‘Every Mother Should Be a Physical Instructor’: Women’s Promotion of Sports and Organised Exercise in Colonial Western India (c. 1915–1945)

Abstract

Focussing on colonial western India, this article discusses pioneering initiatives of women physical educators, exercise enthusiasts and founders of gymnasiums and physical culture clubs in the early decades of the 20th century. Examining a variety of sources, especially in the region’s primary vernacular languages of Gujarati and Marathi, it demonstrates that middle-class women engaged passionately in the ongoing ideological debates around the need for organised exercise, sports and active leisure pursuits. Going beyond previous historiography that has primarily identified a commitment to pronatalism and ‘race motherhood’ as fuelling physical education schemes floated by various actors in colonial India, this article highlights how women’s social role was being re-imagined and re-articulated as physical pursuits enhanced women’s daily social freedom and mobility. Further, by tracking the trajectory of socially acceptable physical activity for women, we get crucial insights into the unfolding of the Indian women’s sports movement.