This chapter aims to use the sudden decline of Indian hockey as an entry point to comment on the functioning of the IHF and the IOA since the 1970s. The story of sports administration in 1970s India, it will transpire, was but a small part of a far more important story of regional assertion, of the contest for supremacy between lobbies associated with the north and the south of India.12 It is an irony that the Indian hockey team, has often blamed its plight on the poor administration of the sport.13 The recent recourse to a government ruling passed in 1975, which specifies that no official can stay at the helm of a sport for more than two terms,14 marks the completion of a cycle of administrative anarchy that started three decades ago when the country’s hockey federation was fractured down the middle between the north and south factions.
The chapter is based on the premise that a full history of India’s Olympic sporting experience must be framed within the broader themes of South Asian history and should not be restricted to the history of Olympism in general or Indian hockey in particular. It is part of the growing academic concern to locate sport within the broader socio-economic processes that have shaped colonial and post-colonial societies in South Asia. Throughout this history, hockey is used as the prism/metaphor to analyze the working of sports administrators in India. Studying this will help us understand the complexities of modern Indian society, while bringing to light the role played by sport in creating and moulding such complexities. It will be evident from this study that hockey was, and remains, a cultural form adopted by Indians to fulfill social, political and economic aspirations and imperatives.
The prime intention here is also to assess how hockey has defined and continues to define sporting relations in India, to delineate the interrelationship between those who support, promote, play and view the game, to comment on the nature of Indian sports administration and finally to emphasize that a study of Indian hockey in the 1970s goes beyond the playing field and shifts focus to the push and pulls of competitive regionalism in a seemingly united, independent nation state.
WHEN IT ALL WENT WRONG:
ASTRO-TURF AND THE ‘NORTH-SOUTH’ DIVIDE
The politics of regional identity had emerged as a powerful factor in south India by the late 1960s. The foremost instance is the success of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu in the general elections of 1967. The DMK grew out of the Dravidian movement started by E.V. Ramaswamy or ‘Periyar’ who was a lifelong ‘fervent opponent of the Northern domination of Indian politics, culture and religion’.15 Its roots lay in the linguistic nationalisms that had been an issue right from the debates in the Constituent Assembly and threatened to tear apart the country in the language agitations of the 1950s—most notably in Andhra Pradesh after Potty Srimalu’s fast-unto-death. Linguistic nationalism was arguably only a sub-set of cultural nationalism. While the politics of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala were distinctly different, the subliminal strains running through much of the power play in these states was fuelled by much larger ideological battles that defined what can be called a north–south divide.
Yet, when it came to sport, and in the case of the country’s leading Olympic sport, hockey, the south was still subservient to the stranglehold exerted by the north. As a result, southern sports administrators were determined to challenge the well-entrenched northern supremacy even if that damaged ‘national interest’ in the long run. In the fight with the north for the control of Indian hockey, the southern bloc led by M.A.M. Ramaswamy enlisted the support of the FIH in the early 1970s.16 Evidence in the IOC’s archives proves beyond doubt that the Ramaswamy faction won control and retained it despite severe opposition, only because of the legitimacy bestowed upon it by the international federation. This alliance pre-empted the possibilities of a strong Indian protest when the shift to artificial turf was proposed in the mid-1970s. As a close ally of the International Hockey Federation and its president Rene Frank, Ramaswamy, having assumed presidency of the Indian federation, had little choice but to offer tacit consent to the move to astro-turf.17 A fight for supremacy between the north and south blocs, this chapter will demonstrate, was at the root of the Indian apathy, central to the subsequent decline of India’s leading Olympic sport. It follows that more than the shift to astro-turf, it was regional power play that resulted in the disappearance of hockey from its position of centrality in the Indian sporting landscape.
