More than just a game?: Grass roots cricket and development in Mumbai,India

I Introduction

In 1777, the 3rd Duke of Dorset mused ‘what is human life but a game of cricket’ (Hutchinson, 1994: 267), to which the anonymous allegory Baxter’s Second Innings seemingly responded more than a century later that ‘life is simply a cricket match’ (anonymous 1892, cited in Mangan, 1975: 332). Though thick with the romanticism attached to old world notions of the ‘gentlemen’s’ game, if such sentiments were true of anywhere, it would be of India, for cricket is ubiquitous in India. Formal and semi-formal matches play out on city maidans, as informal contests develop along busy urban streets. Maize stalks act as stumps in rural fields, while maze-like alleys demarcate numerous playing arenas within populous slums. Every imaginable space, it seems, is given over to leather and willow or rudimentary substitutes. Such an emphasis in India is placed on the act of playing cricket that it seems inconceivable for any other manifestation to inhabit the physical landscape. Yet high amongst the growing urban skylines, and in dusty rural fields, advertising hoardings of India’s cricket elite advocate the purchase of motor oil, soft drinks and everything in between. But it is not just physical space being occupied; cricket has infiltrated the cultural imagination of India’s rapidly growing population. Conversations between locals and foreigners invariably begin with an inquiry as to the latter’s country of origin, whereby an answer involving a cricket playing nation elicits a recital of that country’s cricketing pedigree. Adults and children alike, regardless of language, religion or social status, are able to converse in cricket, each with an opinion, each more than willing to share. Indeed, to even the most casual observer, the status of cricket in contemporary India has transcended traditional notions of sport as ‘recreation’, reaching a level of reverence usually reserved for religious belief. To refer to cricket as a national obsession, would be to understate the fact.

Yet it has not always been this way. Cricket was introduced to India by the British in the eighteenth century, but largely remained the preserve of its expatriate population until the late nineteenth century (Mukharji, 2005). At about this time the Indian population began to acquire a taste for cricket but, as in England, it was dominated by the aristocratic elite and it was not until India gained Independence in 1947 that the extent to which it had infiltrated the country became fully apparent (Guha, 2002). Thus, India’s position at the forefront of cricketing passion is a relatively recent social construct. Since then, however, the status of cricket in India has been pre-eminent in shaping the global game. In the 1980s, international satellite television networks latched onto cricket because of its global audience and particular suitability to advertising and, recognizing that India was the largest cricket market, they went directly to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to work out a broadcasting deal (Gupta, 2009). This placed immense wealth in the hands of the BCCI which, in turn, has significantly influenced the global governance of the game in the ensuing decades. The most recent manifestation of this influence has been the global boom in Twenty20 (T20) cricket, which was catalysed by India’s victory in the 2007 World T20 Championship, and has since been driven by the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL). This has further enhanced the wealth and power at the disposal of the BCCI, leading some to talk of ‘the ‘Indianisation’ of cricket, where nothing India resists will occur, and everything it approves will prevail’ (Haigh, 2008: 13).

Concurrent to the so-called ‘Indianization’ of global cricket has been the increased attention given to the concept of ‘development through sport’ in international development literature. Within this literature, however, there has been little discussion of the implementation of ‘development through sport’ initiatives in India. Bateman (2011) argues that the extraordinary levels of wealth, global administrative power, and global television exposure currently attached to cricket in India, coupled with cricket’s status as one of the most coalescing features of Indian culture, presents it as a potentially powerful tool for development. This article focuses on the utilization of such potential, exploring emergent themes from the ‘development through sport’ literature, and those more established within development theory, in the context of development initiatives in Mumbai, India’s largest city, which explicitly use cricket for wider social purposes. Drawing upon key informant interviews and focus groups, the article examines how cricket is being used in two community level initiatives, the Parivartan Programme and ‘Youth against AIDS’, both of which operate within one of Mumbai’s most underdeveloped municipal wards. In doing so, the article offers a critical assessment of the motivation and overall effectiveness of the use of cricket in development in Mumbai, from which recommendations as to its future implementation can be made.

II ‘Development through sport’: An emerging literature

The concept of ‘development through sport’ has been topical for a number of years, but its implementation remained relatively ad hoc until the publication of the UN’s Sport for Development and Peace: Towards Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in 2003 (Beutler, 2008). In sum, this publication outlines the positive impacts that sport can have in the key development areas of health, education and the economy, as well as the influence it can have in achieving social integration and resolving conflict. In doing so, it advocates the incorporation of sport into the development policies of national governments and the development agendas of national and international development agencies. Since then, initiatives that seek to advance social and economic development through sport have increased both in the theory and practice of international development (Black, 2010). As such, the UN’s (2003) publication provides a valuable platform from which the embryonic literature on ‘development through sport’ is discussed.

