Play As Praxis: Rethinking Children’s Rights In The Indian Context

Whether you play with a stick, an imaginary friend, fancy toys or just pebbles from the riverbed, play is something that is embedded deep into the existential apparatus of nature, not just humans. Animals play, and they do so with rules, imagination, and enjoyment. From lion cubs wrestling to dolphins chasing waves for the thrill of it, play cuts across species as a rehearsal for life; not in the performance-based, “future-ready” sense, but as instinct, exploration, and joy.

The Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga argued that play is older than culture itself. In his book 'Homo Ludens' (1938), he reveals not just the interspecies reality of play but goes on to indicate how play presupposes even culture and is in fact actually fundamental to the growth of culture. Play, according to him, isn't just functional, it’s meaningful. It’s not about outcomes; it’s about being alive. “All play means something,” Huizinga writes, “not something that must be measured, tracked, or rewarded, but something that makes life richer, funnier, more human.”

Remarkably, play occurs even in the harshest conditions–amidst poverty, in refugee camps, and even when one is physically restrained, revealing the being’s insistence on freedom even when all else is denied. For instance, research by the LEGO Foundation and Save The Children documents how displaced children in conflict zones engage in play with found objects, using it to process trauma, reclaim agency, and imagine alternate realities. Similarly, 'Playing for Their Lives' (2017), a documentary film recounts the extraordinary story of eight Jewish young children whose lives were sustained by music during the Nazi regime. These examples and many more seem to suggest that the inherent capacity to play in principle cannot be fully eliminated. And yet, it is consistently compromised by conflict, by displacement, and by the very systems meant to uphold children’s rights. Given the almost irrepressible, primal quality of play, it becomes critical to ask - what it means in today’s world context to understand and recognize play is a right.

Internationalising Play

Recently, the world observed the first-ever International Day of Play (June 11), following a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in March 2024. This resolution is the culmination of decades of scholarly and activist recognition of play as a universal and central component to children’s development, learning, and well-being. Earlier legislation such as Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child affirmed every child’s right to rest, leisure, and play. Such legislation is framed on the back of research from across the world that shows play supporting emotional health, cognitive growth, social skills, and lifelong learning. But despite such popular interest in the idea of play, one wonders if there is more than meets the eye.

In fact, significant economic and political capital is tied to the theorisation and institutionalization of play. International organisations have spent millions, in researching play, in marketing programs that promote learning through play and in establishing play as a fundamental way of learning and being. So much so that today, play is not an afterthought but has emerged as a pedagogy in itself and it is vital to recognise it as such. Yet, in another sense, the notion of ‘play’ has also become rhetorical.

On one end, we see international chains of play schools and structured play spaces mushrooming across urban centres globally. On the other hand, anthropological studies remind us that play is not universally experienced or defined. In Life and Words: Violence and the Descent Into the Ordinary (2006), Veena Das documents how children's play in marginalised and conflict-afflicted Indian communities is shaped by trauma, survival, and memory. Such studies disrupt the sanitized, globalised images of play by locating it within specific material, social, and political conditions. So, while the right to play may be global, its meaning is not always uniform. The paradigms through which we understand and evaluate play often differ and sometimes clash between the Global North and the Global South.

The Work of Playing In Contemporary India

When we consider the Indian context, it’s worth recalling what play once was and in some places, still is. 'Khel kood', a phrase that evokes a wide range of physical and social games, was once an everyday part of community life. It often unfolded spontaneously in shared gullies, schoolyards, dusty fields, and neighbourhood courtyards. You’d play Pitthu, kabaddi, or kho-kho with whoever was around, be it cousins, neighbours, even strangers who quickly became teammates. There was little need for equipment or structure, just some space, time, and willingness. It was informal, social, and full of improvisation. You played not to win trophies, but to belong, to move, to laugh. In some sense, sportsmanship was lived, not taught.

Today, while sports continue to offer vital pathways for individual talent, recognition, and mobility, the texture of everyday play has shifted. In India, as in much of the developing world, the experience of play is sharply stratified along class lines. With rising competitiveness and shrinking open spaces, play is increasingly shaped by schedules, fees, and infrastructure. What was once a free and spontaneous part of growing up now often comes with a price tag—spatially, socially, and economically. Access to play in a safe environment is now a paid service, primarily catering to the aspirational middle classes and confined to exclusive, gated spaces. Rapid urbanisation and the rampant denotification of urban lands mean that we no longer have spaces to loiter and play.

In contrast to the older idea of play that “...makes life richer, funnier, more human,” today urban childhoods increasingly feature “curated” play, one that is carefully structured, timetabled, and measured. From chess academies to coding clubs for kids, play is now pre-packaged and supervised under an intellectual regime that sees it as a means to an end, not an end in itself. This results in children's time being tightly managed, with outcomes prioritised. It’s no surprise then that the fruits of such play have found their way onto resumes. Gradually, play as leisure has become a luxury of the privileged rather than a right of the working classes. This is the story of those who can afford to Play, a legitimised right earned through resources, privilege, and access.

A strikingly different conceptualisation of play emerges from the experiences of lower-income groups. For them, play is squeezed between chores, caregiving, or long commutes, and sometimes absorbed entirely into the rhythms of informal labour. When they do play, it’s not unusual for the children of migrant workers to invent games using discarded materials on the fringes of construction sites or beneath city flyovers. Consider how gated communities accommodate their house help’s or security staff’s children, who must invent and experience play differently. When they aren’t allowed to use the same lifts as us, how can they access the common swing? Basements and other non-usable areas often become spaces where play finds a foothold. In their play, risk is embedded, not seen as a problem to be eliminated, but as an integral part of learning and being. These liminal zones, not built for play nor deemed safe, are nevertheless claimed by children in quiet defiance of their marginality. However imaginative or rich their games may be, they also reveal just how little designated space and time children from such backgrounds are afforded to play. In these margins, play lacks the glamour and gloss with which it is often marketed as a commodity. Instead, it is something we might call jugaad—a non-conventional, frugal form of innovation, born from the existential realities of India’s urban and rural poor.

Play is also highly gendered, as boys can access the outdoors far more freely. They can loiter without scrutiny, claim public spaces, and return home dusty and loud. For girls, play is more often confined to the indoors, monitored or limited to certain hours and settings. Safety, propriety, and supervision shape the context of girls’ play far more heavily. In India, given its deep-rooted structural inequalities of caste, class, and gender, the right to play for all children remains quite fragile, often aspirational, sometimes ignored, and frequently compromised. In a country where abundance and poverty, access and exclusion, bump into each other every day, we must ask: what does it really mean to mark an International Day of Play? Is it a hashtag? A policy addendum? Or can it be a moment of deep reckoning- with our policies, with our schools, our systems, with our parenting, and with our own memories?

This polarised paradigm of the Indian context compels us to question whether a rights-based framework aligned with international policies is adequate to capture the layered and uneven realities of play on the ground. The complex everyday contrasting realities urge us to rethink the right to play not as an abstract ideal, but as something rooted in material realities. If we are to genuinely adopt a rights-based framework, then our national policies must ratify international commitments, not only in letter, but in spirit and structure. We owe it to children, all children, to reclaim play not merely as a privilege, but as a right. A space where imagination, joy, and freedom can still bloom, regardless of postcode, pay grade, or privilege. Not a luxury. Not labour. Not an after-school add-on. But a fundamental condition of being human.

About The Authors

Dr. Sonia Ghalian is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersections of childhood, media, and culture.

Dr. Aivinor Ams is a scholar of the philosophy of education with a focus on critical pedagogies, practical philosophy and inclusive learning practices.