With the possibility of the Football Association of England turning its back on Bengal, the Maharaja of Santosh had no alternative but to support the formation of the AIFF. Faced with an ultimatum, the Bengal IFA backed down. The other associations too could not oppose it because it catered to their central demand, i.e., Bengal was no longer the sole arbiter of the fortunes of soccer in the country. Accordingly, a compromise AIFF come into existence in 1937, entirely due to the clout of the Indian Army. If Indian sport serves as a barometer for measuring political relations in the country, then this exchange points to the central role of the colonial Indian Army as the balancing fulcrum in regional rivalries.
ATHLETES IN OLIVE GREEN:
THE ARMY AND SPORT IN INDEPENDENT INDIA
After independence, the Army continued to play an important role in Indian sport although its position in a post-colonial setting had changed; it was now an apolitical institution. The Congress nationalist elite that came to power in 1947 had always been suspicious of the Army’s steadfast loyalty to the British during the years of the independence movement and the Army was gradually weaned away from the pre-eminence it had hitherto enjoyed in the structures of power in New Delhi.60 At one level, this was also a response to the multiple threats from Pakistan in the years following the 1948 war over Kashmir but the overall tenor of the time was to reduce the Army’s perceived potential to intervene in politics.
As the Army was downgraded, the first three defence ministers—Baldev Singh, Gopalaswamy Ayyangar and Kailash Nath Katju—also tended to be comparatively less influential with Nehru as compared to other powerful Cabinet ministers like Maulana Azad and Govind Ballabh Pant. When Nehru’s close confidante Krishna Menon was appointed defence minister in 1956, it did increase the ministry’s profile, but for all the wrong reasons. The Army top brass was so upset with his disdain for them that General Thimayya resigned as Army chief.61 It wasn’t just about differences in perception and personal animosities. In real terms too, the Army found that Indian defence expenditure averaged a low 2 per cent of the GNP yearly, until the rude shock of the 1962 war with China.62
As its institutional clout declined, the Army could no longer act as a political force in sport in the manner that it had in the crisis over football in the 1930s. Be that as it may, sport continued to be central to day-to-day life in regimental maidans across the country. At least until the early 1970s, this ensured that the Army remained the dominant force in national competitions in most sporting disciplines. As it turned from being imperial arbiter to national protector, its sporting activities too became very much an extension of its new role as defender of the nation. While it was no longer to play a direct role in the politics of sport per se, the Indian sporting arena itself could not have survived without the Army’s quiet lifeline of talent and expertise.
The Army’s role in Indian Olympism after independence, therefore, provides valuable insights into imperial and post-imperial nationalistic assertion and denial. It also sheds light on the changing nature of the Indian Army and its place in democratic India. As this chapter will show, its dominance in sport declined from the 1970s as a direct function of its own changing profile and its growing entanglement in internal security duties.
So pre-eminent was the Army in Indian sport in the early years of independence that in 1962, a piece in the Indian Olympic Association’s official journal could declare unambiguously:
Little research is necessary to establish the fact that Services are today the backbone of the country’s sporting endeavour. No fewer than nine of the major national championships in various branches of sport are held by Services teams or individuals today. Though still far from world standards the gap is gradually being narrowed.63
A roll call of the defence services’ dominance in national sport in the first decade and a half of independence proves this point. At least until 1962, the Services held complete sway over national athletic competitions. Milkha Singh, the greatest male athlete India has ever known, began his career as a cook in the Army and it was from there that he rose to the heights of the Rome Olympics. From 1956–57 onwards, the Services dominated swimming as well. Services teams held the national basketball title for five consecutive years between 1957 and 1962 and the national boxing title between 1956–62.64 In those early years, soldiers held the Gymnastics title seven times and featured on the honours roll of hockey four times.65 They also achieved great success in golf,66 squash, volleyball,67 wrestling, football68 and cycling,69 winning a total of 56 national titles across all sports until 1962.
So dominant were soldiers in Indian sport that when the Sino-Indian war broke out in 1962, India was forced to withdraw from the Empire and Commonwealth Games at Perth that year. On its own, this was entirely understandable given the great shock and humiliation that the country was reeling from at the time. But there was another reason for the withdrawal. As the IOA noted:
Two reasons that must have swayed the Government were the release of foreign exchange and the fact that a great number of Servicemen would be on ‘sports duty’. The composition of the team would have amounted to more than 50% of the contingent at Perth being athletes from the Services.70
Simply put, without the soldiers, there was hardly a national team. This is the true measure of what the Services meant for Indian sport.
This is partly why in the national catharsis that followed the humiliation on the Chinese border, sportsmen from other professions were at the forefront of the effort to contribute to the emergency National Defence Fund created by the finance minister. Their efforts could not have matched those of the big business houses but carried great symbolism. Balbir Singh, the 1956 Olympic hockey captain, donated all three of his Olympic golds; K.D. Singh ‘Babu’ offered to donate his 1948 gold from the London Olympics; P.K. Bannerjee, India’s 1960 Olympic football captain, gave away three of his gold medals from national competitions; Keshav Datt, who had played hockey for India at London and Helsinki, gave away his Olympic medals too; and S.K. Chatterjee, of the 1911 historic Mohun Bagan team which beat the East Yorkshire team to win the IFA Shield, gave away his gold medal from the club.71
The donations spree was not just restricted to Olympians. Sandhya Chandra, the national swimming champion, gave away her two national golds, Dilip Bose donated the Asian Tennis championship trophy72 and Bengal’s film stars organized a special cricket match for Indian cricketers to raise money for the war effort. The likes of Uttam Kumar and Mala Sinha rubbed shoulders with Lala Amarnath in Calcutta to add impetus to the fund-raising drive.73 In addition, the pages of the IOA official journal were filled with fervent appeals for all sportsmen to invest in Defence Deposit Certificates—‘Lend to Defend’ was the catchline. The IOA appealed to all sports associations across the country to hold special events to collect money for the Defence Fund, arguing that sport was ‘the most popular form of entertainment in the country’ and urging its members to tap into its monetary potential by showcasing top stars in special events.74 It is not known how much money was generated in this manner but there is no doubt that India’s sporting community did its utmost to pay its debt to the Army at a time of national crisis. In the words of K.D. Singh ‘Babu’: ‘Since I won this gold medal for the country, I think its best utilization would be none other than the cause of the country at a time when the enemy is knocking on our door’.75
‘Army of Athletes’:
Sport, the Psychology of Soldiers and the Military Ideal
The Indian Army’s evolution from a colonial force to the silent vanguard of the nationalist ideal in independent India is one reason for the stability of the modern Indian nation-state. Stephen Cohen, for instance, has shown that though the Army was never in any sense a major instrument for the liberation of the subcontinent, it nevertheless continues to have a profound influence on the polity.76 More recently, Ramachandra Guha, among others, has identified the Army’s steadfast professionalism—and its divorce from overt politics—as one of the reasons why Indian democra
cy endures, in sharp contrast to virtually every other post-colonial state.77 The Army’s cultural influence as a pan-Indian, disciplined, secular force has made it one of the staunchest pillars of modern India. In this context, its influence on Indian sport derives from the nature of the military force itself and the structures of governance that it has followed as a legacy of the colonial period. After independence, these traditions were re-labelled with the new aims of modern Indian nationalism. Yet the Army’s imprint on the sporting arena has so far been a forgotten footnote in studies of the Army and, indeed, its wider role in the nation.
The Indian Army of post-colonial India continued the intense focus on sporting activity that it had inherited from the British. The Army’s dominance in sport was not simply a function of its large numbers and facilities. The reasons for this are rooted in the sociological imperatives of creating a disciplined military force. Trained in the ways of dominant British culture, the Army’s Indian officers continued after independence the British tradition of the ‘Games Ethic’ that saw sporting achievement as a form of character building and teamwork. There was something in the way of life of the Services that produced the kind of results that the Army’s sportsmen delivered in the early years. In the ‘gentlemanly’ world of the Army’s elite, sport was seen as a form of social mobility. It was a means of inculcating regimental bonding among men whose fighting potential was supposed to depend on such fraternal ties. As one IOA report noted:
After a hard day’s work (life can be tough in the Services) the men let off steam in some sporting activity. The big advantage is that officers in charge of sport in battalions and regiments have a solid technical background. This means that novices are taught on correct lines. A promising sportsman is encouraged to specialize and in a few months a new champion is in the making.78
Sport was so important that it often became a key barometer of a regiment’s izzat, a tool for building fierce pride among soldiers and the competitive spirit that was seen as a tool to weld diverse groups of men into cohesive units. The playing field offered officers a useful arena to bond with the men they commanded and to build ties of kinship. Obedience flowed from respect, and what better way to build respect than by rubbing shoulders with subordinates as equals on the field? In a profession where following orders could sometimes mean certain death on the battlefield, astute commanders knew that the rigid bonds of Army discipline needed the glue of personal bonding. This was particularly important for young officers who were expected to lead soldiers directly in battle. As one senior former Army officer puts it:
Men always look up to their commander. A hierarchy of kinship exists in the Army and this is strengthened in the sports field, especially if commanders play with the troops. It’s the best place to get to know your men intimately. This is why there was always an emphasis on sports and particularly on youngsters. Your personality got built up on the sports field, in the eyes of the men and half your life as a youngster was spent on the playing grounds.79
Brig. Rakesh Mehta, who captained the Services cross-country team in the 1970s, remembers that when he was commissioned into the Army in 1970, the respect and esteem of a fighting unit in soldierly canteens and barracks depended on its sporting prowess. Commanding Officers saw the success of their regiments in sporting competitions as a way of raising their own profile and focused intensely on training athletes. In a martial world, ‘manly’ achievements on the playing field were highly valued and he remembers that in his regiment, virtually every officer, including the CO, played in some team or the other.80 One of the key markers of regimental izzat was the laurels won in inter-regimental competitions. As another observer put it:
Pride plays a big part in the fierce competitive spirit that exists in the Services. Regiments and divisions have gloriously old battle honours and this is an incentive for proud rivalry, which cannot be matched on the ‘civvy street’.81
Ambitious young commanders never overlooked this aspect. In a fighting force where pride and tradition dictated identity, defeat on the sporting field was always looked upon as a slur on a regiment’s reputation, linked to notions of honour and never to be tolerated.
In this context, it is instructive that in his foreword to Dhyan Chand’s memoirs, Maj. Gen. A.A. Rudra chose to highlight what he meant for his regiment. His brief note on a career that was littered with breathtaking games for club and country, mentioned only one—played in defence of the regiment. Once, when playing in the final of the Punjab Indian Infantry tournament in Jhelum, Dhyan Chand’s side was down by two goals to nil with only four minutes to go. This was when his commanding officer called out, ‘Aage bado jawan, kuch toh karo Dhyan’ (Go forward soldier! Do something about it Dhyan!)’ Dhyan Chand responded with three goals in four minutes to lead his team to victory. While the goals were a tribute to Dhyan Chand’s own abilities, the incident also reveals the fierce competitive spirit of inter-regimental sport.82 Dhyan Chand himself emphasized that annual tournaments were ‘eagerly competed for’ and that ‘our officers felt very proud’.
Historians of the British Indian Army have documented that loyalty often accrued from personal ties in the feudal mode that were not necessarily based on the rank of the officer in question alone, but also his personal attributes. Respect had to be won and once given it was almost always unquestioned.83 The independent Indian Army continued this tradition. In that sense, the use of the sporting field was more than just about the sport itself. It was a management tool. The Duke of Wellington, who attributed his victory at Waterloo to the ‘playing fields of Eton’ would have understood.
In a world before the evolution of the hi-tech battlefield, soldierly loyalties grew from elemental passions. A telling anecdote from an air defence regiment illustrates this beautifully. Out on a war game, the NCO asked a young major where to place the anti-aircraft gun. The major wanted to sit in the shade so he simply ordered for it to be placed under a tree, conveniently forgetting the sheer uselessness of such a position for a gun that was supposed to shoot into the sky. When the NCO objected for perfectly valid military reasons, the major, also a burly competitive wrestler, simply responded: ‘Don’t talk too much with me. If you don’t like it, let’s wrestle and he who wins will put the gun where he wants’. That was the end of the argument. The gun remained under the tree and the major, whose conduct could justifiably be termed unprofessional, became the toast of the soldier’s barracks for his ‘manliness’. On such talk are soldierly loyalties and ties of brotherhood sometimes built. 84
The Indian Army is by no means unique in its focus on sport. It is well documented, for instance, that between 1917 and 1919, the US armed forces too made sports and athletics central components of military life. Millions of enlisted men participated in organized sport at domestic training camps and behind the frontlines in France. So intense was this focus that one writer observed: ‘Uncle Sam has created not only an army of soldiers’, but ‘an army of athletes’.85 In the American case, the linking of sport and the military was a new one, a reformist generation of officers after the Spanish–American war, using sport as a means to combat ‘desertion, alcohol and the lure of prostitution’. As one officer put it, ‘There is no better way to make a good sailor and at the same time a loyal and true man to ship and country, than [through] these athletics contests’.86 According to one US military historian:
Civilian military officials embraced sport and athletics as the most efficient means to cultivate national vitality, citizenship and the martial spirit. Military training, infused with a heavy dose of sports and athletics, would not only train American men in the ‘soldierly values’ of obedience, citizenship, and combat, but would also usefully repair class schisms and restore social order and patriotism to the nation.87
The Americans were learning what the Indian Army had always known. The success of military sport during WWI surpassed all expectations and ‘accelerated the development of a national sports culture’88 in the United States. Sport became an essential elem
ent of military training on the lines suggested by planners since the beginning of the 20th century. As early as 1906, one writer had suggested that ‘Uncle Sam has not encouraged athletics for amusement’, but for the way in which it produced esprit de corps among both officers and enlisted men, ‘a rebuilding process which begins when the soldier puts on the blue or khakhi’.89 This is precisely the planning principle that is at the heart of life in the Indian defence services.
‘Scrape the Bottom of the Barrel’: A Creaking Army and the Decline of Sport (1989–2008)
When the Air Defence Missile Regiment was raised in 1985, the first task its commanding officer Col. V.B. Mohan faced was to establish its reputation in a brigade full of illustrious old regiments. He responded by identifying good sportsmen among his new recruits and putting them into training. Within a year, these new sportsmen were winning inter-regimental tournaments, heralding 436’s arrival in a pantheon of old regiments. In the words of one of Col. Mohan’s battery commanders, the sportsmen became the ‘pride of the regiment’. ‘Sport was a way of projecting the CO and the Regiment’s personality in the Army.’90
All this changed drastically in the late 1980s. From then on, the Indian Army has seen an unprecedented level of troop commitment. Up to four divisions were deployed in Sri Lanka from 1987 until their withdrawal in 1990. The north-eastern insurgencies required even greater troop deployment and so did Punjab until 1993 with Operation Rakshak. But the greatest challenge came from the militancy in Kashmir from 1989 onwards.91 By a rough estimate, some 4 lakh troops are currently actively deployed in Kashmir—on the Line of Control, in Siachen and in counter-insurgency operations. Then there are the 60,000 or so troops of the Rashtriya Rifles, the specialist counter-insurgency force raised in 1990 under the home ministry.92 It was raised to reduce the internal policing burden on the Army but has ended up being composed predominantly of Army officers and soldiers on deputation. Since the mid-1990s, in order to ease the burden on infantry units, it has been mandatory for every young officer in the support services like the Army Supply Corps, Signals and Ordnance to serve a term in the Rashtriya Rifles. Further, 30,000–40,000 troops are actively involved in counter-insurgency operations in the north-eastern states.93 Most observers agree that the heavy payload of internal security duties has meant that the ‘Indian Army had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to meet this sudden rise in military commitments’.94 As one former general sums up:
Olympics-The India Story Page 32