While the report published by the UN (2003) extols the virtue of incorporating sport within development policy, it offers little supportive evidence in terms of results from past initiatives. This is due, in part, to the nascent nature of the ‘development through sport’ concept at the time of publication, but also the absence of ‘development through sport’ from wider development theory literature (Levermore, 2008). Since the publication of the UN report, however, a ‘development through sport’ literature has begun to emerge, in which some studies have explored the implementation of specific ‘development through sport’ initiatives, and have evaluated their relative merit. The most comprehensive of these studies is that by Levermore (2008), who discusses numerous ‘development through sport’ projects ranging from ‘Sports Coaches Outreach’, which trains volunteers to use sport to facilitate capacity building in rural communities across Southern Africa, to the ‘Sport Health Programme’ in Sierra Leone, which employs local labour forces to make durable leather footballs with HIV/AIDS and malaria messages on them, before distributing them to the country’s disadvantaged communities. Levermore found that sports are linked to a wide spectrum of development initiatives, ranging:

[F]rom generalized [sic] strategies (for instance imprecise notions on empowering economic development or unifying countries) – to specific programmes (such as alleviating the socio-economic impacts of cross-community conflicts, as well as promoting education and health and, in particular, heightening awareness of HIV/AIDS. (Levermore, 2008: 188)

Similarly, Kidd (2008) discusses the growing number of national and international agencies involved in ‘development through sport’ projects, arguing that they have brought significant benefit to countries where they are implemented; while Willis (2000) and Wamucii (2007) specifically focused on the Mathare Youth Sports Association in Kenya, arguing that its development initiatives have resulted in diverse outcomes ranging from the removal of rubbish from slums in Nairobi to the improvement of youth leadership skills. Thus, evidence in support of the UN’s (2003) assertions as to the potential of sport in development is slowly beginning to emerge.

As outlined in the Introduction, the lack of discussion regarding India or cricket within the ‘development through sport’ literature provides the scope for this research, but it is the critical engagement with what has been written on ‘development through sport’ in a broader context which provides the specific concepts that this article is attempting to explore. As previously mentioned, studies have shown that sport has had some success in African communities, by utilizing local resources in the identification, formulation, and implementation of small, community-level projects (Levermore, 2008; Wamucii, 2007; Willis, 2000). Given that the ‘development through sport’ literature is, thus far, devoid of information concerning the use of cricket in development in India, this article firstly seeks to explore how cricket is being used in a similar way, and at a similar scale, in India.

While the UN’s (2003) assertion regarding the power of sport in development is slowly beginning to gain evidential support, Kruse (2006) argues that positive links between sport and development still remain largely intuitive. He argues that this is due to insufficient monitoring and evaluation of programmes that use sport for development purposes, an assertion supported by Beutler (2008), Kidd (2008), Levermore (2008, 2011) and Coalter (2009, 2010a). This is further compounded by what Coalter (2010b) describes as a widespread failure to specify the precise nature of the desired outcomes, while Hartmann and Kwauk (2011) suggest that any evaluations undertaken thus far have aimed to legitimize international organizations and lobbies, rather than proving the actual value of sport in grass roots development. As such, Beutler (2008), Kidd (2008), Levermore (2008, 2011), Coalter (2009, 2010a, 2010b) and Hartmann and Kwauk (2011), among others, have all discussed the need for further evaluation of the impacts of ‘development through sport’, both positive and negative, to determine the extent and nature of its potential, and bridge the considerable gaps in current knowledge. To this end, this article will explore the effectiveness of cricket in the two development initiatives outlined above. Such an exploration, however, in no way constitutes an in-depth analysis of either initiative, but rather situates certain elements of each within the ‘development through sport’ literature, in an attempt to present evidence regarding the power of cricket in development in India. Aspects of the literature to be explored in this context include a comparison of the actual development outcomes accrued in cricket-related projects with the potential developmental benefits of sport previously outlined; the engagement of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within cricket-related development projects in India; and the level of evaluation evident in the case studies explored.

III Methodology and field-based research

The findings presented in this article are drawn from field-based research undertaken in Mumbai in 2011 (Bateman, 2011). Employing a qualitative approach, the field research consisted of semi-structured interviews with key informants, and focus group discussions with participants, in both the Parivartan Programme and ‘Youth Against AIDS’ initiatives. The selection of key informants was based on a snowball technique, whereby a key contact within each initiative was identified and asked to help facilitate contact with others involved in the formulation, delivery and evaluation of the two initiatives. Each subsequent informant was asked to do the same, enabling the representation of a wide range of interests within the research findings. Consequently, the key informants interviewed included directors, project managers and ground staff of a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) involved in the two initiatives; medical and educational practitioners, as well as social workers and cricket coaches, working within the community in which the projects operate; and representatives from the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM).

