Disintegration Of Indian Hockey :: The Sapling Starts Growing To Take Shape , And Disintegrate Indian Hockey From The 1948 Olympics
Pic :: A" DISINTEGRATED " Mirror integrated as " SHOWGLASS "that reflects Indian Hockey
Disintegration Of
Indian Hockey :: The Sapling Starts Growing From The 1948 Olympics
Hockey in India started showing its discontempt right from
the end of the Berlin Olympics.There were many mouths that started raising the question
about the top space not given to the Christians. However this was diffused due
to two reason. The first was the overwhelming and the towering presence of the
cult figure that Major Dhyanchand had to put to the entire world. Undoubtedly
because of Major Dhyanchand it was not possible for anybody and everybody to raise
certain questions or any question which would raise concerns about the Indian
Hockey to be rolled according to Dhyanchand but Dhyanchand did not ever put
anything to the ones to dance and play
to his tune as he did not believe in the politics and the polity of those bad
and the worst things.
The Muslim-Punjabi
Ego and Tango
From 1946 when the
World war was finally announced as a closed chapter and with the break up of
the Germany into West and East with the West being taken care by the Americans
and the Eastern being taken care by the Communist the World of the Sports also changed from the
Olympics 1948 when one sawe East Germany always finishing amongst the first
three in the Olympics.
India too was broken into two and from there the Indian
Hockey too was broken into a few pieces. One of them which formed a new face
was Pakistan. The Muslim’s here at India too had started taking this game as
their life, their hopes and their bread and butter . So much so that Aligarh in
one throw, produced and put as many as fifteen players from that place to the
Indian hockey and the notable was a player by the name of Ali Zafar, basically from
Gorakhpur but who was a student of the Aligarh Muslim University.
Pic :: A Disintegrated Element that actually represented Indian Hockey since 1936
Across the border the Muslims and the Punjabi Muslim grew in
strength and that part of India then, and now Pakistan grew and nurtured many
outstanding Hockey players . To what extent the Pakistani area that now we call
it as Lahore of Pakistan started
throwing outstanding players could be gauged by the fact that when the Indian
Hockey team finished with a Gold at Berlin in 1936, the team was invited at
Lahore to play an exhibition match against the Rising Lahore which contained
all the Muslim Punjabi and the Muslim turks playing Hockey at Lahore and that
portion of Punjab then which after partition went to Pakistan.
That one match raised many a question about India being the
DICTATORS of the World Hockey to come in the future. In that game a well
drilled and an under 20 team of Lahore as I might like to name it completely
put the Indian Gold winning team in the deepest of the Indian Ocean for
survival as within the first thirty minutes of that match the Lahorian’s put
the Gold Olympians reeling and gasping for their breathe and life when they led
by 1-3 at the breather . It was then the magical world famous Dhyanchand whose
stick work and wrist work as well as his runs started showing them WHAT MAGIC
IN HOCKEY WAS ALL ABOUT. It was his brother Roop Singh who with him saved the
face of that Indian team that day as he and Dhyanchand scored to restored the
parity .
IT WAS FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT
ONE COULD SEE THAT PUNJABI AREA OF PAKISTAN HAD BURSTED INTO THE SEEDLINGS TO
GROW AS THE SAPLINGS AND LATER AS THE TREE TO BEAR THE FRUITS OF HOCKEY AND
THAT IS WHAT IT HAPPENED IN HOCKEY AFTER THE PARTITION.
Dhyanchand was the first to admit that the Punjabi area of
what we call it now as Lahore was going to put many of the Hockey players from
this part of the country into shade and it happened right from 1948 when Pakistan
were separated from India . However the sleeping giants and the ever boasting Indians were never to wake up
to the reality.
Here in India the Punjabis from the land of Punjab and the
Muslims from the land of Uttar Pradesh started throwing many outstanding
players in the domestic circuit . However they were not getting the chances at
all to showcase their talent in the domestic circuit. It was because of the
World war second and the Beighton Cup Hockey was not to be held for that
reason. Staging a tourney requires money and the money was not flowing into the
game because of the war and the money that the British’s were pumping the same
for the world war.
However soon after the war in 1947-48 the first Independent Indian
team was formed and that was send to a tour of Africa, basically East Africa to
play some matches numbering 17 in all .In that tour unceremoniously Roop Singh
was dropped .That was the first of it’s and worst kind of the incident to
follow which became a permanent part of the lore of Indian Hockey to see it and
make it a part of it’s unceremonious part of it’s unwitting culture which later
on became the daily routine of Indian hockey.
