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Your Time is up
KPS Gill, give up and give way
Jagmohan Singh
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Deeply
anguished at the comments made by IHF chief KPS Gill against
former hockey Olympians, Jagmohan Singh writes this open letter
to veteran hockey player Ashok Kumar. He pleads the case for a
new hockey set-up and a new format for the game in India. As
regards KPS Gill, the author says, the earlier he quits, the
better it is for the game |
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 Dear Ashok Kumar
You may have
noticed that hockey has disappeared from the sports pages of Indian
newspapers altogether. Concerned, I am writing another open letter
on the status of Indian hockey. Two weeks back I wrote to your
illustrious father. The disgusting comments of the IHF chief, KPS
Gill against you and others, has prompted me to write to you.
I can understand
the agony being suffered by you, Aslam Sher Khan, Balbir Singh and
others. I am a little perturbed at your helplessness and desire
that you take the bull by its horns.
As a player and
a citizen of India, you must have understood by now that while
dealing with sports administrators and politicians, one has to go
the whole hog. An innocuous statement here and there is not going
to make any difference. These people are so pachydermous that
failures and losses have no effect on them. If there were to be an
effect, leave hockey, don’t you think the Olympic tally would have
been different?
Listening to the
other point of view does not come easily in this country. “If you
are not with me, you are against me” is practiced pretty widely in
India and if you happen to be ‘not with me’ then you are either “an
enemy of the state” or “a professional mourner.” KPS Gill knows no
other language. He has seen so much death and destruction that he
can only talk in language of the graveyard.
 At the risk of
popularising his stupidity, I am repeating his comment. Referring
to you and other hockey stalwarts of India, he has said,
"There is a
coterie of five or six former Olympians who are just professional
mourners. They just know how to do breast beating, howling and
crying whenever they get the chance. That is their choice, I cannot
do anything." I have read your reply to this call. It is shameful
that no Indian newspaper nor the sports ministry and neither the
government of
India
have had the courage to denounce this statement.
Your comment
that “the present IHF establishment has sent teams to three
Olympics, four World Cups and several Champions Trophy games. We
come seventh or eighth in Olympics, 11th in World Cup and sixth in
Champions Trophy. Isn't it a reason to mourn? Does he want us to
cheer him for all this?" should have made KPS Gill see the writing
on the wall.
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“Mr. KPS
Gill, when Rudalis(professional mourners) are at your door step
uninvited, it is time to realize that your time is up. It is a
rare occasion which comes in the lives of few men and women on
this planet. It is one of the few occasions when mourners come
before the eternal call. So, give up and give way.” |
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You must
understand two things about this IHF chief. As I wrote to your
father last week, he has been a “giller” all his life and he is best
at that and that is what he has done to hockey. He has “gilled” it.
Two, as the former director general of Punjab police, he has seen
many a wailing widow breast beat at his door at the involuntary
disappearance of her son or husband or father without even battling
an eyelid. Tears have always been a far cry for him. If the shrill
cries of a mother whose son was extrajudicially killed by the police
force of KPS Gill could not result in a change of heart or even a
momentary remorse, do you think that “howling and crying of a few
Olympians” is going to make a major difference to the way the sport
of hockey is going to be governed in India?
 To call his
functioning merely autocratic is an understatement. He is the
epitome of bureaucracy-politician adjustment syndrome. He has many
a skeleton in his huge cupboard of which the government is afraid
and will therefore not do anything to harm him.
I have been
skeptical of the signature campaign of Aslam Sher Khan and the
silence on this issue over the last two weeks makes me believe that
the campaign did not take off. The IHF panelists who give powers
to KPS Gill have sheepishly acquiesced with his tantrums and that
too without an official statement on the state of hockey; everything
is back to normal, Rahul Gandhi’s newfound interest in hockey
notwithstanding.