Both the Parivartan Programme and ‘Youth Against AIDS’ mainly operate within the M/East Ward of Mumbai which, with a Human Development Index (HDI) value of just 0.05, represents the lowest level of human development in a city which is characterized by marked inequalities. Key indicators contributing to such low human development include a low life expectancy of 39.30 years, a high infant mortality rate of 66.67 deaths per 1000, and an adult literacy rate of just 66 per cent, all of which is compounded by the fact that 77.5 per cent of the M/East Ward’s 674,850 inhabitants live in slums (MCGM, 2010). The presence of two cricket-driven development initiatives in a context of such low levels of human development presents the M/East ward as an ideal location in which to explore the significance of cricket in development in India.

IV The Parivartan Programme

The Parivartan Programme is a multifaceted and multi-scalar initiative aimed at reducing violence and abuse towards women and promoting gender equality. It is multifaceted in that it uses a number of mediums, though predominantly cricket or cricket-related activities, to engage participants, and multi-scalar in that it operates on a national, city-wide and community scale, and is managed and delivered by a number of different groups ranging from small community-based NGOs to international research groups. In addition, it has an international component which is modelled upon, and has been designed in conjunction with, the US-based Family Violence Prevention Fund’s (FVPF) ‘coaching boys to men’ initiative which uses the popular American sports of baseball and basketball to educate young athletes on themes of respect and violence toward women.

Beginning in 2008, the Parivartan Programme was initially a collaboration between the Indian Office of the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) and Apnalaya, a small community-based NGO which operates predominantly in the M/East municipal ward of Mumbai. As described by Key Informant 15 of the ICRW, the Parivartan Programme was started as part of the ICRW’s larger portfolio of working with men and boys on ending violence against women, an issue deemed important by the fact that:

… [I]n India, as in many other countries, gender inequity and abuse against females has become socially accepted. Unequal power between men and women has, over time, led to domination over and discrimination against women and girls by men and boys. It is a harmful reality that leaves females at a high risk of experiencing violence, abuse and ill health.

The gender inequity and abuse facing women in India are further highlighted by Key Informant 1, an important driver in the community-level implementation of the programme, who stated that:

One out of three married women in India report being physically or psychologically abused. Many women are daily exposed to several forms of violence, from routine eve-teasing and sexual harassment in public, to sometimes fatal physical beatings at home.

In making the above statements, Key Informants 1 and 15 both pointed to the 2005–06 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) (IIPS, 2007), to support their claims. The NFHS-3 found that 33.5 per cent of women in India have experienced physical violence at the hands of a male since age 15, 8.5 per cent have experienced sexual violence, and 15.8 per cent have experienced emotional violence. In total, some 39.7 per cent of women surveyed reported to having suffered from some form of domestic violence at some stage in their life, be it physical, sexual, emotional or a combination of the three. While these statistics highlight that the problem exists, it is the attitudes of the country’s population that illustrate why it persists. To this end, 50.6 per cent of men and, more poignantly, 54.4 per cent of women, believe that there are situations in which a husband is justified in beating his wife, highlighting just how deep-seated attitudes toward domestic violence have become in India.

Having established that inequity and abuse towards women are major issues in India, the ICRW and its partners, devised two ‘complementary hypotheses’ or ‘theories of change’ (Key Informant 5). These hypotheses, as outlined by Key Informant 3, are that:

When young men have access to role models of peaceful, gender-equitable manhood in their lives, they are more likely to embrace these characteristics in their own self-actualization. And thereafter, when men and boys commit to respectful behaviours and attitudes, especially in interactions with women and girls, then these women experience an expansion of safe space and freedom.

The first hypothesis, according to Key Informant 3, is ‘based on belief in the influential power of coaches and community leaders as mentors and role models for young men’, an idea reflected in the comments of Key Informant 12, a coach involved in the Mumbai wide implementation of the programme, who stated:

For many children ‘coach’ is very important. Children don’t like listening to long lectures. But if the coach, who they look up to, says something, they are more likely to embrace it.

The rationale behind the use of sport as the medium for delivering the Parivartan Programme is, therefore, based on the belief that having positive male role models is the most appropriate way to change the attitudes and behaviour of boys and young men, and the belief that sport coaches wield the most influence over this group. The rationale behind the choice of cricket for the Parivartan Programme, as opposed to other sports, will be discussed later in the article.