‘Where Cows are Sacred and Fake Grass an Anathema’:
The Mysterious Shift to Artificial Turf
The shift to artificial turf was a chance development. It was during a visit to Montreal in 1973, the venue of the 1976 summer Olympics, that the president of the FIH and other leading administrators realized the impossibility of organizing the Olympic hockey competition. Not one of the grounds picked as possible venues for the proposed competition was up to the mark. Further, it was apparent that the organizers weren’t capable of making the grounds fit for play in the fickle Canadian climate. There wasn’t adequate time between the end of winter and the start of the summer games for the pitches to be readied.18
In this situation, Montreal’s Mayor, Drapeau and the vice-president of the Montreal Olympics Organizing Committee came up with the idea of using an artificial turf pitch in place of the traditional grass surface for the competition. This, it was suggested, would enable the Olympic tournament to go on without hindrance. ‘To show what could be done and to allow the FIH to judge whether such a surface was really suitable, a demonstration of hockey was laid on in Toronto in a stadium which normally was used for American football.’19
The trial was successful and the people present in Toronto were profoundly impressed with the success of the experiment. The outcome was that the FIH, based on a highly favourable recommendation from its president, consented in a few months’ time to allow the Montreal Olympic hockey tournament to be played on artificial turf instead of grass. Soon after the FIH had given its consent, an astro-turf constructed by the Monsanto company was sampled by some of the best European talent. A match was organized by the French Hockey Federation near Paris, followed by a magnificent dinner in honour of past international players. Most present were impressed with the turf and consented to the shift. Interestingly, Asia, the traditional home of hockey, was not represented at these meetings.
A grand premier on artificial turf took place in Montreal on 19 July, when an eight-nation Olympic preparatory tournament opened on what was later to be used as the surface for the Olympic Games. India pulled out of this tournament at the last minute and was not able to experience first-hand the realities of playing on artificial turf. The Europeans, on the other hand, loved it. As reported by the World Hockey magazine:
As soon as the first few matches had taken place, it was abundantly clear that playing hockey on artificial surface of this type produced enormous benefits… artificial grass permits easier ball control and this in itself helps to reduce the number of infringements of the rules—which means less whistle and fewer stoppages. The game thus becomes easier to follow, as well as being a faster spectacle and much more interesting from a spectator point of view.20
The scribe went on to state that yet another great advantage of playing on artificial turf was the large number of games that could be completed on one day on the same pitch, given that maintenance was simple and inexpensive. He also declared that playing on an artificial surface greatly reduced the chances of injury to players compared to the experience of playing on a conventional turf pitch. ‘Despite the high initial cost, there is bound to be a considerable increase in the construction of artificial surfaces for hockey pitches. Here is a fundamental advance, which can only be to the benefit of our sport. Without any doubt the increased attraction for players and spectators opens up vast new horizons.’21
From the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games onwards, field hockey has been played exclusively on artificial turf. This was possible because India, where ‘cows are sacred and fake grass an anathema’22—as one foreign scribe argued—did n
ot raise even a feeble voice of protest. Whatever little protest was voiced came from the ‘north’ lobby, which had been ousted from power by the ‘south’ faction led by M.A.M. Ramaswamy. Having succeeded in gaining control of the IHF with full support from the FIH, Ramaswamy was in no mood to oppose the move to astro-turf even if it spelt doom for India. Statements like ‘Astro-turf is a very costly affair’, made by the Indian star Ajit Pal Singh, fell on deaf ears. As Singh, a veteran of three Olympics (1968, 1972 and 1976) argued: India, as late as 1996 could afford no more than 12 astro-turf fields, in sharp contrast to countries like Holland which had many more.23
Yet, the IHF lent its full support to the FIH in consolidating the shift. Like the dog that did not bark in The Hound of the Baskervilles, allowing Sherlock Holmes to unearth the truth, for the historian, the Indian Federation’s support for astro-turf is a telling clue to the politics that defined it.