Roop Singh :: A
Victim Of Many Unwanted Happening
This infamous but a completely forgotten man in the annals
of Indian Hockey, was a player who could play as a CENTRE FORWARD , then as a
INSIDE LEFT and as an INSIDE LEFT. He played as a Centre Forward in the 1932
Los Angeles Olympics, but as per the direction of his brother , he took the
inside left position in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Not even passing the matriculate exams and simply pouring
all his heart and his time to Hockey, he was not given any job anywhere. However
the Punjab national Bank in those days which was sponsoring and bearing all the
expenditure of the Indian Hockey whenever it toured abroad, promised him a job
if incase he led the Indian team at the Olympics and won that Gold under his
captainship.
That which could have easily happened in 1944 when he could
have led the Indian Hockey team in the Olympics of 1944, did not take place in
1944 because of the World war. That cut off his life for all. Then came the 1947-48
tour of East Africa. Since there were no internal matches held at India during
that time for the reason of World War, Roop Singh could not find a place to
represent himself in any team. He was not an Army man to have played the Inter
Unit Army Championship to show how many goals did he score to prove his worth
in the Army games and Army championship Hockey games that was played within the
Army.
He was left totally wandering to play this game for any team
but none of the Hockey team then took him or gave him any chance to play as he
was not in a job with any team. His last hope was the Punjab National Bank who
kept on promising him of a job but no sooner in 1947 when the nation gained
Independence, the rule that anybody who wishes to get a job in any Indian
Government organization ought to possess atleast a matriculate certificate completely minced him
and his hope to nothing or to death as I may call it so. His entire family fell
on the shoulder’s of Dhyanchand. That HUGE family then started feeling the
HEAT-OF-PENURY and Roop Singh was neither given a call for the probable to
attend the camp for the East African tour or anything as such afterwards and THIS
WAS THE FIRST REAL INCIDENT IN THE ANNALS OF INDIAN HOCKEY OF A GOLD
MEDALLIST TO BECOME A PAUPER AND A BEGGAR TO BEG FOR HIS LIFE .
Disgusted Roop Singh gave away playing Hockey. Somehow he
was hired by the Personal Army of the Scindia’s of Gwalior and he was adopted
by them as a Captain of that Army . However the mean salary that he received and
the urge for money to work and earn more and the problem that his family
started facing because of the shortage of money completely devastated him and
his entire hockey went in to the gutters and from there to the cemeteries and
he was a forgotten man in the annals of Indian hockey.
He somehow was favoured by the Scindia’s to become a
national coach for the Indian School Team in 1968 .He did his job well to form
a team which beat the German National School Hockey team which was led by ASLAM
SHER KHAN in the three Indo-West Germany Hockey School Test match series but no sooner that series ended he was
thrown out of the job. He was given the charge to lead the Madhya Pradesh
Hockey Board for the development of MP in Hockey but again the politics and the
money immediately threw him out of the same and he died a man whose medical
expenses were billed by a Samaritan of Hockey from Madras who was a GREAT
DHYANCHAND WORSHIPPER .
THIS IS WHERE AND HOW THE TREATMENT STARTED
FOR THE HOCKEY ICONS TO BEGET THEM ALL, AND FROM THEN TO NOW IT FOLLWS.
However coming back to the Indian team’s sojourn to East
Africa, Dhyanchand by then was about 43 years of age. He was selected for the
tour but then the murmurs had to start and it started .Words started coming
out WHY THIS MAN OF 43 YEARS OF AGE OUGHT TO
BE SELECTED . ARE THERE NOT YOUNGSTERS WHO COULD BE GIVEN THAT PLACE AS
DHYANCHAND WAS NO MORE THE FUTURE OF INDIAN HOCKEY.
K.D.Singh “ Babu ”
pursues Dhyanchand to follow the East
Africa Tour
Two players who were emerging as the RISING SUN of the Indian
Hockey during that time were Kunwar Digvijay Singh Babu and Balbir Singh Senior
. Listening to the voices raised against Dhyanchand at the camp and amongst the
selectors, Dhyanchand had literally decided to
take away his name from Hockey . His family, it’s burden to manage it
with such a little resource and over it the entire burden to manage the Roop
Singh family completely broke him.He wanted to fully concentrate on hios job
and it’s carrer in the Army.
The Army also approached him to coach it’s Hockey team for the national’s
assuring him a extra emoluments of Rs 100=00 per month, then and also promised
him to let him coach some private hockey team within the area of his Head
Quarter to him to earn something extra for managing himself and his family so
that the pressure on him to manage such a huge family also may be lessened .
Looking into all these Major Dhyanchand did not want himself
to go for the Africa sojourn, but consistent persuasion from the youngsters
like Ali Zafar and K.D.Singh Babu made him to listen to them and he followed the
Indian team on that tour.