The second hypothesis relates to the approach of targeting boys and young men in the pursuit of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Such an approach, while relatively uncommon, is not without precedent, and has its roots in the academic critique of ‘Women in Development’ (WID) in the 1970s, and subsequent shift toward ‘Gender and Development’ (GAD), which recognizes the need to analyse social relationships between men and women and emphasizes the influence of factors such as class, age, marital status, religion and ethnicity on these relationships (Momsen, 2004). The implication of this approach in the context of gender empowerment is reinforced by Kimmel (2002: xii), who states:

The invisibility of masculinity reproduces gender inequality, both materially and ideologically. Thus, any initiative to improve the condition of women must include men. In fact, we believe that any effort to further gender equality that does not include men is doomed to failure … Of course most initiatives towards gender equality must, and will continue to, focus on women’s empowerment, but achieving the vision of gender equality is not possible without changes in men’s lives as well as women’s. (Kimmel, 2002: xii)

Poudyal (2000: 76) furthers this argument, contextualizing it within violence toward women in South Asia, and suggesting that a focus on men is imperative in the empowerment of women in this regard. He states that:

The system of patriarchy in which social structures and institutions produce unequal, hierarchical, authoritarian and ultimately violent relationships is highly entrenched in South Asia. How do you combat violence against women, when it springs from such an all-pervasive system? Since men are the main perpetrators of violence, it is imperative that they constitute a primary focus.

Poudyal argues that there have been very few attempts to focus on men and boys in the empowerment of women within development interventions in South Asia. He states:

… [W]ithin the popular media nothing, to our knowledge, specifically addresses boys, adolescents and young men concerning their masculinity and that masculinity’s generally violent role models. (Poudyal, 2000: 76)

It is exactly this void that the Parivartan Programme is attempting to fill, as Key Informant 1 suggests:

We have all worked – NGOs, governments – on women’s issues very specifically, and I think in the whole process, the men have been left behind. That is why we focus on the boys and young men for this. (The Parivartan Programme)

Within this philosophy of targeting boys and young men in an effort to reduce gender inequity and violence toward women, the Parivartan Programme is delivered in a number of different ways. The specific methods used vary in scale, but cricket is consistent throughout. The programme started with the community-level intervention implemented by the ICRW and Apnalaya, which involved training 16 young men as mentors in topics such as gender and masculinity. These mentors, aged 18–30, were selected from within Shivaji Nagar, a community within the M/East ward in Mumbai. The specific focus on the concepts of gender and masculinity in this training programme, accords with the arguments of Kimmel (2002) and Poudyal (2000) in that, according to Key Informant 1, it attempts to move past the binary, mainly physical, constructs of gender, and that it focuses on changing males lives to address gender inequality.

Once this training was complete, the mentors selected between 12 and 20 boys from their respective neighbourhoods, each within the Shivaji Nagar community, and began passing on the Parivartan Message through coaching and playing cricket. As a result of the thorough training, according to Key Informant 5, the mentors were:

… [S]ensitized to identify ‘teachable moments’ on the field, and point out what is an appropriate language and behaviour and why and how that could be changed.

The dissemination of this message was aided by the Parivartan Card Series, produced by the ICRW, in Hindi, Marathi and English, which outlines 16 coaching sessions for the mentors to deliver to their selected team. Each card contains a theme relating to the Parivartan message, and suggests ways in which the mentors could deliver each theme effectively.

Phase two of the Parivartan Programme involved broadening its reach across Mumbai through implementation in schools and formal cricket coaching programmes. The ICRW, in conjunction with the Mumbai School Sports Association (MSSA), identified schools and cricket gymkhanas (clubs) willing to participate. The key priority in selecting participants in this phase of the programme was not just finding willing schools and gymkhanas, according to Key Informant 15, but to:

… [I]dentify the coach, key coaches and mentors from the schools and communities, who would be willing to become part of our programme, and who are willing to talk about violence against women with the group of players that they coach.

In this, the ICRW reflect their original hypotheses in that they believe coaches to be the most influential role models in the lives of boys and young men, but they themselves must possess the attitudes and behaviours toward gender equality, to successfully model it.

As with the community intervention, coaches selected in phase two of the Parivartan Programme underwent rigorous training in themes of gender equality, before using the card series within their teams. The major differences between the community and school interventions are two-fold. First, each targets a different socio-economic group within Mumbai and, in doing so, operates on completely different scales. This point is highlighted by Key Informant 3, who states:

In the school intervention, all the selected athletes were part of public/private schools from all over Mumbai and basically represent the middle to higher-middle level of economic strata. While the community-level intervention includes the low economic group and is mainly concentrated in the slum areas of the M/East ward.

The second major difference is the way in which each intervention is designed for evaluation. At the community level, each of the 16 mentors underwent the same training and followed the same programme with their team, whereas the schools were ‘[S]plit into experiment and control groups to meet certain evaluation criteria’ (Key Informant 8).

The final phase of the Parivartan Programme, which began at the start of 2011, is based around a mobile video van that Breakthrough, an NGO with a presence throughout South Asia, takes to neighbourhoods and schools participating in the first two phases of the programme. According to Key Informant 17, these video van sessions:

… [D]isseminate information using pop-culture to educate the audience and redefine the concept of masculinity as is taught to the boys.

