The YMCA in Late Colonial India : Modernization, Philanthropy and American Soft Power in South Asia (Paperback)

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Rationale of the book Modernization or Modernity? Note on Sources and Literature Spatio-chronological frameworks and chapter previews 1. A mission to modernize: colonial administrators, nationalists, and religious bodies in South Asia (1870s-1930s) Modernizing missions in late colonial India: actors and agendas The Y's Passage to India: A brief institutional history of the Indian YMCA 2. 'Make them pure, fit and brotherly!': The Indian YMCA's welfare work for railwaymen and soldiers (c. 1904-1945) Towards war work: early philanthropic efforts (1890-1914) Entertainment, caregiving, and 'intercultural training': the association's service on the home front Targeting the sepoy: the YMCA triangle on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East The contradictions of Y-philanthropy: issues of sexual purity and racial hierarchies Summing up 3. 'Physical ministry': The Indian YMCA's sport and physical education programmes (c. 1900-1950) In quest of strength and manhood: The place of sports and physical culture in British India Preparing for the 'modern strain': science and physical education in the American YMCA Working out India: American physical educators and their programmes Somatic orientalism and Indian Eigensinn: limitations and modifications of the YMCA's 'democratising fitness' project Summing up 4. 'One fifth of the world's boyhood' American 'boyology' and the Indian YMCA's work with early adolescents (c. 1900-1950) Contours of the "Boy Problem" in the United States and India The development of boys' work in the Indian YMCA 'The field of action': motives and methods of YMCA boys' work in South Asia Summing up 5. The 'gospel of rural reconstruction': the YMCA's rural development programmes in South Asia (c. 1916-1955) Historicizing rural development schemes in India A Man with a mission: Duane Spencer Hatch and the Martandam Rural Demonstration Centre (MRDC) From southern Travancore to southern Arizona: the regional and global circulation of 'low modernist' rural development knowledge Summing up 6. Concluding observations: modernization without modernity? Bibliography