The Western Asiatic Games were organized by Sondhi in 1934 soon after he became a full member of the IOC. Like the FECG, the WAG was clearly meant to be a mini-Olympic in the region. As has been mentioned in Chapter 2, Sondhi explained to De Coubertin:
I hope it will give you great pleasure to learn that your great example in founding the world international brotherhood of sport is being imitated on a small scale in the East.31
Notwithstanding this grandiose description, only three nations took part in WAG, besides India. Afghanistan, Ceylon and Palestine were the only other contestants.
The same problems that plagued the FECG plagued the WAG. India had invited every country between the Suez and Singapore. As Sondhi informed De Coubertin, the problems of distance, economic depression and more significantly, ‘absence of sports interest’ proved a dampener. There just weren’t enough organized sports bodies in West Asia to take part and those that existed did not have enough money. There is little documented data to piece together the WAG story but the Sondhi letters preserved at the IOC Museum at Lausanne indicate that the Indian organizers found it too difficult to generate political support in the countries of the region. Sondhi, for instance, tried hard for Persia’s participation but failed. But there is no doubt that he saw this event as a mini-Olympics, repeatedly asking De Coubertin—‘our revered founder of the modern Olympic games’—for inspirational messages. 32 It is not known what exactly De Coubertin wrote back but he did send a ‘kind message of good will’ that was duly read out at the opening ceremony.33 It can be surmised that De Coubertin could not but be overjoyed at this Punjabi from Lahore planting in the dusty plains of New Delhi a sapling from the original Olympic tree.
The event itself was primarily sponsored by the Maharaja of Patiala, with some support from the Viceroy in terms of infrastructure.34 The participants were hosted at Delhi’s Irwin amphitheatre where they took on each other in hockey and athletics. The only two other events—swimming and diving—were hosted in Patiala in the absence of suitable facilities in New Delhi.35 By all accounts the Games—the first multilateral international sports event in India—went off well and the member countries agreed to host the next event in Palestine in 1938.36 The Dutch East Indies and Persia joined the Federation as well but the approach of World War II and the political troubles in Palestine meant that these hopes never fructified. 37 The Western Asiatic Games died in the city of its birth—New Delhi.
‘DELHI: CAPITAL OF ASIA’
THE FIRST ASIAD AND NEHRUVIAN INDIA
The first two Asian attempts at imitating the Olympics in the region ended with World War II. They also suffered from being specific only to their immediate regions and not being pan-Asian. The end of the war and the process of decolonization thereafter provided the opportunity for a truly pan-Asian Olympic-type event. India played a pivotal role in stitching together the new Asian Games. As Indian administrators went about creating the Asian Games Federation and the first Delhi Asiad of 1951, they were also driven by the idea of a resurgent independent India and Nehru’s notion of a new world order: decolonized states, led by India, marching forward to take their rightful place. At the heart of the story of the Delhi Asiad was a desire for newly independent India to be noticed, the moment of arrival signified by an international event of Olympian proportions. The symbolism of Delhi being at the centre of a new Asian federation was central to this vision, perfectly in tune with the internationalist ideals of Nehruvian India. Sport was to be a binding force in this new alignment of emerging nations. Writing in 1959, Anthony De Mello, the main organizer of the 1951 Asiad, recounted the opening ceremony in words that merit repetition:
What was the greatest moment in Indian sport?…there was never an occasion to beat that of March 4th, 1951. On that historic day for the sport of India—indeed for the sport of Asia, even the world—the first Asian Games were opened…It was Asia marching ever nearer to the great Olympic ideal of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’—faster, higher, stronger….
India—the ‘Big Brother of Asia’—had given the lead in this the finest sporting venture of the Orient.38
Just four years after independence, with hundreds of thousands of Partition refugees still camping in the environs of Delhi, India’s capital put together the first truly pan-Asian sporting event. It was a time of hope, of idealism. Energetic Punjabi refugees had already begun changing the face of Delhi and of much of north India. Just two months earlier, India, with a new constitution, had turned a republic; C. Rajagopalachari had just replaced Lord Mountbatten as Governor General; Britain’s decision to quit had just begun a domino effect in colonies across Asia and Africa; and Nehru was at the height of his powers. It is not too difficult to see why an Indian watching the parade of nations marching under the shadow of the majestic ramparts of Delhi’s Purana Qila, the Old Fort, would begin fancying his country as the new ‘Big Brother’ of Asia. As De Mello put it: ‘The Games had been, at once, the beginning of one era and the end of another’.39
The birth of the Asian Games is a fascinating interplay of the progress of Indian nationalism and the country’s ambitions of leadership in the post-colonial world. The idea of the Games itself was born at the Asian Relations conference held in Delhi on the eve of Indian independence in 1947. Attended by 21 countries and officially organized by the Indian Council of World Affairs,40 this conclave of Asian countries had been put together by the personal efforts of prime minister-designate Jawaharlal Nehru as he tried to forge an Asian coalition. Nehru had personally raised the funds for this conference. In February 1947, for instance, he wrote to the King of Nepal for assistance; King Tribhuvana responded immediately with a donation of Rs 10,000.41 Nehru was clear about his idea of Asianism. As he told delegates in his welcoming speech:
For too long we of Asia have been petitioners in Western courts and chancellories. That story must now belong to the past. We stand on our own feet and co-operate with all others who are prepared to co-operate with us. We do not intend to be the play things of others.42
Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu and Nehru, all spoke at the conference about Asia being a distinct entity, with a special message of enlightenment.43 With their words setting the backdrop, it was at this conclave that G.D. Sondhi, who had organized the Western Asiatic Games, conceived the idea of an Asian Games Federation. He immediately wrote to the Maharaja of Patiala that they could take advantage of the presence of high-profile international delegates at the conference to build contacts and to sell the idea. Patiala agreed and Sondhi then circulated a note explaining the objectives of the proposed federation to many of the delegates. ‘Most of them expressed their approval, and some of them were very enthusiastic.’44
Nehru himself was supportive of the move. Sondhi took the prime minister-designate in confidence and it was Nehru’s suggestion to change the name from the Asiatic Games, as originally proposed, to the Asian Games.45 The conference itself gave birth to the Asian Relations Organization that survived until 1955.46 The Asian Relations Organization was to be the kind of pan-Asian federation that the Congress nationalists had always hoped to lead. The failures were to come later. If there was to be a political federation, then what better way to showcase its unity than through a pan-Asian Games.
‘The Miracle’ Games and the Problem of ‘Asian Unity’:
Idealism and Reality
With the idea of the Asian Games approved, the gap between idealism and reality hit home. The first problem was domestic. Many in the IOA itself were loath to accept the responsibility of hosting an ambitious event of this nature. The IOA formally said yes at its annual meeting in Lucknow in 1948 but ‘did not take any further action on the matter’.47 There is no mention in the archival records of the IOA and the IOC about why the proposal was not taken forward, considering it had the backing of its president, the Maharaja of Patiala; its secretary, Sondhi; and no less a person than Nehru. But we can surmise that the problem was infighting within the IOA of the kind that has been detailed in previous ch
apters. The clue lies in the fact that Sondhi and Patiala decided to bypass the IOA and modified their plan for the first Asian Games. The IOA’s approval was essential if the Asian Games were to be an international competition featuring various games.
Faced with opposition within the IOA, Sondhi shrunk his proposal and decided to host just an Asian athletic meet. Such a meet only needed approval from the Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI). Sondhi himself headed this body and not only did the AAFI give permission in February 1948, it also gave its president, Sondhi, ‘full powers and every encouragement to go ahead with his plans’.48 In a further sign of the magnitude of the problems within the IOA, the Maharaja of Patiala agreed, on Sondhi’s request, to head the organizing body.49 Here was the IOA president, the all-powerful Patiala whose money and clout virtually controlled Indian sport, unable to get his own body to organize the Asian Games and now agreeing to bypass it via his protégé’s Athletic Federation. The first Asiad was now to be the first Asian Athletic Championship.
Invitations to other Asian countries went out in July 1948. But now the organizers ran into their second problem. This was the gap between the rhetoric of Asian solidarity and the practical difficulties in achieving such an ideal. In July 1948, most of the countries that had been approached were busy preparing for the London Olympics, also to be held that year. It was one thing to talk of Asian solidarity at the Asian Relations Conference, quite another to give up the Olympics for it. As an IOA note later explained, the response to the invitations was, to say the least, ‘rather disappointing’.50
But the persistent Sondhi would not give up. He flew to London for the Olympics and used the gathering of international sports officials to try his luck again. On 8 August 1948, Sondhi managed to convene a meeting of most of the Asian representatives at the Mount Royal Hotel. He invited all the Asian teams in London, and senior officials representing the still-undivided Korea, China, Philippines, Burma and Ceylon made it for the meeting. Singapore, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria stayed away.51 It was a clear reflection of the political divides within Asia.
The managers at the Mount Royal meeting agreed to form the Asian Games Federation. They also agreed to award Delhi the first Asian Games, originally scheduled for 1950, as well as an invitation athletics meet in February 1949. But there were more snags to come. The invitation meet never materialized, ‘on account of various causes, internal and external, and invitations were reluctantly withdrawn’.52
What did materialize was another international conclave in Delhi to give final form to the Asian Games Federation. The London meeting had resulted in an agreement for such a body. Now its constitution had to be drawn up and the agreements had to be signed. Ever persistent, Sondhi wrote again to the national Olympic committees of Asia, apart from those who had said yes in London. When many did not reply, he personally contacted their embassies and delegations in Delhi and some promised to nominate representatives. Eight countries eventually made it for the Delhi conclave on 12–13 February 1949 that finally gave birth to the Asian Games. Philippines and Burma sent sports officials; Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Nepal and Siam sent diplomatic nominees from their respective embassies and high commissions. Iran too had agreed by now, but its representative was unable to attend.53 They agreed on a constitution and signed.54 Finally, the Games, to be held every four years, were to be a reality. Despite the hurdles so far, the meeting itself was seen by many in Delhi as yet another example of its growing clout in the post-colonial world. As Anthony De Mello, who later headed the organization of the Delhi Asiad, noted 10 years later:
Looking back on it, and seeing it in the shadow of the great sporting event which was soon to follow, it may seem a matter of little importance. But the fact that these countries were prepared to come to us for so important a meeting was extremely gratifying; India if anyone had ever doubted it, was certainly now established in the eyes of the sporting world. More—she was now proving herself to be a focal point of interest and activity.55
In a sense, the initial disappointments that the Indians faced in putting together the Asian Games Federation also reflected the larger problems inherent in the idea of Asianism itself. Many of these had surfaced at Nehru’s Asian Relations Conference as well. As India pushed the idea of a pan-Asian brotherhood, delegates from Burma, Ceylon and Malaya expressed their fear that British imperialism might be replaced by economic and demographic aggression by India and China. In 1949, the first prime minister of Ceylon, D.S. Senanayake, made this concern explicit, saying that there was ‘an undercurrent of apprehension regarding the possibility of Indian expansion involving Ceylon’.56 As T.A. Keenleyside noted, constant talk of Indian leadership in South Asia and South-East Asia did not help. The fear of an Indian hegemony ‘manifested itself in harsh immigration and citizenship restrictions against Indians in Burma and Ceylon after independence, and in periodic anti-India demonstrations in Nepal in the 1950s and 60s’.57 The smaller nations were uncomfortable with a powerful India while the bigger ones, like China and Indonesia, were unhappy with its leadership pretensions. All these underlying tensions manifested themselves at the Asian Relations Conference.
New Delhi, however, saw things differently. Writing in 1951, Congressman Mohanlal Gautam was still optimistic, hailing the Conference as having ‘rediscovered the unity of Asian peoples and [having] laid the foundation for closer union in the future in defence of themselves and in promoting world peace’.58 But neutral scholars in retrospect could see that side by side with the idealistic talk, the Asian Relations Conference also reflected the inherent problems with the pan-Asian idea. It was marred by:
the unrepresentative nature of many delegations, by Sino-Indian rivalry for leadership, and by the permanent unpreparedness of many states to support the idea of a permanent Asian organization.
As a result the Asian Relations Organization that emerged out of the conference never proved effective and was finally abandoned in 1955.59
Unlike many other Indian nationalists, Nehru read the signs early. More than anyone else he knew the practical difficulties involved and he was beginning to get sceptical about the Asian Relations Organization long before it folded up but his early leaning towards the pre-independence idea of India as a leader of Asia remained. As late as March 1949, just a few months before the constitution of the AGF was drawn up in Delhi, Nehru told a conference in Indonesia that ‘there was a certain looking in the direction of India’ and a feeling that she would ‘possibly play a fairly important part in bringing Asian countries together’.60 More than anything else, it was this sentiment that spurred on Sondhi and his band as they strove to put together the first Asiad, the larger ideology of Nehruvian India driving the creation of the first pan-Asian games. Quite appropriately, it was Nehru who coined the Asian Games motto: ‘Play the Game in the Spirit of the Game’.61
Many of the problems that plagued this wider attempt at Asian political unity also plagued the early planning for the Asian Games: the problem of contact between various countries, wide differences in perception and struggles over leadership. Not surprisingly, Anthony De Mello later wrote about the experience of organizing the first Delhi Asiad as one that had turned him into a ‘firm believer in miracles’.62
‘Divine Providence’: Cricket Money, the Asian
Olympiad and Bandung’s Missing Link
It was one thing for Nehru and the Congress to support the Asian Games, quite another to pay for it. India had just gone through the largest and bloodiest forced migration in history. Partition had created an estimated 20 million refugees—about a million came to Delhi alone—and crores were being spent on their rehabilitation all over north India. Entire new cities were springing up as the refugees began building their lives afresh and an independent government that Churchill had claimed would ‘descend into chaos’ had to be run. Tricky negotiations were on to incorporate the 565 princely states of India and in the middle of it all, a war was being fought in Kashmir. W
ith tribal raiders from Pakistan knocking on the outskirts of Srinagar, the 161 Infantry Brigade had just been air-lifted to its defence. The ceasefire would not come until 1949.
While the two armies were shooting at each other, the Pakistanis were demanding the Rs 55 crore that had been promised to them from the coffers of the Reserve Bank of India at the time of Partition. A reluctant Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Home Minister, agreed to give Pakistan its share of the treasury only after Gandhi fasted in protest, but newly independent India was left with a depleting exchequer and problems on many fronts.63 The rioting only stopped after Gandhi’s assassination in 1948 and the communal balance was still razor-thin.
Nehru had supported the Asiad but as he strove to enforce control in what was already a poor country, now facing a mass refugee problem, there was little left over for the Asian Games. The government, in fact, gave no aid at all. The Asian Games was to be India’s showcase for the world, but unlike the second Asiad of 1982, the first one was mounted purely through non-governmental money.
The Asiad did have the full patronage of the establishment, prime minister downwards, but that did not mean money. As the organizers scrambled to arrange the funding, the Games were first postponed from February 1950, the originally planned date, to November 1950; and then finally to March 1951. Later chroniclers would wax eloquent about how it was until then the ‘greatest carnival of international sport ever held in India’ but few knew how close it came to being abandoned altogether.64 Invitations had already been sent out in 1949 but Delhi just wasn’t equipped. ‘There was no stadium in Delhi, no cinder track, no equipment, no funds…’65 So bad was the situation that the gallant Sondhi who had taken the idea forward purely by his own initiative, now decided to quit in helplessness. Sondhi resigned from the directorship of the First Asiad on 13 April 1950 and it seemed at the time that his decision also signified the end of the dream.66
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