Trade Fair Authority of India (TFAI), 187
Treaty of Versailles, 78
Tribhuvana, King of Nepal, 156
Trinamool Congress, 303
Tsetlina, Antonina, 287
Tsundue, Tenzing, 308
Tughlakabad Shooting Range, 189
Turnbull, Bruce, 57
Tytler, Jagdish, 299
Uberoi and Co., 63
UNESCO, 196
Union Cyclists Internationale (UCI), 45
United Nations (UN), 107, 148, 150, 305
General Assembly, 150
United States, 62, 68, 91, 103, 213, 216, 263, 273, 278, 285–286
Athletics Federation, 274
Usha, P.T., 273–274, 276, 282, 288–289
Uthappa, Robin, 214
Vajpayee, Atal Behari, 292
Valsamma, M.D., 289
Van Hooft, 119
Vengsarkar, Dilip, 226
Venkatramaswamy, M.V., 19
Verma, V.K., 299
Vernieux, R., 65
Vithal, Palwankar, 78
Vivekananad, Swami, 149
Vizianagaram, Maharajkumar of, 96
Volleyball, 35, 143, 191, 258
Wadekar, Ajit, 107, 133, 225
Warsaw-Berlin-Prague Road race, 47
Weber, H.G., 16
Wein, Horst, 123
Weining, Lin, 292
Wells, Frank, 83–84
Wermacht, 86, 95
Western Asiatic Games (WAG)
Delhi (1934), 35–36, 153–156
Palestine (1938), 41
Western India Hockey Association, 54
westernization, 148
Willic, 119
Willingdon, Lord, 29, 63, 72
Wilson, Shiny, 289
Wimbledon Hockey Club, 57
Wohlhuntr, Richard, 286
women’s
empowerment, 276, 305
hockey, 56, 128, 287
Women’s Hockey Federation, 300
World Cup, Brazil (1950), 274
World Cycling Championship:
Rome and Milan, 47
World Festival of Youth, Warsaw, 77
World War I, 149
World War II, 45, 97, 153, 155, 167
Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), 285
wrestling, 17, 35, 89–90, 143, 258, 270, 273, 275, 285
Yadav, Lalu Prasad, 6
Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 11, 17, 19–22, 28–30, 148, 151–152
India and global Olympic movement, 11, 20, 25, 147, 167
Yugoslavia, 91, 280
Yusef, S.M., 57
Zeppelin, 86
Zhou Enlai, 174
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the staff of the IOC Olympic Studies Center at Lausanne, Switzerland, for unlimited access to the IOC archives. We are grateful especially to Nuria Puig, Philleppe Blanchard, Ruth Beck Perrenoud and Patricia Eckert for accommodating our requests at extremely short notice. Former President Juan Antonio Samaranch was kind enough to give us time, which helped clarify several doubts. Randhir Singh, Secretary General of the IOA has been a constant source of support. Yaduraj Singh and Shiv Kumar Sharma at the IOA helped us with unlimited access to the archive and Rajesh Tomar helped us with details whenever we were in need of clarification.
We are also indebted to the staff of the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece; Wayne Wilson, Director of the Amateur Athletic Federation, Los Angeles; the National Library in Kolkata; the National Archives and Teen Murti Library in Delhi. Our research assistants Sabyasachi Mallick and Tupur Chattopadhyay have done a fabulous job chasing leads at short notice.
Milkha Singh, Leander Paes, P.K. Banerjee, P.T. Usha, Manavjit Singh, Rajyavardhan Rathore and Gulu Ezekiel were always willing to share their experiences and tell us more. Karl Lennartz, President of the Association of Olympic Historians, was a great help when we met him in Beijing. His, we are certain, remains the best personal collection on Olympism in the world.
A special thanks to Prof. John Macaloon, colleague at the University of Chicago, for pointing us to the IOC archive at Lausanne. Without his initiative this research would not have happened.
We greatly appreciate the support of our publisher, and friend, V.K. Karthika. Not only had Karthika encouraged us to do the first edition in 2008 but when asked if she’d be interested in an updated revised edition on the eve of London, she was every bit as keen as was Shantanu. We appreciate their help at every step.
Finally, we are most grateful to our families for standing by at moments of difficulty and supporting all our endeavours.
Nitika and Sharmistha remain our biggest inspiration and also our most severe critics. For the many nights of reading they have put in, taking time off their own work, we will always remain indebted.
BORIA MAJUMDAR NALIN MEHTA
London, Singapore,
April 2012 April 2012
About the Authors
Boria Majumdar is Senior Research Fellow at University of Central Lancashire and Adjunct Professor, Monash University, Australia. He was Fellow of the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne in 2005 and has taught courses on the Olympic Games and Olympism at the Universities of Chicago and Toronto. He will be covering the London Olympic Games for Times Now Television.
Nalin Mehta is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute and Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He was Fellow of the International Olympic Museum in Lausanne in 2007. Mehta’s books include the award-winning India on Television and, with Boria Majumdar, the best-selling Sellotape Legacy: Delhi and the Commonwealth Games.
Note on the Appendix
The appendix is the most exhaustive database on India’s Olympic History. It includes details of all athletes who have represented the country, their results, timings, dates of birth, events and other relevant information. In compiling the Appendix we have relied on all available Olympic databases and the records of the IOC. In doing so we have kept the format and spellings used by international Olympic databases intact. Accordingly, the database spells Khashaba Jadhav as Kha Shaba Jadhav (highlighted).
Also, Olympic databases list athletes on the basis of surnames. And if an athlete has changed surnames with marriage or otherwise he or she can be listed in multiple places. They are not repeat listings though. We have retained this practice through the appendix in case researchers wish to use it for future work. Accordingly, Shiny Wilson is listed in three different places, all of which are highlighted.
Some of the IOC databases list Norman Pritchard as an Indian athlete. We have already explained why we haven’t considered Pritchard as part of our story. Here, we have listed him for reasons of consistency but once again his performances are highlighted.
For some athletes the IOC lists multiple dates of birth. We have listed both dates in cases of dispute.
Finally, for athletes with the same name, Ashok Kumar for example, the Olympic databases often list them on occasions with their first name (mistakenly assuming its the surname) and then go on to list others with the same name differently. We have kept it the same and hence Ashok Kumar’s are listed in the Appendix in different places. Again, there are no repeat listings.
To round off, the Indian participants at Beijing are listed in Appendix 2 separately.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2: Indian Contingent for Beijing 2008
Praise for the Book
‘… pioneering and long awaited book … replete with little known, lively and telling details presented in an enchanting manner … [It] by virtue of its depth, dimension and erudition opens up fresh debates and numerous areas of research—besides being a delightful read’ – Hindustan Times
‘… this book is a triumph of Olympic proportions for both authors and the publisher and is worthy of a gold medal on its own’ – The New Indian Express
‘[This book]… is of great importance to Indian sport … This work may well set the t
one for more serious writing on Indian sport and what makes it so special. It is a relief to note that there are writers who can think beyond medals, but also about the stories of sportspersons’ – The Indian Express
‘Meticulous research and scholarly presentation of facts and figures laced with an emotional tinge are the essential ingredients of this excellent work … The authors deserve to be complimented for taking upon themselves the onerous task of piecing together information from diverse sources … Replete with information and anecdotes supported by statistics, this endeavour by the two authors fulfils the need for an authentic document about the history and growth of Olympism in India’ – The Hindu
‘… the first detailed history of India’s Olympic experience. This is the first time that documented history has been used to tell the India Olympic story, one of sordid, self-serving politics, egos, power equations and regionalism … it is a valuable addition to contemporary knowledge’ – India Today
‘… Majumdar and Mehta will give sports historians much to cheer about. There is no doubt that they have combed the archives with rigour … As an academic work and a splendid primer for further research, the book is a triumph’ – Mint
‘This book by two well-known Indian sport historians is a comprehensive documentation of India’s experiences in the Olympics and also explores the complex role that regional and national identities play in it’ – The Deccan Herald
‘… adds up to a well-produced holistic account of India at the Games’ – Business Standard
‘The authors have aptly summed up a few of the ills that trouble our Olympians … A readable account which should wake up every Indian with some interest in sport’ – The Tribune
‘A well-researched effort, the book brings out some astounding details of Indian sport, its origins, the politics, passion and sacrifices’ – DNA
‘The authors, for a change, do not flog the hackneyed theory of India’s failure stemming from a lack of sporting culture and because the nation is burdened with a corrupt, sporting bureaucracy. The book sees the story from a historical and cultural perspective which has so far evaded the eye of the nation’s sporting cognoscenti: that both these perspectives are important in understanding India’s tryst with the Olympics … Majumdar and Mehta place their arguments well’ – Tehelka
‘… the Games to India have been about more than just sporting glory. Nationalism, factionalism, corruption India’s Olympic efforts have had it all. Majumdar and Mehta’s narrative is as much about the Olympics’ place in India as it is about India’s place in the Olympics … The content alone earns the book its place on any sports fan’s bookshelf’ – Business World
‘Majumdar and Mehta seize upon one of the most unlikely members of the “Olympic Family”, as insiders like to call it, to reveal a complex and culturally specific organization that simultaneously mirrors, parallels, contradicts and defies other developments in the polity at any given time … Majumdar and Mehta … focus more at the meta-level and, tellingly, begin and end with early and postmodern versions of the struggle for control over Indian sport. In between those chapters they range through India’s hockey success and failures; trace the complex rise of other sports; see sport at the centre of non-aligned movement strategy for both Nehru and Indira Gandhi; slot the rise of the media via radio and television as key components in the story; and see modern Indian Olympism struggling against media-savvy sports, especially cricket … the spread is excellent, the information marvellous, the interpretation satisfying … This book will be well-cited and, more importantly, will spring a lot more studies to give us even more insight than we have now’ – Biblio: A Review of Books
First published in hardback in India in 2008 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Published in paperback in 2012 in Harper Sport
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta, 2008, 2012
ISBN: 978-81-5029-338-6
Epub Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9789350295090
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Endnotes
PREFACE
1. Nalin Mehta, ‘Smile, Sir Dorabji’, The Indian Express, 12 August 2008.
2. For the astonishing expansion of Indian satellite television see Nalin Mehta, India on Television: How Satellite News Channels Changes the Way We Think and Act (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2008). For the massive expansion of the Indian newspaper industry and its ‘mass-ification’ see Robin Jeffrey, India’s Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the Indian Language Press (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, 2nd ed.)
3. Boria Majumdar, ‘Seize this moment’, The Times of India, 25 August 2008.
4. Quoted in Nalin Mehta, ‘Smile, Sir Dorabji’, The Indian Express, 12 August 2008.
5. For the Chinese model of sporting success see, for instance, Fan Hong, Duncan Mackay, Karen Christensen (eds), China Gold: China’s Quest for Olympic and Global Glory (Great Barrington, M.A.: Berkshire, 2008).
6. On current form, India can realistically expect medals in shooting, tennis, boxing, archery, badminton and wrestling.
PROLOGUE
1. Works by Gulu Ezekiel and K. Arumugam in English and Chiranjeev in Bengali have done much to document achievements of Indian sportspersons at Olympic stage. Gulu has also helped at various stages of research and has a commitment to Olympic history that few have in this country. We are also indebted to Prof. Karl Lennartz, president of the Society of Olympic Historians for giving us access to his personal collection, perhaps the best individual collection on Olympism in the world.
2. Clifford Geertz, ‘Deep Play’: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight’, in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
3. In recent times Indian supporters have far outnumbered supporters from other nations in international sports contests. At both the 2003 Cricket World Cup in South Africa and the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean as also in the eight-nation hockey championship at Amstelveen in Holland in 2005, the Indians had great support, with the stadiums decked in the tricolour. Even when Sania Mirza had her dream US Open run in August 2005, Indians from all over the US flocked by the hundreds to Flushing Meadow, New York, to cheer their favourite tennis star.
4. Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Introduction’, in Boria Majumdar and J A Mangan (eds.), Sport in South Asian Society: Past and Present, (Routledge: London, 2005).
5. Ibid.
CHAPTER 1
1. Personal letter from Dorab J. Tata to the IOC president, Count Baillet Latour, 21 May 1929. Housed at the International Olympic Museum, Lausanne, ID Chemise 7334 CIO 3535 MBR-TATA-CORR, Correspondence de Dorabji Tata 1926–1930.
2. While campaigning for Tokyo’s bid fo
r the 1940 games, Count Soyeshima Michisima, Japan’s delegate to the IOC, convinced Mussolini to withdraw Rome’s candidature largely on the back of the claim that 1940 coincided with the 2,600th anniversary of the Kigen. Baron Yoriyasu saw Tokyo’s victory in the Olympic race as affirmation not just of Japan’s athletic progress but as proof that ‘renascent Japan has advanced in worldly and grand terms’. Quoted in Sandra Collins, ‘Conflicts of 1930s Japanese Olympic Diplomacy in Universalising the Olympic Movement’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. 23, No. 7, Nov. 2006, pp. 1132–33.
3. Ibid., pp. 1128–51.
4. See for instance, Ramachandra Guha, Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport (New Delhi: Pan Macmillan, 2002), Richard Cashman, Patrons, Players and the Crowd (New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1979), Mihir Bose, History of Indian Cricket (London: Andre Deutsch, 1990).
5. It was the second oldest national Olympic Association in Asia after Japan, which was established in 1912.
6. For details see, Katharine Moore, ‘The Warmth of Comradeship’: The First British Empire Games and Imperial Solidarity’, in The International Journal of the History of Sport, 6, (2), September 1989, pp. 243–51; Katharine Moore, ‘A Divergence of Interests: Canada’s Role in the Politics and Sport of the British Empire During the 1920’s’, in The Canadian Journal of History of Sport, 21 (1), 1990, pp. 21–29.
7. This was documented by Prof. Bruce Kidd at a course taught at the University of Toronto in May 2007 by him with Boria Majumdar titled ‘The Politics of the Commonwealth Games’.
8. Ibid.
9. For instance, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust provided the seed money to fund the setting up of one of India’s premier scientific and engineering research institutions, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
10. Boria Majumdar, Twenty Two Yards to Freedom: A Social History of Indian Cricket (New Delhi: Penguin-Viking, 2004), pp. 93–94, Also see; P.N. Polishwala, School and College Cricket in India (Mumbai: 1921), p.11.
Olympics-The India Story Page 42