The pop culture referred to includes music videos, theatrical performances, quizzes, and comic strips, all with a distinct cricket theme. Through these mediums, the boys and young men are able to actively participate, often called onto the van’s stage to answer a question or act out a part in a role-play scenario. In addition, the respective communities are actively encouraged to attend, which as Key Informant 3 suggests, enables them to showcase the coaches and athletes who have been part of the initiative since the beginning and, in turn, allows them to convey the Parivartan message to a wider audience within their target population.

V Youth against AIDS

In comparison to the Parivartan Programme, the ‘Youth Against AIDS’ Cricket Tournament is a rudimentary initiative that operates exclusively in the M/East ward of Mumbai. It began as part of a wider awareness programme, borne out of the area’s increasing incidence of the deadly disease in the mid-1990s. Key Informant 5, in discussing the chronology of the issue and intervention, stated that:

… [W]orking on HIV/AIDS has been quite challenging as it involves talking with people about sexual relationships. Initially, people were hesitant to discuss such topics and did not think this disease could be found in their midst. Unfortunately, an Apnalaya doctor first diagnosed a case of HIV in these communities in 1993. By 1996 a number of cases had been detected, so we started a counselling service, home visits, and hospital visits. Later we began a peer education programme for women and youth and started working with other NGOs. At this time we also started our cricket tournament.

Key Informant 1 further describes the rationale behind the tournament, stating:

We were working on HIV/AIDS in M/East ward and wanted to help young people understand it better. We thought that one of the ways we could attract young people is through cricket, and thought that one of the ways we could reach a large number of them is through this tournament.

The first tournament was held in 1997 and attracted 16 teams. Each team was provided with a different coloured T-shirt emblazoned with a different message pertaining to HIV/AIDS, while large posters and cut-outs of famous Indian cricketers carried similar messages as they adorned the tournament ground. Detailed educational pamphlets were distributed to all in attendance, and a commentary of each match provided entertainment and education to the crowd. According to Key Informant 1, it was, ‘just a mass awareness campaign’.

The use of sport in promoting HIV/AIDS awareness in this manner has a number of precedents, to the point that Levermore (2008) has suggested that ‘development through sport’ has been dominated by such activities. The plethora of ‘development through sport’ initiatives focusing on HIV/AIDS predominantly, though not exclusively, involves the use of football in Africa to spread awareness about the disease. ‘Alive and Kicking’, for example, provides durable leather footballs with HIV/AIDS awareness messages printed on them to children and schools in a number of underprivileged communities in Kenya and Zambia (Alive and Kicking, 2011). Other interventions include ‘Kicking AIDS Out!’, a network that uses sport to reduce the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS, and ‘Kick4life’, which involves promoting HIV/AIDS awareness through football among rural communities in Lesotho (Khan, 2010). In these instances, as with the ‘Youth Against AIDS’ cricket tournament, the methods used are defined by their simplicity, highlighting that awareness and education are two of the key priorities in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In addition, Khan’s (2010) assertion that HIV/AIDS awareness, and in some cases its incidence, has quantifiably improved in African communities where football-related activities have been implemented, in some ways justifies the methods employed in the ‘Youth Against AIDS’ initiative in Mumbai, and also reflects the UN’s (2003) belief in the convening power of sport. However, one of the main critiques of HIV/AIDS related development programmes in recent years has been their focus on mass awareness without any real evidence to suggest that they are slowing the spread of the disease. The effectiveness of the ‘Youth Against AIDS’ cricket tournament in the fight against HIV/AIDS will be contextualized within the above debates later in the article.

VI Positive development outcomes

One of the main critiques in the emerging ‘development through sport’ literature is, as mentioned earlier, the considerable knowledge gaps due to the lack of monitoring and evaluation of initiatives in the field thus far. To this end, the Parivartan Programme stands apart from ‘Youth Against AIDS’, in that it incorporates a research component. Key Informant 3, involved in the overall implementation of the programme with the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), described this research component thus:

All participants, including coaches, mentors and boys, will complete evaluation questionnaires at baseline, midline and end line, with the aim of capturing their changing attitudes towards women over the duration of the programme.

In addition to evaluating the progress of participants from their own perspective, Key Informant 1, who is involved in the community-level implementation of the Parivartan Programme with NGO Apnalaya, stated that the ICRW:

… [A]lso interviewed the women in their [the mentors and boys] lives, if they have sisters, if they have mothers, if they have girlfriends or wives … all that, so they are interviewing them also …

The fact that the Parivartan Programme contains a research component could be considered a positive outcome in itself, given the previously outlined argument pertaining to the lack of evaluation in ‘development through sport’ initiatives. But the results of this evaluation, whilst only currently at the midline stage, suggest that the programme is also having a positive impact in terms of its main objective of improving gender equality in Mumbai. This is highlighted at the macro level by Key Informant 3, of the ICRW, who stated that:

… [F]rom the baseline to midline there is a positive movement in gender equitable behaviour, a reduction in inequitable attitudes towards justifying violence against women, and more athletes reported their intention to intervene at the right point to stop violence.