Anyone who wants
to succeed against KPS Gill will have to acquire the honesty and
tenacity of Rupan Deol Bajaj, the IAS officer humiliated by the
former saviour of
India’s unity -KPS
Gill and the integrity and determination of human rights activist
Jaswant Singh Khalra. Short of that, KPS Gill will continue to rule
the roost.
Aslam Sher Khan, Sukhbir Singh Grewal, Pargat Singh and you are few
who have dared to open their mouths. It reminds me of the
statements issued by human rights defenders when a brutal and gross
abuse of human rights took place in
Punjab
or anywhere else in the country. Just as you have spoken, only a
few would speak up, but clearly we need to do more.
No senior
functionary of the hockey administration, least of all KPS Gill was
expected to receive the Indian team when they arrived from
Santiago in
Mumbai; I think it is time for the likes of you and those serious
lovers of the game to fill the gap. You will have to be seen making
the difference to the team.
I am
particularly impressed by the official doctor of the Indian team
-Dr. P. M. S. Chandran, who on arrival in Mumbai had the courage to
call a spade a spade. Everybody else has spoken and shamelessly
backtracked. The maltreatment by the airlines, Jet Airways and the
mismanagement by the travel agents -Balmer and Lawrie needs to be
condemned and further exposed. The way in which Ric Charlesworth
has “accepted” to be the Technical Advisor of the seniors’ hockey
team sounds fishy and convoluted.
 As I said at the
outset, hockey is no longer on the sports page! In any case, the
cricket industry -not the game, for there is hardly anything left
called the gentleman’s game of cricket, is likely to overshadow and
assimilate everything other sport in the country. The manner in
which Wankhede stadium authorities with the blessings of Maratha
man, Sharad Pawar, are conspiring to take over the historic Bombay
Hockey Association grounds to extend the cricket stands is another
area of concern for which you will have to do something. Though
old, my father, Waryam Singh, a former member of the Bombay Hockey
Association, is still willing to participate in any protest action
against the move that you may initiate and anxiously awaits your
response to this note.
You should also
file a request with the BCCI chief and Agriculture Minister of the
country, Sharad Pawar asking him to lend the dressing room of the
Ferozeshah Kotla cricket grounds in
Delhi otherwise
poor KPS Gill and his deputy Jothikumaran will be constrained to
have the IHF meetings at Mr. Gill’s residence.
In my missive to
your father, I had mentioned that astro-turf is one of the key
reasons for
India’s hockey
failure. I have been pondering on this for a long time. If the game
of lawn tennis is played on various grounds –Wimbledon on grass, the
French Open on clay and the
US
open on hard courts, why can’t we force the International Hockey
Federation to have different versions of the game –field hockey and
turf hockey? Think about it.
As difficult as
it may be, it is time to wear your shoes again. Forget the Indian
Hockey Federation, the Indian Olympic Association and even the
sports ministry. Set up a new hockey body. Call it “Field Hockey
Revival Programme” Go to the people. Perhaps some sponsorship may
also come your way. Who knows, the International Hockey Federation,
already tired of associating with KPS Gill’s IHF, may be willing to
work with a new body instead. Desperate to see
India
back on the hockey scene, I do not rule out this possibility. New
challenges require newer paths and untiring dynamism. It is a now
or never situation.
I am sure that
with deft handling and a visionary approach, you can take hockey
deep into the “penalty area” and then log the winning goal just as
you did in the 1975 World Cup.
Angry at KPS Gill’s statement calling you professional mourners, it
has been reported that you retorted back by saying, "Yes, the IHF
has died and we are all mourning it. It's indeed an occasion to
mourn.” Perhaps you should have told him, “Mr. KPS Gill, when
Rudalis(professional mourners) are at your door step uninvited, it
is time to realize that your time is up. It is a rare occasion
which comes in the lives of few men and women on this planet. It is
one of the few occasions when mourners come before the eternal call.
So, give up and give way.”
With hopes of a
scoop,
Yours truly,
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan Singh
is a commentator based in
Ludhiana. He
may be contacted at jsbigideas@gmail.com
26
March 2008
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