Olympics-The India Story

by Boria Majumdar

  3

  The Golden Years

  ‘We Climb the Victory Stand’

  India claims to be the foremost in many things in the world. The world admits that she is foremost in hockey.

  —A. M. Hayman, President, Indian Hockey Federation, 19321

  Hockey, more than any other game, is etched in the Indian psyche. It is hockey that brings out the magic and mystery, the poetry and prose in Indian sport.

  —Rajdeep Sardesai, 19922

  ‘WE WERE MADE HEROES’

  One of the world’s oldest sports, hockey predates the ancient Olympic Games by a little more than 1,200 years. However, the modern game of field hockey (as distinct from ice hockey) evolved in the British Isles in the middle of the 19th century. The British helped spread hockey globally, promoting it in parts of the empire as part of the civilizing process, and subsequently its popularity became especially visible in the Indian subcontinent by the early 20th century. In colonial India, especially in the early decades of the 20th century, hockey was as popular as cricket and football, the country’s other passions. Even school and college magazines of the period are replete with descriptions of hockey matches, and they specifically draw attention to India’s spectacular performance in the Olympics.3

  In India, organized hockey started in Calcutta in 1885 when the first hockey clubs were formed. Within a decade the great tournaments that were to become the breeding grounds of the national team had been established. The Beighton Cup in Calcutta and the Aga Khan Tournament in Bombay were both set up in 1895. Having established itself in the east and west of the country, hockey moved north to the Punjab, first to the Army cantonments and then it made its way into the Punjab University Sports tournament in 1903. In the same year, Lahore started its famous Hot Weather Tournament.4 These tournaments were to be the lifeline of Indian hockey all through its golden age. Writing of the Beighton Cup in 1952, the great Dhyan Chand, who cut his hockey teeth first in the Army, and then with the Jhansi Heroes observed:

  In 1933, the Jhansi Heroes decided to participate in the Beighton Cup hockey tournament. My life’s ambition was to win the Beighton Cup, as I had always regarded this competition as the blue riband of Indian hockey. In my opinion it is perhaps the best organized hockey event in the country. Calcutta is indeed lucky that it has at least three or four first class hockey grounds on the maidan, and this is a great advantage to run a tournament on schedule. Instituted in 1895, this tournament has had a non-stop run. World Wars I and II did not affect the tournament. Threats of Japanese bombs and actual bombings in Calcutta while the hockey season was on also did not prevent the tournament from being held. That being said, it is sad to think that the tournament had to yield to the communal frenzy, which gripped the nation in 1946–47.5

  Like the Bombay Pentangular in cricket, these tournaments helped in popularizing the game beyond the confines of Army cantonments. The first attempts at forming a national association took place in Calcutta in 1907–08.6 The political chaos that engulfed Bengal after its partition in 1905, however, put paid to these efforts. The move was revived in the 1920s when C.E. Newham, president of the Punjab Hockey Federation, started a campaign to create a central organization to govern Indian hockey. This second attempt at establishing a nodal organization also ended in failure and it was not until November 1925 that a governing body for hockey was established.

  The princely state of Gwalior was the new centre. Writing in 1959, this is how A.S. De Mello described the formation of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF):

  In 1924, at the request of the now defunct Western India Hockey Association, Lieutenant Colonel Luard, who was then President of the Gwalior Sports Association, addressed all hockey associations, clubs and individuals interested in the game and invited them to a meeting in Gwalior. This meeting, which took place on November 7th, 1925, resulted in the official formation of the Indian Hockey Federation.7

  At the inaugural meeting of the federation, Gwalior, Bengal, Punjab, Sind, Rajputana, Western India, Punjab University and the Army Sports Control Board were represented. For the first two years, Gwalior was treated as the headquarters, subsequently it moved to Delhi in 1927.8

  The formation of the IHF was a landmark event because it enabled international exposure for Indian players for the first time. Soon after its formation the IHF organized India’s first international tour, the trip to New Zealand in 1926. The Indian team immediately made its mark and their wizardry proved to be a commercial success as well. The New Zealand Hockey Federation made a profit of GBP 300 after paying the Indians a healthy sum of GBP 500. The Indians ended the tour with 18 victories in 21 matches, and just one defeat. They scored a total of 192 goals, conceding 24, at an average of 9.31 goals per match. Astonishingly, the Indians registered a double-digit score in as many as nine games.9