And at the community-level, Key Informant 1 offers similar sentiments, stating that:

We invested a lot of time in the mentors, and for a while it was slow going. But now we are seeing a real change in their attitudes and behaviours. Now you can see the change in their mindset.

These assertions, based on the midline evaluation of the Parivartan Programme, clearly suggest a shift in the attitudes and behaviours of the participants, and are supported by the mentors from the community-level implementation in Mumbai’s M/East ward. A focus group discussion with these mentors, undertaken purely for the purposes of this research, indicated that they were aware of changes in their own attitudes and behaviours as a result of their participation, as highlighted by the following dialogue:

Participant 6: First, I just wanted to be a good cricket player, but after coming to Parivartan I realised that it is important to be a good individual and human being also.

Participant 1: It has changed my thinking about women and girls. It has given me a sense of responsibility, in the society, in the family, in the community also.

Participant 2: I have learned [that there are] many ways in which women suffer, I now realise that women also are human beings. They, too, feel pain when disrespected; have desires to pursue their own interests and the right to express their opinions.

Participant 7: Through the programme, I have learnt how to be polite, how to talk, how to be respectful to girls and women. I have learned that controlling is not a way to love a girl, but [the way to love] is to give her space in her life. I have also learned to control the anger and the violence.

Participant 4: I think we are all addicted to this atmosphere. On any excuse we would start – ‘your mother’ or ‘your sister …’ But we have stopped doing it now after being part of Parivartan. Not completely. Fifty per cent from a hundred. Fifty per cent is still to be achieved.

In addition to understanding the changes within themselves, they were also able to identify ways in which these changes impacted on their families and wider community, as exemplified by these comments:

Participant 3: The children who used to come to play, they didn’t respect anybody, they would abuse everybody … once they went through the whole thing the children learned to respect us and we also learned to respect the children in our teams.

Participant 7: Yeah, and some of the children in my team are related to me, and I am seeing the change in them in my family and towards other people with respect. They [the children] are now more respectful of everyone in the community, and so my family and friends feel that I am going to a place where I am learning good things because they see us all behaving with more respect.

Participant 1: It is mostly about family. Earlier we assumed that all the decisions are to be taken by the men. We don’t need to consult the women, what does she understand anyway? After Parivartan, we started consulting the women in the family about various issues, we learned to respect their ideas and they started showing more confidence in making decisions for the family.

These focus group responses, combined with the assertions of Key Informants 1 and 5, not only illustrate the success of the Parivartan Programme in promoting gender equality, but also offer tentative support to the argument that focusing on males is a viable method of doing so. Situated in the paradigm shift from ‘Women in Development’ (WID) to ‘Gender and Development’ (GAD), researchers such as Poudyal (2000), Kimmel (2002) and Momsen (2004) have put forward an argument that a focus on men needs to be incorporated into development purporting to improve gender equality. The Parivartan Programme’s exclusive focus on male attitudes and behaviours, coupled with promising midline results, adds some legitimacy to these claims. A continuation of this trend through to the end of the programme will only add further weight to the argument.

Another area where the Parivartan Programme stands apart from the other initiative examined in this research is its long-term sustainability planning. Key Informant 3 suggested that the delivery of the programme is partly self-sustaining which, in turn, helps to ensure its future implementation. Such self-sustainability was illustrated by Key Informant 8, of Parivartan partner Breakthrough, who described the succession of the message in the Mumbai-wide school intervention:

We trained the coaches on simple concepts of respect, gender and masculinity. The coaches, in turn, train the boys, and it is our belief that the boys will take these lessons back into their communities. Ultimately, we want these boys to train the next intake of boys … and so on.

Key Informant 1 offered similar sentiments with respect to the community-based intervention in the M/East ward of Mumbai, stating:

… [W]e want to use these mentors effectively because they’ve been trained specially. They are leaders in some ways, so we don’t want that investment to go to waste … we want them to create new teams, and continue the process with those boys, and identify boys from their teams who can become mentors. This will grow our capacity … 16 [mentors] can become 20, or more.

In addition to ensuring the continuation of the Parivartan Programme in Mumbai for the foreseeable future, Key Informant 3 suggested that it also plans to replicate the programme in other parts of India. She suggested, however, that such expansion would rely on the ongoing financial support of the Nike Foundation, which in turn, largely relies on positive end-line results from the programme’s current implementation. The implications of this observation, in the context of this research, are threefold. First, it highlights that the key stakeholders of the Parivartan Programme are committed to its future implementation, and have planned for such. Second, it illustrates the crucial role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in ‘development through sport’, highlighting the Parivartan Programme’s successful engagement with, and continued reliance on, a large corporate entity such as Nike. And third, it confirms the importance of the detailed evaluation of ‘development through sport’ initiatives, not only to fill what Levermore (2008) describes as ‘considerable knowledge gaps’, but to justify the continued allocation of resources. Ultimately, the Parivartan Programme has addressed some of the key critiques levelled at ‘development through sport’ in the past and, as a result, can be tentatively held up as a model of good practice in the context of this research.

