Dr Souvik Naha

Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Post-colonial History (Political & International Studies)

email: Souvik.Naha@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns: He/him/his

Room 613A, Gilbert Scott Building, University of Glasgow, University Avenue, G12 8QQ

Biography

The main focus of my research is the making of modern South Asia and the British Empire. My research investigates how sport—particularly cricket—has shaped cultural identity, social relations, and political imagination in South Asian and Indo-British contexts.

My first monograph analysed how journalists and broadcasters helped popularise cricket as an everyday leisure activity in twentieth-century Calcutta. By tracing how media narratives embedded cricket into the rhythms of urban life, it illuminated wider processes of cultural transfer and the lingering afterlife of colonialism within a decolonising society. It brought together the histories of everyday life, popular culture, regional politics, and the transnational flow of ideas to show how cricket became a powerful medium through which Bengalis interpreted social change, articulated a distinct cultural community, fostered new social relationships, and created a language of belonging in postcolonial Calcutta.

I subsequently broadened my scholarship on decolonisation with a broader examination of how cricket reshaped Britain's relationship with independent India and Pakistan. Through an exploration of issues of race, mobility, migration, diplomacy, and orientalist and environmental thoughts, the project has revealed how sport operated as an informal but influential arena in which political and cultural ties between South Asia and Britain were renegotiated. This research forms the basis of my second monograph, which will analyse the role of sport in reimagining the British World and the Commonwealth from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Influenced by my own passion for travelling, I have started exploring travel narratives as a means to understanding how intercontinental, long-distance journeys undertaken by colonial Indians emerged as a politically conscious radical practice that challenged imperial monopolies on mobility and permissible politics.

Research interests

The British Empire since the nineteenth century
Decolonisation and postcoloniality
Modern South Asia
Sport
Travel
Health and medicine
Mass media, advertising and visual culture

Research groups

Economic & Social History

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011

Number of items: 53.

2026

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Dutta, Manikarnika (2026) ‘Done the elephants, done the mosquitoes’: international cricket tours and the making of India as a disease zone, c.1890s-1990s. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, (doi: 10.1080/03086534.2026.2693708) (Early Online Publication)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2026) Revolutions in motion: Indian globe cycling and the challenge to empire, 1920s-30s. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, (doi: 10.1080/00856401.2026.2655868) (Early Online Publication)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2026) ‘Sinister Indian-like half-circle’: tennis, orientalism and the white racial frame in the twentieth-century British sporting press. History, (doi: 10.1111/1468-229x.70119) (Early Online Publication)

2025

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2025) ICC’s Code of Conduct and political interference in cricket: inconsistent stances. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 10(2), pp. 117-120. (doi: 10.20529/ijme.2025.031) (PMID:40561421)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2025) 'The greatest permanent link between this country and the East': cricket diplomacy at the end of the British Empire in South Asia, c.1932-1950. English Historical Review, 140(604-5), pp. 747-776. (doi: 10.1093/ehr/ceaf022)

2024

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2024) Introduction: Uncanny belongings: affective nationalism, state power, and cricket in the twenty-first century. In: Naha, Souvik (ed.) Cricket and Nationhood in the Twenty-First Century: Identity Projects in Uncertain Times. Series: Ox. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 1-14. ISBN 9780191982576 (doi: 10.1093/9780191982576.003.0001)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (Ed.) (2024) Cricket and Nationhood in the Twenty-First Century: Identity Projects in Uncertain Times. Series: Oxford scholarship online. Oxford University Press: Oxford. ISBN 9780191982576

Fischer-Tine, Harald and Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2024) Man-making and world-making on two wheels: Indian ‘globe cyclists’ in the interwar years. Journal of Global History, 19(3), pp. 392-420. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022823000323)

2023

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Malcolm, Dominic (Eds.) (2023) Cricket in the 21st Century. Series: Sport in the Global Society – Contemporary Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 9781032662138

2022

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2022) Cricket, Public Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Calcutta. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108494588 (doi: 10.1017/9781108781190)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2022) Gender, power, and cricket spectators in Calcutta, 1960s–1990s. Historical Journal, 65(3), pp. 774-796. (doi: 10.1017/S0018246X21000406)

2021

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2021) Flight of fantasy or reflections of passion? Knowledge, skill and fantasy cricket. Sport in Society, 24(8), pp. 1322-1335. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2019.1607012)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Malcolm, Dominic (2021) Cricket at the beginning of the long twenty-first century. Sport in Society, 24(8), pp. 1267-1273. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2021.1932307)

Bandyopadhyay, Kausik and Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (Eds.) (2021) Moments, Metaphors, Memories: Defining Events in the History of Soccer. Routledge: London.

