ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of a field study of the 2008 Olympic Flame Relay in Delhi, India, where Tibetan and pro-Tibetan protests against the Chinese Olympic hosts generated a state security transformation of Olympic ritual and a parallel Tibetan counter-performance. These events are placed in the context of earlier Indian practices of indigenization of the Olympic Flame Relay in 1960, 1964, and 2004. Hidden in the International Olympic Committee archives at Lausanne is the intriguing story of an attempt to create an Indian equivalent of the torch relay in the town of Jwalamukhi. Similarly at Ambala city and cantonment, ‘all arrangements to control the crowds broke down’ as thousands gathered far exceeding the expectations of the organizers. From Panipat to Delhi, the Grand Trunk Road was lined up with thousands as they came to get their glimpse of this holy fire that was to start the National Games.