In contrast to the significant gains made by the Parivartan Programme, positive development outcomes from the ‘Youth Against AIDS’ cricket tournament are less forthcoming. In fact the tournament did not even take place in 2011, the first time it has not been held since its inception in 1997. While the cancellation of the tournament suggests a lack of effectiveness, the reality is that it had outgrown the key stakeholders’ capacity to deliver it, as described by Key Informant 1:

From this year we have stopped. Over the years the tournament became very big – it became very famous in this area. We started with 8 teams, then 16 teams … if you calculate 16 teams, that means around 170 odd boys … We used to select 16 teams, because we knew who the good teams are, and we would see to it that the teams are not from one area, that they are from all over Shivaji Nagar. But it started becoming more and more difficult, so we increased it one year to 54 teams. And we went mad, we went mad … this kind of management was too difficult for us. So we stopped, we stopped this year. There is discussion about whether we are having it next year, but I think this year we are not having it.

A number of fundamental reasons underpin the decision to discontinue the tournament, but ultimately they all stem from the large growth in participation in recent years. Given that the tournament’s main objective was to generate ‘mass awareness’ of HIV/AIDS, the organizers’ ability to engage increasing numbers of participants each year can be considered a positive development outcome in itself. Indeed, Key Informant 2 emphatically stated, ‘HIV/AIDS awareness, we are able to definitely see it’.

VII A critique of ‘development through cricket’ in India

The previous section has outlined a number of positive outcomes to emerge from the two development initiatives explored within this article and, in doing so, offered tentative support to some of the potential benefits identified in the ‘development through sport’ literature. Evidence substantiating other assertions from this literature as to the potential role of sport in development is, however, less forthcoming. The most obvious discrepancy regarding the use of sport in development between the literature and the initiatives explored, has been the limited incorporation of CSR in the latter. The Parivartan Programme’s engagement with CSR is limited to its relationship with the Nike Foundation, while there is no discernible CSR activity involved in ‘Youth Against AIDS’. While these observations do not discount the arguments of Smith and Westerbeek (2007) and Levermore (2010) regarding the potential of sport as a vehicle in the deployment of CSR, they simply shed no further light. Indeed, given the contentions of such authors, the engagement of India’s relatively untapped corporate resources is an area that needs to be explored further if the potential of cricket is to be optimized in terms of its use in the development context.

Another recurring critique from the ‘development through sport’ literature, as already mentioned earlier in this article, is a lack of evaluation of initiatives in the field. Coalter (2010a, 2010b), Kruse (2006), Levermore (2008, 2011), Beutler (2008), Kidd (2008) and Hartmann and Kwauk (2011) have all argued that a greater level of evaluation of ‘development through sport’ projects is needed in order to substantiate the actual benefits of sport in development. As outlined above, the Parivartan Programme incorporates a rigorous evaluation component, enabling it to identify the positive development outcomes discussed earlier. However, positive outcomes claimed by ‘Youth Against AIDS’, were based on an exponential increase in participation over time. While this growth is largely indisputable, it says little about the actual impact of the tournament in terms of slowing, or even stopping, the spread of HIV/AIDS in the M/East Ward of Mumbai. Based on these claims alone, it can be argued that cricket has huge power in terms of drawing in India’s population, but whether or not they are actively engaging with the message is, thus far, largely unaccounted for.

Such a critique of mass-awareness campaigns is not without precedent within broader development theory, especially within HIV/AIDS discourse. Chin (2007), Gordon (2008) and Waterston (1997), for example, have all argued that the evaluation of implementation has become far more important than the assessment of results in HIV/AIDS practice and policy. Pisani (2008: 288), an epidemiologist with 10-years’ experience in the AIDS ‘industry’, is particularly scathing, stating:

… [Y]ou rarely have to say what your ‘bottom line’ is – how many infections you’ll prevent. And you almost never have to show you’ve prevented any infections. You can be judged a success for just doing what you said you were going to do, like build a clinic, or train some nurses, or give leaflets to 400 out of the nation’s 160,000 drug injectors. It’s a bit like declaring that Ford is doing really well in the car market because they’ve got factories and floor managers and an advertising campaign, instead of looking at sales figures or even checking that they make cars that run.

While Potts et al. (2008) illustrate the extent to which this has occurred, suggesting that ‘community mobilisation and mass media’ are significantly over-represented in the allocation of HIV/AIDS prevention resources. Thus the focus of ‘Youth Against AIDS’ on method, rather than results, not only reinforces the lack of evaluation endemic within ‘development through sport literature’, it also speaks back to wider HIV/AIDS practice and policy.

