Once upon a time

Like a river stream time flows, mixing the past with the present to create something new, there are moments we want to forget, erase from our memory. And there are those epochal moments of glory and pride that lend strength to our collective identity as a nation, that we never want to part with. We hold on to them like we do to our breath that we don’t want to lose. It affirms life. It gives us joy.

Almost 50 years ago, India was resounding with slogans of “Sinhasan khali karo janta aati hai (vacate the throne, people are coming)”, as Jayaprakash Narayan led a mass protest movement, that culminated in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposing Emergency on June 25. The year 1975 is considered as one of the darkest chapters in India’s democratic history, but for the sports fans and hockey lovers, the year has a more joyous and celebratory ring to it.

Nearly three months before the suspension of democratic rights in India, on March 15, 1975, to be exact, the Indian hockey team lived a nation’s dream. It won the World Cup Hockey championship, a feat it had achieved never before and, even more significantly, never after. This epochal triumph came after the once invincible team, that had won eight Olympic gold medals, seven of them before that day in Kuala Lumpur, had by the time the Seventies arrived, lost its unbeatable tag. They were dethroned from their Olympic perch in 1960.

Pakistan, the one axis of the two siblings, which had parted ways through bloody violence in 1947, had by then become a formidable rival and a perennial headache for the Indians. This rivalry had the hockey world enthralled, with India showing great resilience to bounce back in the 1964 Olympics to plough gold once again. India’s graph, despite that win, was on the slide that reflected in the 1968 Olympics, where it slipped to third position, failing to even make it to the final. The gold had changed its colour to bronze and a nation was mourning.

For the next seven years, India were on the wrong side of the tide, losing its number one status and no more Olympic gold came its way, except once in the 1980 boycott-ridden Moscow Olympics. After that, it has never felt the touch of the gold medal in its hands or seen it dangle around its neck.

The Moscow Olympic gold was in many ways an aberration, its value getting tainted by the absence of Germany, Australia, Argentina, England and Pakistan. The 1975 World Cup win in a sense is till date the last major hockey achievement of a team that in times gone by would not lose a match even in its worst nightmare.

That World Cup was also among the very few major hockey events played on natural turf (grass) as winds of change were blowing across the hockey world, and synthetic turf was becoming the preferred choice to play an international tournament on. It had a debilitating effect on India as on the synthetic turf, fitness, speed and stamina would matter much more than the wristy dodging skills of the Indians. The weather conditions in Kuala Lumpur and the surroundings, with eight of the 32 matches getting abandoned due to rain, also hastened the World Hockey Federation’s decision to push for playing international tournaments on synthetic turf. It was the most lethal blow to the game in India, already suffering from the chicanery, intrigue and nepotism of the administrators that had resulted in the 1975 World Cup being shifted from India to Malaysia.

While the players were preparing for the big event, the South and North factions of the Indian Hockey Federation were at each other’s throats. With multiple court cases and the two most powerful administrators of the sport — businessman MAM Ramaswamy from the South and an Indian Police Service officer, the erudite Ashwani Kumar from Punjab — at war with each other, the international body decided to shift the World Cup out of India.

At the heart of the problem were charges of nepotism against the North lobby headed by Ashwani Kumar, blaming them for loading the Indian team with Punjabis. The 1968 debacle in the Olympics was attributed to faulty selections and bias, and it was even cited that nine players of Sikh faith were chosen in the 16-member team! This is the Indian sport administration — where nothing is impossible, everything is possible.

Let us take a pause here. This is not the story of our self-serving administrators, but a story of India’s hockey triumph and the many tales surrounding it. In a country whose history is being redefined by WhatsApp forwards and there is little or no documentation of its sporting achievements, last month a book rich with anecdotes and facts was released at Shivaji Stadium, in the heart of New Delhi.

Written jointly by K Arumugam (an engineer by training who gave up his cushy job as deputy director in the Ministry of Water Resources to devote all his energy and time to write on and promote hockey in India in the Nineties) and veteran sports writer Errol D’Cruz, ‘March of Glory — The Story of India’s 1975 World Cup Triumph’ is a detailed and rich anecdotal account of how that victory was achieved.

Arumugam, who studied in IIT-Bombay and passed his UPSC exam to become part of the Indian government, has authored 14 books, mostly on hockey. Fittingly, the release of his latest book was attended by many past hockey stalwarts. Among them was the artful dodger, Ashok Kumar, son of hockey wizard Dhyan Chand. He let nostalgia and sentiments take hold of his narrative while describing what that World Cup win meant to him, the team and the nation.

At 26 years of age in 1975, Ashok was a dribbler par excellence, whose match-winning goal on a rebound in the final against Pakistan led to the Indian win. Pakistan contested the goal, saying the ball had hit the outside post of the goal but the Indians disagreed and more importantly, so did the Malaysian referee G Vijayanathan. The goal stood and so did the Indian triumph.

Interestingly, the book has Vijayanathan’s version of the goal where he refutes all allegations of bias and then refers to his controversial ruling in the 1973 final, where he disallowed Surjeet Singh’s penalty corner goal against the Netherlands. Had that goal been allowed, India would have gone 3-0 up. History records that not only did Netherlands equalise at 2-2, but went on to win the penalty shoot-out to win that World Cup. Vijayanathan, in that 1975 final, was not atoning for his lapse in 1973, but was vouching for his credentials as a man of integrity and a stickler for rules.

Ashok Kumar narrated the positive impact the preparatory camp before the tournament at Chandigarh’s Panjab University ground had in motivating the players. Very close to the ground was the university’s women’s hostel and scores of students would be watching them practice hard. The players felt buoyed and most of them fondly remember how the presence of the female brigade at the ground made them train harder, that helped them beat Pakistan in the final.

Pakistan was a worthy foe in those days, yet the rivalry was limited to the hockey field. Outside of it, they were friends, illustrated by this example of how the Indian coach and manager, the legendary Balbir Singh Senior, accompanied the Pakistan team for prayers in the masjid a day before the final. Balbir sat with the team in the bus and went to the masjid with them. Pakistan’s Manzoor-ul Hassan recalls that when they came out of the masjid, they were stunned and touched to find Balbir Singh’s face and beard wet. He apparently had tears in his eyes. Those were the days that may never come.

Balbir, the three-time Olympic gold medal winner, was calm and his presence was inspirational while guiding the team and chalking out strategies. Who can forget the semi-final against Malaysia when India were on the verge of defeat. Defender Aslam Sher Khan was brought in as a substitute with India trailing 1-2.

Millions in India were tuned in to the radio commentary where Jasdev Singh’s mellifluous but despondent voice was fearing one more heartbreak for India. There were only 12 minutes to go when India won a penalty corner. To everyone’s surprise, Aslam was asked to take the strike. Seconds before the strike, he kissed the golden chain (taveez) given by his mother as a good luck charm. Aslam took the hit; for a second Jasdev lost his voice and then screamed — Goaaaa…l.

India were back in contention and two days later, achieved their final goal of becoming the World Cup champions.

— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’

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