On that tour Dhyanchand completely took Babu and Ali Zafar under his
wing and always during the time when the team was not playing hockey he spend
hours after hours with them to teach them and impart all the lesson of WIZARDY
and MAGICS of Hockey. Dhyanchand- if he was NOT, K.D.Singh Babu and Ali Zafar
would have been NOT and NOUGHT for
anything . That tour saw the Indian team pumping 217 goals in the entire tour
with Dhyanchand scoring 72 and K.D.Singh Babu scoring 94 , a total of 166
goals, ie 76% of the entire goals within and between them.
It was assumed that the Olympic team of 1948 will see Major
Dhyanchand leading the indian team to the London Olympics but when the team
arrived here- to the SURPRISE of one and many MAJOR DHYANCHAND ANNOUNCED
THAT HE WILL NEVER AGAIN PLAY HOCKEY FOR ANY TEAM .
The rumbles which took place before the start of the East
African sojourn and that continued taking in terms of the MURMURS while and
after the tour completely DEVASTATED him and his heart . He realized that In
India SPORTSMAN HAVE NO PRESTIGE,
THEY ARE NOT CONSIDERED BY ANY BODY, THE GOVERNMENT JUST DOES NOT CARE ABOUT
THEM AND THAT THE SPORTS IN INDIA BELONGS TO THEM WHO CAN THROW MONEY TO HAVE THEIR SAY AND THE PLACE. He
decided to concentrate on his family and his career in the Army. The Army got
him the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan and before he retired, he was a Major
in the Army but the finance and the money was NOT there for him to lead a life
that could match his SHINE and the GLITZ of the GOLD that he had won for India
as a HOCKEY player.
When the Indian Hockey team for the 1948 Olympics landed
there was a JOLT to the world of Hockey. Pakistan had fielded it’s FIRST ever
Independent Olympic team and it was that Ali Ishtiaque Hassan Dara who played
beside major Dhaynchand in the finals of the 1936 Berlin Hockey finals against
Germany and who has scored TWO of the EIGHT goals that India had scored on that
day was assisting the Pakistani Hockey team . HE WAS THEIR CAPTAIN OF THAT
OLYMPIC TEAM.That team had two more players who were above 45 years
of age and who had played along with Dhyanchand to assist Pakistan but Major
Dhyanchand who was scoring the goals in terms of SEVENTY GOALS and many more
here at India in the various hockey tourney was not assisting the Indian team .
That was a BIG surprise for the Pakistani team as Pakistan had expected that
Dhyanchand with that a kind of form atleast will be there assisting the Indian
team atleast to play his last Olympics. The Pakistani wanted a INDIA-PAKISTAN
finals with Ali Ishtiaque Hassan Dara and Dhyanchand to face each other for the
last time as Hockey players as in all their life they played together for india
as a Hockey player and Dara was considered as the PAKISTANI HOCKEY JADUGAR in
that country after Pakistan as a nation was formed and as a Hockey player that
Dara was for Pakistan after he switched his base to Pakistan.
For that was Pakistan and it’s “ RESPECT ” for Indian Hockey and
that was the way the Indians would treat their “ LEGEND ” and “LEGION ” as a
player in this country.
This kind of an ill-treatment for the Indian Hockey players
continues and this is still being continued and there is no end to the same.
Hockey always was a poor man’s sports in this country despite the fact that
Hockey has given 27 TITLES to India in the World stage which includes as many
as EIGHT OLYMPIC GOLD, and ONE World Cup title in 1975 as compared to Pakistan which
has THREE Olympic titles and FOUR World Cup titles the last that they won in
1994 when they defeated Holland in the penalties, in 1994 , the then Pakistani
team which was led by SHAHBAZ AHMED
.
Punjab and it’s rise
in Indian Hockey ::
In India the National
Hockey Championship then had started from 1945 just after the end of the
World War at the fag end of 1945.
Punjab had won the National Championship on both the year in
1945-46 and 1946-47.The Head Quarter of the Punjab Hockey Association was at
Lahore. From New Zealand a COMMUNITY names as “ MAORI ” got so much infatuated
and infected that its send it’s team to participate in these National Hockey championship
. THERE WAS NO TROPHIES AWARDED TO
THE WINNERS OR THE RUNNERS-UP THEN. The Maoris in the second attempt
and instance to participate and the LOVE and the RESPECT that they had for
Hockey of India donated a TROPHY which was awarded to the winner of the
National championship.
The country got divided and the Cup which was there at the
Headquarter of the Punjab Association of Hockey at Lahore DID NOT RETURN THAT TROPHY
BACK TO INDIA SAYING THAT IT WAS THEIR SYMBOL OF RESPECT AND THAT THEY WOULD
NOT GIVE IT BACK THAT TO INDIA.