Another common critique within the ‘development through sport’ literature is the lack of evidence pertaining to positive community-level social development as a result of mega sporting events (Black, 2010; Hall, 2006). Again, there is little in the context of this research to refute such a claim, as key informants from within the two community-level initiatives offered limited expectations regarding the impact of the tournament on their activities. Key Informant 1 neatly summarized this prevailing response, stating:

The children will be excited [about the upcoming cricket world cup] … India is a cricket mad country, cricket is about religion over here. So that will be there, but I don’t think it makes any difference here, to our programmes, or anything like that.

But when discussing the impact of the tournament on development in India in more general terms, a number of key informants expressed concerns that it may in fact be detrimental, particularly with regard to its timing. This was highlighted by Key Informant 7, who inferred that:

Schools are coming up to exam time so the [Cricket] World Cup will be a distraction, and therefore will affect the children’s education. Children should be studying, but instead they will be watching cricket. Always cricket will win in this country … always.

And reinforced by Key Informant 4, who stated:

We see education as a key driver of development in this community, but it is hard to engage them [the children] because they feel obligated to help provide for their families. This is reflected in the low literacy rates of this area compared with other parts of Mumbai … but how can we change these figures … it is hard enough to get them to study for exams without having to compete with the cricket as well.

There was also some resentment among key informants involved in the community-level initiatives regarding the level of financial support that the tournament attracted from both central and local government. This was exemplified by Key Informant 1, who stated that:

… [T]he amount of money involved in the organisation of these big sports events, that kind of money is definitely not filtering down. That kind of money is available, why can’t it be used to help the communities – that is our question. On the one hand the government is talking about resources, the social sector, education, health, and they say they don’t have much, not enough, but this kind of money is floating around for sports. This is something we feel strongly about.

Similarities can be drawn with Black’s (2010) summation regarding South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 Football World Cup. India, too, appears to have compromised community-level sport and social development in pursuit of the trappings purportedly associated with hosting a mega-sporting event.

Key Informant 1’s statement above regarding the level of public funds used in the bid for, and hosting of, the 2011 Cricket World Cup, compared to those available for essential social services, is reflective of the inequality in India as a whole. While the development initiatives explored in this research seek to address some of these inequalities, they themselves in some ways perpetuate it. This is most evident in relation to gender. Women and girls in India have long faced discrimination in terms of education and employment, and as previously discussed, have been increasingly exposed to physical and emotional abuse. In the context of this research, cricket in India has been constructed as a predominantly masculine pursuit, historically excluding the participation of females as players and, in some instances, even as spectators (Banerjee, 2005; Verma and Mahendra, 2005). There have been some efforts to address these inequalities within the initiatives explored in this research, most notably in the Parivartan Programme, which primarily aims to promote gender equality and reduce violence towards women. However, the exclusive focus on boys and young men within this objective reproduces the gendered stereotypes regarding female participation in cricket. Similarly, the ‘Youth Against AIDS’ Cricket Tournament has been dominated by male participation throughout its 15-year history, which again reinforces the construction of cricket as a masculine pursuit, but also limits the dissemination of HIV/AIDS awareness material to an already marginalized section of the community. Thus, there is evidence that innate gender inequalities in India are, in some ways, being perpetuated by the community development initiatives explored here, despite intentions to the contrary.

VIII Conclusion

This article has sought to explore emerging themes from the ‘development through sport’ literature in the context of cricket in India. To do so, it has explored two community-level development initiatives operating in one of Mumbai’s most underdeveloped communities, illustrating that cricket is, indeed, being used to address development issues in India. A number of positive development outcomes to emerge from these initiatives were identified; highlighting the key role that sport can play in uplifting and empowering disadvantaged communities, but it was also clear that some critiques from the ‘development through sport’ literature are being reproduced within these initiatives. Drawing upon both the positive and negative outcomes of the initiatives explored in this article, certain policy recommendations for the future role of cricket in development can be made. These recommendations include the need for greater evaluation of ‘development through cricket’ projects, both internal and external, to enable the power of cricket in development to shift from intuitive to tangible; more engagement with the commercial side of cricket through CSR; and greater focus on female participation in projects, to help break down the construction of cricket as a masculine pursuit in India. The above recommendations also highlight a number of potential future research opportunities, the most obvious of which would involve longitudinal monitoring of ‘development through cricket’ projects in order to establish cricket’s true impact. Other potential research in this field could include the replication or adaption of projects in other parts of India, particularly in a rural setting, the implications of female inclusion in projects for the social construction of cricket in India, and the viability of incorporating ‘development through cricket’ programmes within the formal education system following the successful integration of the Parivartan Programme in some of Mumbai’s schools.