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 .






Signature Of Shyamal Bhattacharjee 

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