It is here the Punjabi’s from India took the game of Hockey
so much forward and so much to their heart that after the national Championship
were again started with RANGASWAMY CUP donated by Mr Rangaswamy who was a
ARDENT and a KEEN lover of Hockey and who came from the BUSINESS family of
Madras then, to donate that Trophy that the Indian Hockey Association GOT a CUP
to donate and award to the winners of the National Hockey Champions of
India.
Punjab from 1945-46 to 1947-48 and again from 1951 when the
National Hockey Championship again restarted won that Trophy till 1955-56 and
thus they started proclaiming that everything in Hockey In India was their own
LEGION and that it would be BEST for HOCKEY in India if the Entire Punjab
National Hockey title winning team was made to represent India in Hockey. That
is the point from where the FUEDS between the Punjabis and the Non Punjabis in
Hockey In India started erupting.
With Bhopal which had then become the nursery of Indian
Hockey and with Uttar Pradesh throwing such a GALAXIES of stars like K.D.Sing Babu, Ali Zaffer, Jhamanlal Sharma, Akhtar Hussian,
Latif-Ur-Rehman it became very hard for one to precipitate the Punjab- UP
Hockey tangle and slowly the Administators from Punjab holding many prestigious
position in the banks and the Army as well as in the Central Government
Services started having their SHOW and their WAY to completely take over the
Indian Hockey.
This started axing the players from the other region of this
country who had tremendous Hockey skills but were denied of the opportunity to
represent India and infusing some of the SARDARS from Punjab into the Indian
team. It is from here the rift in the Indian team and the difference of the
opinion of the Hockey administrators about whom to select and whom to reject
from the Indian team to represent India in Hockey started and this later became
a CANCER which has completely KILLED Indian Hockey.
THE IRONY AND THE UNBELIEVABLE FACT IS THE 1948 OLYMPIC HOCKEY TEAM
HAD NINE “ ANGLO-INDIANS” IN THAT SIDE WHICH WON THE HOCKEY GOLD AS INDEPENDENT
INDIA .
Inspite of receiving such a SHABBY treatment these Anglo-Indians known as the CHRISTIANS went on to bag their place in that Indian Hockey squad which won the FIRST ever Hockey Gold as an Independent country, the INDEPENDENT INDIA.
To what an extent the PUNJABI-NON PUNJABI fiasco took place
could be gauged by the fact that when the team was selected here , it was
Kishen Lal a Punjabi who was named as the captain of the team. However when the
team started it’s campaign at London the NON PUNJABI-PUNJABI tussle was st it’s
HIEGHT. It was K. D . Singh Babu who was the Vice Captain of that side. He was
deliberately made the Vice captain to bring and maintain a BALANCE in that side.
It was K.D.Singh Babu who requested Kishen Lall to hand over
the Captainship for a few games to Keshav Dutt who was a Punjabi but was NOT
from Punjab to lead the Indian team for some of the games, so as to bring about
a PEACE and SERENITY in the squad and Kishen Lall agreed to that . However when
the semis and the Finals took place K.D.Singh Babu again approached Keshav Dutt
to request him to return the captain Band to kinsmen Kishen Lall which he did. This was the reason for the
1948 Indian Olympic Hockey team to restore BALANCE and PEACE in the side and
the SQUAD and it went a LONG way for
India to balance the TRADE of the PUNJABI-NON PUNJABI business and it helped
India to win her FOURTH consecutive Olympic title
THIS WOULD BE FURTHER CONTINUED BUT FOR THE DAY THIS IS ENOUGH
This is the REAL story of the SECOND kind where the SECOND ever WAR of Indian Hockey in terms of a MUTINY was dissolved by the Mr K.D.Singh Babu after the SINGH FAMILY did it FIRST in 1936, that is known for Dhyanchand and it’s exploits in Hockey.
Well , that is it and That sums it all.
Regards and Thanks
Pics
Shyamal Bhattacharjee
Mr Shyamal Bhattacharjee, the author was born at West Chirimiri Colliery at District Surguja, Chattisgarh on July 6th 1959 He received his early education at Carmel Convent School Bishrampur and later at Christ Church Boys' Higher Secondary School at Jabalpur. He later joined Hislop College at Nagpur and completed his graduation in Science and he also added a degree in B A thereafter. He joined the HITAVADA, a leading dailies of Central India at Nagpur as a Sub-Editor ( Sports ) but gave up to complete his MBA in 1984 He thereafter added a Diploma In Export Management. He has authored THREE books namely Notable Quotes and Noble Thought published by Pustak Mahal in 2001 Indian Cricket : Faces That Changed It published by Manas Publications in 2009 and Essential Of Office Management published by NBCA, Kolkatta in 2012. He has a experience of about 35 years in Marketing .
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