‘Considerable Trouble Between the North and the
South’: Hockey’s Tragedy
Things had been going reasonably well for Indian hockey until 1973 when Ashwini Kumar, president of the Indian Hockey Federation, was forced to step down from his post due to burgeoning opposition against him. His resignation was followed by a long spell of anarchy within the ranks of the IHF and conflict between the north and south blocs as the Punjabi P.N. Sahni and the Madras–based M.A.M. Ramaswamy engaged in a bitter struggle for the presidency.24 As Rene Frank of the FIH described it: ‘…the fight started in 1973/74 by some sports leaders of the North, having close links with the Sikh community, in order to avoid that the hockey leadership should go to the South.’25 While Sahni had the backing of Kumar, Ramaswamy, an extremely influential Madras businessman, had the backing of some in the Central government in Delhi.
The feud turned murky when the group led by Sahni made every effort to stall Ramaswamy’s assumption of the IHF presidency, so much so that the government had to appoint a reputed Supreme Court judge to oversee the hockey federation’s elections.26 With the dispute at its height in 1974, the IOA cancelled the affiliation of the IHF and took over the administration of hockey in the country. This decision by the IOA is commented upon in a confidential letter written by Raja Bhalindra Singh, then president of the IOA, to Rene Frank, president of the FIH. In his letter, Raja Bhalindra Singh expressed deep resentment over the actions of the Ramaswamy faction in taking the IOA to court, alleged unwarranted interference by the government, and suggested that such actions might have prevented the IOA from selecting a team for the forthcoming Teheran Asian Games: ‘This, you will agree, was a very cruel blow to our efforts in sending a representative team and went a long way in demoralizing the selected team, which, at the moment is under training’.27 He went on to suggest that the IOA had been able to obtain a temporary injunction from the High Court against the restraint imposed by the lower judiciary on team selection.
In the time-honoured tradition of Indian officialdom, Bhalindra Singh appealed to the IOC to intervene in his favour to ‘nip the evil in the bud’ and to pre-empt governmental intervention while hockey was suffering.28 With the IOA appealing to the IOC for help, Ramaswamy enlisted the support of the FIH. Significantly, he seems to have argued that as a south Indian he was a victim of a northern conspiracy. It was an argument that appealed to Frank and he was to consistently back Ramaswamy thereafter.29
A year after participating in the Asian Games at Teheran, the Indian hockey team, still under the stewardship of the IOA, won the World Cup for the first and only time in its history at Kuala Lumpur under the coaching of Balbir Singh Jr. So bad was the administrative situation by now that the coaching camp before the tournament and the tour itself had to be funded by the Punjab government in the absence of funding from a dysfunctional IHF.30 This had some unforeseen consequences. The camp, as Balbir Singh wrote:
…was held on the campus of Punjab University, Chandigarh. A newly constructed girls’ hostel was given as the residence for the trainees. This being in front of another girls’ hostel across the road, some girls started making courtesy calls at our visitors’ lounge. This was discouraged by having the front gate locked, and advising the girls to watch the players in action on the field. That prompted the players to give their best during practice sessions to impress the girls.31
On such vagaries is sporting success scripted!