2020

Majumdar, Boria and Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2020) Live sport during the COVID-19 crisis: fans as creative broadcasters. Sport in Society, 23(7), pp. 1091-1099. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2020.1776972)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2020) Hill, Jeffrey. Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Pp. x+ 240. Index and six illustrations. £85, hb. Journal of Sport History, 47(2), pp. 176-178. (doi: 10.1353/sph.2020.0038)[Book Review]

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2020) The rise of modern sport and the Olympic Movement in India. In: Hong, Fan and Zhouxiang, Lu (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Sport in Asia. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 126-134. ISBN 9780367183776 (doi: 10.4324/9780429061202-16)

2019

Bandyopadhyay, Kausik and Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2019) Defining moments in the history of soccer. Soccer and Society, 20(7–8), pp. 897-902. (doi: 10.1080/14660970.2019.1680489)

2018

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) Book Review: Kausik Bandyopadhyay, Mahatma on the Pitch: Gandhi & Cricket in India. South Asia Research, 38(3), pp. 350-352. (doi: 10.1177/0262728018798989)[Book Review]

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Hassan, David (Eds.) (2018) Ethical Concerns in Sport Governance. Routledge: London ; New York. ISBN 9780367586720

Bandyopadhyay, Kausik, Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Mitra, Shakya (Eds.) (2018) FIFA World Cup and Beyond: Sport, Culture, Media and Governance. Series: Sport in the global society: contemporary perspectives. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY. ISBN 9780815396338

Bandyopadhyay, Kausik, Naha, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Mitra, Shakya (2018) Introduction. In: Bandyopadhyay, Kausik, Naha, Souvik and Mitra, Shakya (eds.) FIFA World Cup and Beyond: Sport, Culture, Media and Governance. Series: Sport in the global society: contemporary perspectives. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 1-8. ISBN 9780815396338

Mitra, Sarbajit and Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) Politics and international fandom in a fringe nation: La Albiceleste, Maradona, and Marxist Kolkata. In: Bandyopadhyay, Kausik, Naha, Souvik and Mitra, Shakya (eds.) FIFA World Cup and Beyond: Sport, Culture, Media and Governance. Series: Sport in the global society: contemporary perspectives. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 114-128. ISBN 9780815396338

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) Sport in emerging markets. In: Hassan, David (ed.) Managing Sport Business: an Introduction. Series: Foundations of sport management. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 115-130. ISBN 9781138291362 (doi: 10.4324/9781315265476-7)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Hassan, David (2018) Introduction: ethical concerns in sport governance. Sport in Society, 21(5), pp. 721-723. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2018.1400783)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) Dominic Malcolm, Sport, Medicine and Health: The Medicalization of Sport? (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. x+212, £105, hardback, ISBN: 978-1-138-82645-8. Medical History, 62(2), pp. 247-248. (doi: 10.1017/mdh.2018.9)[Book Review]

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) Jagmohan Dalmiya: the Prometheus of modern cricket? In: Bayle, Emmanuel and Clastres, Patrick (eds.) Global Sport Leaders: a Biographical Analysis of International Sport Management. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 395-415. ISBN 9783319767529 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-76753-6_15)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (Ed.) (2018) Global and Transnational Sport: Ambiguous Borders, Connected Domains. Series: Sport in the global society – contemporary perspectives. Routledge: London. ISBN 9780815396680

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) “The Russian deadpan expert” vs “America’s white hope”: the personal, the national, and the global in the “Cold War” of chess. In: Vonnard, Philippe, Sbetti, Nicola and Quin, Grégory (eds.) Beyond Boycotts: Sport During the Cold War in Europe. Series: Rethinking the Cold War (1). De Gruyter: Berlin ; Boston, pp. 179-194. ISBN 9783110526660 (doi: 10.1515/9783110529098-010)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2018) Visually playing politics: use of sports as political critique in newspaper cartoons. In: Motrescu-Mayes, Annamaria and Banks, Marcus (eds.) Visual Histories of South Asia. Primus Books, pp. 209-229. ISBN 9789386552440

2017

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2017) ‘Over the border and the gates’? Global and transnational sport. Sport in Society, 20(10), pp. 1347-1353. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2016.1221049)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2017) With or without cricket? The two lives of the English game in a decolonizing India. Sport in Society, 20(10), pp. 1405-1423. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2016.1221074)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2017) A state without a nation? Historicising India's 'conspiracy' against Bengal and its cricketers. In: Hassan, David and Acton, Ciaran (eds.) Sport and Contested Identities: Contemporary Issues and Debates. Series: Routledge research in sport, culture and society (88). Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, pp. 132-151. ISBN 9781138696686 (doi: 10.4324/9781315523651-8)

Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 (2017) Sport, culture, nation: perspectives from Indian football and South Asian cricket, by Kausik Bandyopadhyay, New Delhi, Sage, 2015,240 pp., ₹ 695 (hbk), ISBN 9789351503026. South Asian History and Culture, 8(3), pp. 390-391. (doi: 10.1080/19472498.2017.1350402)[Book Review]

Bandyopadhyay, Kausik, Naha, Souvik ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1010-6883 and Mitra, Shakya (2017) FIFA World Cup and beyond: sport, culture, media and governance. Sport in Society, 20(5-6), pp. 547-554. (doi: 10.1080/17430437.2016.1158475)