  It was on this tour that Dhyan Chand established himself as the premier star of Indian hockey. For him, an enlisted sepoy in the Army and a man not born into privilege, like some of his counterparts, the opportunity to represent India was an unexpected windfall. His outright delight is beautifully portrayed in his autobiography:

  It was a great day for me when my Commanding Officer called me and said: ‘Boy, you are to go to New Zealand.’ I was dumbfounded, and did not know what to reply. All I did was to click my heels snappily, give as smart a salute as I possibly could, and beat a hasty retreat. Once out of sight of the officer, I ran like a hare to reach my barracks and communicated the good news to my fellow soldiers. And what a reception they gave me! I lost no time in getting prepared for the trip. I was not a rich man, my earnings as a sepoy being only a few rupees a month. My parents were not rich either. All thoughts of outfitting and equipping myself in the proper manner for an overseas tour of this nature had to be given up for want of sufficient resources. I clothed myself as inexpensively as possible, and my main personal outfit was my military kit…As soldiers, particularly those belonging to the Other Ranks (read lower ranks), it was a great experience for us. Prior to this tour we could never conceive of being feted and entertained at private houses and public functions in such a glorious and enjoyable manner. We were made heroes, and on my part, if I may put it quite modestly, I proved myself a great success and left behind a great impression.10

  Riding on this success and encouraged by the colonial British government’s support, the IHF applied for and subsequently obtained global affiliation in 1927. This was crucial to India’s participation at the Amsterdam Games in 1928. It was in Amsterdam that India started its uninterrupted reign over the world of hockey for the next two decades.

  ‘CAN I SEE MY TROUSERS IN THE SUN’:

  THE BEGINNING

  Men’s hockey first appeared at the 1908 Olympic Games in London. It reappeared in Antwerp in 1920, returning to stay from the 1928 Amsterdam Games onwards. Women’s hockey waited much longer, finally debuting in 1980. Between 1928 and 1956, India won six straight Olympic gold medals and 24 consecutive matches, a record likely to stand for the foreseeable future. Indians have won two more gold medals since, in 1964 and 1980. In fact, it was at India’s insistence that hockey was reinstated at Amsterdam after being dropped from the program of the eighth Olympiad in Paris in 1924.

  Anthony S. De Mello—from whose autobiographical essay we have borrowed the sub-title of this chapter—writes that before leaving for Amsterdam, India’s hockey players, were ‘confident that they would not disgrace themselves’.11 At the same time they did not approach the Games with any fantastic hopes. Jaipal Singh, who had a first-class degree from his native Ranchi and was then a student at Balliol College, Oxford, was appointed captain of the team. A Munda tribal from Chhotanagpur, the forested plateau of undivided Bihar, Jaipal is a fascinating character in Indian history whose influence in later years extended far beyond the hockey field. As Ramachandra Guha writes, he later became the marang gomke, or ‘great leader’ of the tribals of Chhotanagpur and in the Constituent Assembly ‘he came to represent tribals not just of his n
ative plateau, but all of India’. It was his interventions in the Constituent Assembly that ultimately led to the reservation of seats for tribals in government jobs and in legislative bodies after independence.12 Sent to Oxford by missionaries, Jaipal successfully led a team comprising of Indians studying at British universities to Belgium and Spain and earned a reputation as a great hockey player in the UK, as is evident from the numerous profiles published in World Hockey magazine. When the team for Amsterdam was announced it included Jaipal, S. M. Yusef and the Nawab of Pataudi Senior, who were already in Britain. Thirteen players sailed from Bombay, nine of them Anglo-Indians, to lead India’s challenge at the 1928 Olympics.13 However, before sailing for London, there was a last-minute alarm when it was revealed that because of insufficient funds only 11 of the 13 selected players could undertake the tour. The shortfall, contemporary reports revealed, was Rs 15,000. That it was a crisis was evident when the federation announced that in case sufficient funds weren’t garnered, Shaukat Ali of Bengal and R.A. Norris of the Central Provinces would not accompany the team. In the end, it was largely owing to the munificence of the sports-loving public of Bengal, who organized public collections to make up the funding shortfall, that the two players were able to make the trip.14

  While he became known in later life as a prominent Parliamentarian and Adivasi leader, Jaipal described his hockey career in the UK in his memoirs thus:

  The effect of the tours of Indian students I conducted every year with the help of Aga Khan, ‘Kanji’ Baroda, Patiala, Bhopal and other Indian royalty was the formation of the Indian Hockey Federation…India decided to send a team to the Amsterdam Olympiad in 1928. I was still at Oxford a probationer for the Indian Civil Service…As after 1926 I could not play for the University team, I played for the Wimbledon Hockey Club…As at Oxford I continued to receive publicity in the London press.15

  In a clear reflection of how haphazardly that first Olympic team was put together, and also of the times, he goes on to narrate the strange manner in which he was appointed captain of the Indian team:

  One early evening two Britishers, Colonel Bruce Turnbull and Major Ricketts, both of the Indian army, called at the Church Imperial Club. Turnbull was Secretary of the Army Sports Board in India and Ricketts was his lieutenant. I stood them drinks. They told me the Indian hockey team was coming the following week on its way to Amsterdam. ‘We want you to captain the team.’ I agreed but told them I would have to get leave from the India Office for absence during term time. I did not get leave! I decided to defy the ruling and face the consequences.16

  Jaipal met his team when their boat docked at Tilbury on 30 March 1928. Having lived in England for a few years by now, he was unimpressed by what he saw as their rustic ‘untidy dress and crude demeanor’. The team was put up in a pension at South Kensington and Jaipal invited them a couple of times to the well-known Veeraswamy’s restaurant on Regent Street. ‘It was expensive to feed them. The Indian dishes were Hyderabadi but not cheap.’ Soon after arrival the players started addressing Jaipal as ‘skipper’ though he was yet to accept the offer formally. In the first few practice sessions, Shaukat Ali and Dhyan Chand caught Jaipal’s attention. Shaukat represented Calcutta Customs and could play in any position. Dhyan Chand, a Lance Naik in the Indian Army, had made his name in New Zealand, scoring the bulk of the goals for the Indian Army team in 1926. Dhyan Chand, Jaipal states:

  …was humble. He had only one pair of trousers. I took him to Austin Reed on Regent Street. We went downstairs. Trousers galore were shown. ‘Can I take them upstairs and see them in the sun?’ That finished me. I told Shaukat the story. ‘What else do you expect of a Lance Naik?’ he laughed.17

  The Indians played a series of matches in London against leading club sides and haphazardly put together national teams like the Anglo Irish. Dhyan Chand scored in almost every game. India’s last engagement in England was at the Folkstone Easter Festival where they beat the English national team 4–0 and a team calling itself the Rossalians 18–0. Following these victories, the British and French press in unison suggested that the Indians were favourites for the hockey gold in Amsterdam.18 And they weren’t wrong.

  ‘THE WORLD’S BEST CENTRE-FORWARD’:

  AMSTERDAM 1928

  At Amsterdam the onus was on the hockey team to lead the Indian challenge. The athletes, Chawan in the 10,000 metres, Hamid in the 400 metres hurdles and Murphy in the 800 metres, had failed to qualify for the second round. In hockey, India played its first match against Austria winning 6–0, an encounter reported in detail at home. Already, Dhyan Chand was being described as the ‘world’s greatest centre forward’. As the Statesman put it:

  The Indian Hockey team has successfully surmounted the first obstacle towards the prize for which they journeyed to Europe. India defeated Austria 6—0 with the world’s greatest center forward Dhyan Chand giving another masterly exhibition. He scored all 3 goals in the first half. After the interval Dhyan Chand scored the fourth goal. The fifth was obtained by Shaukat Ali while Gately secured the last goal…19

  Dhyan Chand eventually scored 14 of India’s 29 goals in Amsterdam.

  The very next day, the Statesman published another detailed report on India’s 9–0 win over Belgium. The space allotted to the report was nearly double compared to the first, an indication of the growing popularity of the team back home:

  All India followed up their brilliant victory over Austria by defeating Belgium 9–0. The point about today’s victory was it proved India can pile up goals even if Dhyan Chand does not think it necessary to improve his goal average. In his skilful manner he worked out scoring possibilities yet tapped the ball either to Feroze Khan or Marthins. Seaman, whose clever stick work on left wing has been the feature of the tour, bewildered Belgium’s goalkeeper twice. Allen in India’s goal did not have much to do. Jaipal Singh was brilliant and Penniger did all that was required of him with polish…20

  Subsequently, the Indians beat Denmark and Switzerland to set up a title clash with hosts Holland on 26 May 1928.

  When the Indians trounced Holland 3–0 in the final, the press back home went wild. The Statesmen had an entire report titled ‘How India Won Honors’ and went on to suggest that 40,000 people went into raptures over the brilliant exhibition of hockey displayed by the Indians in the final. It reported that despite having to reconstruct their side in the absence of Feroze Khan, who had broken his collarbone in the clash against Denmark, and Shaukat Ali, who was down with the flu, India won comprehensively.21 Interestingly, the report does not mention the absence of captain Jaipal Singh who had, for personal reasons, walked out of the team before the semi-final. This is one of the most enduring mysteries of the tour and perhaps the first known political controversy within the national hockey team. Jaipal too is remarkably silent about this discord in his memoirs, one that had raised doubts over who had actually captained the final victory—Jaipal or Penniger. Jaipal left the Olympic team on the eve of the semi-final and did not take part in the final either. He refused to discuss the issue ever again in public and until new evidence emerges, the mystery of why he walked out of that first Indian Olympic team will remain unsolved.22

  Coming back to the victory, the Statesman report quoted earlier also hit upon another intriguing aspect of those years of Indian dominance at the Olympics: ‘It is no empty title, for the critics are of the opinion that even if England had been competing in the Games, honors would have gone to India, though possibly not with the record of not conceding a goal remaining intact’.23 The colony had won in Europe but the colonizer was absent. In fact, there was a rumour in Olympic circles that England had initially entered a team for the Olympic hockey competition at Amsterdam. According to this rumour, after the 4–0 drubbing they received at the Folkestone festival at the hands of the Indians, the English were scared of losing on an international stage to their ‘colony’ and withdrew from the event. This belief was wide-spread enough for Dhyan Chand to refer to it is his recollections:

>   I reiterate that this is mere hearsay (that England dropped out of the Amsterdam Games fearing the Indians), although we fondly hoped that at least in future Olympics we would have the honor of meeting Great Britain and showing them how good or bad we were. It is my regret that this hope was never realized so long as I participated in Olympic events.24

  The English team did not participate in the Olympics until 1948, by which time India was an independent nation.25 When India beat England 4—0 in the 1948 Games, it unleashed great celebrations in the newly independent nation and the win contributed to national self-confidence and self-belief.26

  It was in Amsterdam that the legend of Indian hockey was created. Even the Dutch papers praised the team with generosity; ‘So agile are the Indians that they could run the full length of the hockey field, juggling a wooden ball on the flat end of the hockey stick’.27 England may not have participated but soon after the win, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, sent a telegram to the team manager B. Rosser: ‘Please convey to Jaipal Singh and all members of his team my heartiest congratulations on their magnificent victory. All India has followed the triumphal progress throughout the tour and rejoice in the crowning achievement’.28 This telegram, which mentions Jaipal as captain, laid the captaincy debate to rest.

  India scored 29 goals in Amsterdam, without conceding even one, and averaged more than five goals per match. Interestingly, the Olympic hockey competition was played in May, while the actual Olympiad, including the opening ceremony and other events, took place two months later in July. As a result, the victorious Indian team did not have the good fortune of enjoying the Olympic atmosphere, the rituals of the opening ceremony and the subsequent ambience of the Olympic village.

  In London, the victory became a source of great nationalist celebration for the Indian community. Indian women organized a tea party in the team’s honour and presented them with turbans. Interestingly, as Jaipal pointed out, ‘The Anglo Indians never wore them!’29 They were also entertained to lunch at Veeraswamy’s by Dr Paranjpe, a member of the Indian Council. And when the team reached Bombay, it was welcomed by a huge throng of adoring fans. Mole Station overflowed with a wildly cheering crowd trying to get a glimpse of the new heroes. In the audience was Dr G.V. Deshmukh, the Mayor of Maharashtra, who was there to accord the team a civic reception, and a representative of the Governor of Mumbai, who sent a congratulatory message.30