Internal squabbling within the IHF temporarily seemed to come to an end in 1975, when Ramaswamy won an acrimonious election against Sahni and was duly recognized as president. But the angry losers would not back off. There were numerous affiliated units that were opposed to the move and therefore refused to participate in the activities of the IHF.32 IOA chief Bhalindra Singh, a natural votary of the north lobby, did not stop here and went on to write another letter to the president of the FIH, Rene Frank. In his letter, he drew attention to the gross anomalies that accompanied the election of Ramaswamy to the IHF presidency and pointed out that besides these there were other ‘specific anomalies, which went against the existing constitution of the Indian Hockey Federation.’ For instance, the IHF constitution only allowed those personnel to hold portfolios who represented a body that was affiliated to or was an associate of the IHF. Yet, it had selected Prithpal Singh as the chairman of the selection committee when he did not represent any IHF affiliate. Singh wanted the IOA to retain control of Indian hockey for a little longer while the dispute with Ramaswamy was sorted out:
I find that as we near 15th August 1975, the attitude of Mr. Ramaswamy is hardening towards an amicable settlement, perhaps, purely on the ground that the adherent membership of the IOA, would, in any case, expire on 15th August 1975, whereafter he could make a direct appeal to the International Hockey Federation for recognition. You will agree that such a psychological approach is possible on the part of Mr. Ramaswamy and I thought it best to bring this to your notice at this very stage.33
Even Pakistan threw its hat into the ring in trying to exploit the volatile situation in India. In a letter to the IOC president, Lord Killanin, the Pakistan Hockey Federation urged the IOC to institute a commission of inquiry into the affairs of Indian hockey so that an example was set ‘for other countries in Asia who may be tempted to follow the example of India’ and openly defy IOC rules prescribed in the Olympic charter.34
Aware of the brewing discord and confident of support from the FIH, Ramaswamy promptly announced his intention to bring under one roof all those affiliated units and individuals who had stayed away from the meeting that elected him president. The meeting was held, strangely enough, under the auspices of the ministry of education in New Delhi.35 The IOA also approached the newly elected president with a request that in the interest of cordiality and to ensure that a sense of confidence prevailed among all the affiliated units of the IHF, he should take action to give, as far as possible, equitable representation to the affiliated members.36 Nothing was done to fulfill the promise, and for some time the IHF continued to function as a preserve of individuals from the south. In all this the FIH’s support for Ramaswamy was crucial. In 1978, for instance, Bhalindra Singh forwarded to the IOC a dossier of Rene Frank’s latest correspondence with the north Indian faction, sarcastically noting: ‘You can see from this whether Mr. Frank is determined to view this controversy from a very narrow angle, and will probably in the last analysis throw his weight with the Indian Hockey Federation rather than National Olympic Committee’.37
The fight between the IOA and the IHF flared up again in mid-1977 on the eve of the meeting of the IOA general assembly. At a meeting on 2 July 1977, members of the IOA general council expressed dissatisfaction with the working of the IHF and it was ‘desired that the IOA must make concerted moves to remedy the situation and if necessary place the entire situation before the Government’.38 As a follow-up, Air Chief Marshall O.P. Mehra, who had succeeded Raja Bhalindra Singh as the president of the IOA in 1975, wrote to Ramaswamy on 19 July 1977, inviting him to a meeting in August that year to address the growing ill-will.39 Ramaswa
my wrote back, informing Mehra that he was out of the country in August but would meet the IOA president in early September 1977. A tentative meeting was set up for 3 September but it never materialized.
Not surprisingly, the IOA executive council, which met on 24 September 1977, expressed deep resentment at the conduct of the IHF and its president. In a letter dated 6 October 1977 and addressed to M. Dayanand, secretary of the IHF, Air Vice Marshall C.L. Mehra, secretary general of the IOA, alleged that the president of the IHF, despite having been in Delhi for meetings with officials of the ministry of education, had preferred not to get in touch with the president of the IOA. Accordingly, the IOA had reached the conclusion that the IHF was not interested in arriving at an amicable solution. In another letter addressed to Ramaswamy on 11 October 1977, the IOA congratulated him on his work in securing the rights to host the 1982 World Cup in India and assured him that the resources of the IOA were at all times at his disposal. The flurry of letter-writing did not abate and in another confidential letter written on 7 November 1977, the IOA repeated its long-standing request for a meeting. Finally, on 23 December 1977, the secretary of the IOA in a personal note to the president of the IHF almost pleaded for his intervention:
As you may be aware, the IOA General Assembly meeting will be held in New Delhi on 14 January 1978 at 1400 hours. You will recollect that in the last General Assembly meeting held in July 1977, members of the IOA had raised certain issues connected with the workings of the Indian Hockey Federation…Given that the meeting between yourself and the IOA has not materialised in spite of efforts made in that direction and given that the IOA General Assembly may raise issues relating to hockey, we request you to kindly attend this meeting along with your Secretary so that first hand clarifications can be given to all points raised. This will also avoid any decisions being taken by the IOA in your absence. You will agree that this is in the best interests of the IOA and the IHF.40
Olympics-The India Story Page 17
