expressed through renaming of streets, cities, buildings, and even a sports award. In their book A New Idea of India, Harsh Madhusudan and Rajeev Mantri, who fashion themselves as right-wing intellectuals, describe India to be a “civilisation which is transforming into a ‘nation’ through the instrumentality of a sovereign, democratic state.” In their imagination, the Indian civilisation also includes Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, corresponding broadly to the idea of Akhand Bharat of Hindutva. They further argue that policies followed by Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors were economically and socially disastrous for India — an idea that runs contrary to the well-considered research of liberal historians such as Sunil Khilnani and Ram Guha.
The idea of a “New India” or newly assertive India has also permeated Bollywood films, overtly or covertly. An overt example of this is the 2019 action film Uri: The Surgical Strike, which dramatizes India’s claim of carrying out surgical strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir after an attack on an Indian army camp in Uri. In the film, while hatching the plot of the surgical strike, National Security Advisor Govind Bharadwaj (Paresh Rawal) claims: “This is a new Hindustan. It will not only get into your homes but kill you too.” Uri was the most successful Hindi film of 2019, and at an event that year, Modi even chanted its famous dialogue “How’s the josh?” to an audience full of actors, producers, and filmmakers.
But this “New India” has also emerged in the rise of Hindi film genres such as war films, political biopics, a particular type of historical films, and sports films since 2014. Modern sports itself is almost inalienable from ideas of nationalism, writes historian Mukul Kesavan. “National feeling is not something that has been injected into sport by swaggering players, corrupt politicians, and a scheming media looking to boost ratings; it is native to modern sport, something that is built into its historical evolution.” Both he and Yogendra Yadav, in another essay, argue that it is possible to enjoy sports without the trappings of nationalism or even enjoy the pleasures of nationalism without the pain of jingoism.
Indian sports films, however, often abandon nuance for flag-waving, national anthem-singing, and generally basking in on-screen triumph. While Lagaan (2001) has been identified by film theorists such as Kaushik Bhaumik as the vessel that took Hindi cinema to western markets and led to the Bollywood-isation of the Indian film industry, sports other than cricket — wrestling (Dangal, 2016; Sultan, 2016), boxing (Mary Kom, 2014; Toofan, 2021) — have also tasted big-screen success. Two films that have given space to India’s national sport, hockey, are Chak De! India (2007) and Gold (2018). The first one fictionalises the tribulations and triumph of Mir Ranjan Negi, who was blamed for the Indian men’s defeat to Pakistan in the 1982 Asian Games and then led the women’s team to victory as coach in the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The second one dramatizes the journey of Indian men in the 1948 Olympics.
Both films work with some conventions of the genre, the most important of which is the underdog protagonist. In Chak De!, the women’s team is underestimated even by the selectors, and they must struggle even to be allowed to participate in the world cup. Once on the international stage, they begin their campaign with a loss and a disunited team — they must defeat not only stronger opponents but also their inner monsters. Despite being the defending champions, the Indian team is the underdog in Gold as well. Twelve years have passed since the previous Olympics (Berlin, 1936), where the Indian team had humiliated Nazi Germany. The new Indian team lacks experience, funds, training, and has been divided by Partition.
There are other genre conventions as well. In-fighting among players, ego clashes, unsympathetic officials. But, in both films, the teams can come together and rise above their personal differences through the glue or fairy dust of nationalism. In a telling scene, early in Chak De!, coach Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) makes the players queue up and introduce themselves. As they keep identifying themselves as belonging to different states or teams, he removes them from the queue till captain and goalie (Vidya Malavade) identifies herself: “Vidya Sharma, India.” “I can’t hear or see the names of states,” says Khan. “I can only see the name of one nation — India.”
At a crucial juncture in Gold, with the Indian team trailing in the final, its assistant manager Tapan Das (Akshay Kumar) whips out the Tricolour in the dressing room and urges the players: “I have been dreaming for all these years that we will win the gold, and instead of singing Long Live the King!, we’ll sing our National Anthem.” This invigorates the players and lifts their performance on the field. The film ends with the raising of the Tricolour as the members of the Indian team receive their gold medals, and Jana Gana Mana plays in the background.
Nationalism, as we all know, is a double-edged sword, inspiring on one hand movements of self-determination in oppressed or post-colonial countries and, on the other, becoming vessels of totalitarian rhetoric. George Orwell described sports as “war without bullets”, and while it might be a less virulent form of nationalism, it can also lead to real menace. For instance, the casteist slurs hurled at hockey player Vandana Katariya’s family in Haridwar after the Indian team’s semi-final loss to Argentina.
Modi’s “New India” might be more assertive, but it has also been identified for marginalizing religious and caste minorities, eroding democracy, and backsliding freedom of the press. So even as we celebrate the achievements of our athletes in Tokyo, we must pause and consider if we can exorcise our nationalism of hate. Can “New India” learn to be inclusive of differences and dissent, or does it have space only for one kind of nationalist?
The writer’s novel, Ritual, was published in 2020. He teaches journalism at O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat.