India's Tryst with Hockey
Friday, June 10, 2016 |
| Indian Hockey Team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, later going on to defeat Germany 8-1 in the final |
With Olympics round the corner, where India is humbled by nations which are so insignificant in the mainstream that most Indians won’t know they exist, it becomes quite a task for the lion-hearted nation to come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t even touch the double figure in their medal tally.
When I refused to call India a sporting nation, people immediately pounced with rejoinders: “but we have Tendulkar, we have Virat Kohli, look how rich our BCCI is, how awesome is our IPL and again Virat Kohli is obviously with us. Some also called out Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, Abhinav Bindra and the village boys –Vijender Singh, Sushil Kumar (in a Haryanvi accent) and some added Mary Kom. Some over-enthusiast would also try to push for Milkha Singh into the league. Some proudly contested for our very own Kabbaddi, but couldn’t shell out any ‘legendary’ names. Most of them were reminded of Major Dhyan Chand when I mentioned our national game, and that’s probably it. The largest democracy’s greatest sportsperson can be counted on fingertips.
In a cricket-crazy India this is what sports actually means—Cricket for the usual days (Kiska match hai?), Football when there’s ISL (you know, there’s Roberto Carlos in one of the teams!), Badminton and Hockey when it’s on TV (Arey Sainaka game aaraha hai), Tennis only in the news (oh, Sania Mirza won again, good for her), shooting only when there’s a medal (awesome these military guys are, salute), and wrestling if the ‘akhada guys’ make it big (batao, itne chote gaon se kahan pahunch gaye).
However, at the mother of all sporting events— the Olympics, it fails to scratch anything but their necks. That is when we ask ourselves the inevitable question, ‘why is India so bad at sports’? What is it that we don’t have? And then wait for the answer till the next Olympics to ask the same questions again.
To crunch some numbers, the total medal tally of India since 1900 is just 26, which include nine gold, six silver, and eleven bronze medals. Of the six silvers, two are from an Englishman, Norman Pritchard, who was the first person to get a medal for India.
Just to put things into perspective, let's compare a country with an adjective in its name called ‘Great’ Britain. This country will almost fit twice in Rajasthan with respect to area, has 1/3rd of the total population of Uttar Pradesh and still has won a total of 65 medals with 29 gold, 17 silver, and 19 bronze medals in 2012 London Olympics alone.
Seeing the deplorable conditions of the India’s performance in the Olympics, one feels like boycotting Olympics altogether. But, I would ask you to wait.
There’s something in the Olympics that India still rules at—hockey. Not, of course, in performance, but in records. The records of India in their national sport are close to extraordinary and are almost impossible to beat.
India made its debut in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam where it cruised to its first Olympic gold, without conceding a single goal in the tournament. Major Dhyan Chand left Amsterdam spellbound with the wizardry of his stick. His ball control was so perfect that the hockey federation was forced to inspect his stick for manipulations of any kind.
India continued its ruthless domination in the sport till 1956 with six back to back Olympic gold medals, thus making a world record for most Olympic gold medals in Hockey. India won 24 consecutive matches in the competition, while converting 178 goals and conceding only 7 throughout the competition.
No country has ever come close to these records, forget about breaking them. The golden period of Indian Hockey, as it was called, had produced legends, wizards, and gems which the sport has ever seen. Players like Dhyan Chand, K.D. Singh, DhanrajPillay and DilipTirkey had raised the level of the game so high that it would be difficult to replicate.
So this Rio Olympics, we don’t have to get bogged down by the paltry number of medals we win. We can always point out our Hockey stats to shut haters down and lift our spirits. So what if we don’t give importance to hockey? We can at least pride on its heritage. Just like we do for the Taj Mahal, which was constructed by people who allegedly had ‘demolished’ Hindu temples to build mosques.
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