From the archives of WSN, I culled out an Open Let­ter writ­ten in April 2008, which chron­i­cles the dam­age KPS Gill did to In­dian hockey. My in­ter­est in the game of hockey was kin­dled dur­ing my vis­its with my fa­ther to wit­ness hockey matches at the Bom­bay Hockey As­so­ci­a­tion grounds, next to the Church­gate rail­way sta­tion in the hub of the city. The Open Let­ter is re­pro­duced here with­out any change.

Dear Dhyan Chand Ji.
Af­ter thir­teen hours of cog­i­ta­tion and un­easi­ness, my heart was able to con­nect to your soul.  On 10th March, at 10 am in the morn­ing, I learnt about In­di­a’s de­feat in the hockey pre-qual­i­fiers for the Bei­jing Olympics and by 11 pm at night I was able to con­nect and de­cided to write this open let­ter to you.  Dur­ing the day, I vac­il­lated from writ­ing to the main vil­lain to those who are pro­duc­ing such vil­lains, but my con­science pre­vailed upon me and I de­cided to write to you.

Among those who have passed away, the one who would be sad­dest and an­gry would be you.  Per­haps no one else can feel the pain in­flicted by the nadir touched by In­dian hockey. 

There is no doubt that a game is a game and there will be win­ners and losers.  How­ever, it is the con­sis­tency with which In­dia has been los­ing which must be most dis­turb­ing to you. 

You may have noted from your high pedestal that the of­fi­cial lovers of the game, who are alive are also shed­ding tears –some real, some glyc­er­ine-ori­ented but a ma­jor­ity of them croc­o­dile. Most of these hi-fi lovers of the game are in­di­vid­u­ally and sev­er­ally re­spon­si­ble for the pre­sent state of the game in the coun­try.

“Dhyan Chand ji, this man KPS Gill has ‘gilled’ hockey. A per­son who has un­abashedly gloated over killings of in­no­cent peo­ple, a per­son who has been in­vited as a se­cu­rity ex­pert by gov­ern­ments of Gu­jarat and Chat­tis­garh to teach their po­lice per­son­nel how to kill with im­punity, has done what he is best at, “kill” or shall we say, “gill””

My in­ter­est in the game started when as a stu­dent I ac­com­pa­nied my fa­ther, Waryam Singh to the Bom­bay Hockey As­so­ci­a­tion grounds, next to Church­gate rail­way sta­tion in Mum­bai.  I en­joyed watch­ing Ajit Pal Singh and his team and the Pak­istani team led by Sami­ul­lah Khan dur­ing the tour­na­ments that used to be played there in the sev­en­ties.  My fa­ther never played hockey but watch­ing hockey games was his only ‘side-kick’ which ir­ri­tated my mother a lot, but it was a habit every hockey sea­son which he could not give up even at the cost of his earn­ings. In fact, liv­ing in Mum­bai, it was his only con­nec­tion with Pun­jab, the other be­ing the rit­ual ‘sum­mer-trip’ of chil­dren to home­land Pun­jab to meet ma­ter­nal and pa­ter­nal grand­par­ents, un­cles and aun­ties.   I was able to col­lect au­to­graphs of many In­dian and Pak­istani hockey play­ers cour­tesy the only Sikh um­pire -the burly Phulel Singh Su­jlana, who helped me get them un­der the promise that I would also wield the stick. I re­neged on the promise for as far as sports was con­cerned, I was jack of all and mas­ter of none.

 

I must tell you that June 1984 changed all that.  Though my fa­ther was a mem­ber of the Bom­bay Hockey As­so­ci­a­tion (he still flaunts his old iden­tity card), the storm­ing of Dar­bar Sahib never saw him again in the stands.  Some­thing snapped and his in­ter­est waned.  To­day, his in­ter­est and mine is lim­ited to watch­ing the oc­ca­sional game on tele­vi­sion and keep­ing abreast of news of In­dian hockey and hockey in gen­eral.  His en­thu­si­asm for In­dia has waned but he still loves good hockey and is acutely aware of the nu­ances of the game and can give a lec­ture on how the in­tro­duc­tion of as­tro­turf and the lack of adap­ta­tion to it by In­dian play­ers and or­gan­is­ers to the new grounds since its in­cep­tion has been the key rea­son for In­di­a’s de­feat af­ter de­feat.   

Since you are away for long, I thought it nec­es­sary to up­date you on the sce­nario.  A few decades af­ter your de­par­ture from the game, In­dian hockey has gone down­hill. Those who have been the man­agers of the game have played every­thing but hockey.  Af­ter the days of Sir Kun­war Prasad, Naval Tata and Ash­wini Ku­mar, the rule book of IHF has been con­tin­u­ously and mer­ci­lessly breached at the cost of the game. 

The per­son who pre­sides over the demise of In­dian hockey to­day is an ex-po­lice­man, a con­victed de­bauch, a self-pro­claimed ‘con­flict-res­o­lu­tion ex­pert’, a known vi­o­la­tor of hu­man rights, a man who has gra­ciously been awarded a ‘sus­pended sen­tence’ by the In­dian ju­di­ciary, who was a one-time dar­ling of the In­dian me­dia for his ‘gilling-spree’ of per­ceived ter­ror­ists and who also hap­pens to be the pres­i­dent of the In­dian Hockey Fed­er­a­tion for the last 14 years.  

Dhyan Chand ji, this man has ‘gilled’ hockey.  A per­son who has un­abashedly gloated over killings of in­no­cent peo­ple, a per­son who has been in­vited as a se­cu­rity ex­pert by gov­ern­ments of Gu­jarat and Chat­tis­garh to teach their po­lice per­son­nel how to kill with im­punity, has done what he is best at, “kill” or shall we say, “gill”. 

In re­cent times, he “gilled” Dhan­raj Pil­lai and in the last qual­i­fy­ing at­tempts at San­ti­ago, he “gilled” Rick Charlesworth, the tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sor, ap­pointed at the in­stance of the In­ter­na­tional Hockey Fed­er­a­tion by not mak­ing re­turn tick­ets avail­able to him from San­ti­ago.  So in the end, he had to “gill” hockey. 

You must be won­der­ing whether things would change and whether the “gilling-spree” would stop or not.  I don’t think so.  This is a clas­sic oc­ca­sion to un­der­stand how the In­dian state’s sys­tems work. 

Let us see the sys­tem.  KPS Gill is a Sikh.  He is a pa­tri­otic Sikh.  He has killed Sikhs for In­di­a’s in­tegrity.  Hav­ing done that, In­dia had “no use” for him, par­tic­u­larly af­ter an “er­rant” In­dian bu­reau­crat dared to take crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against him to a log­i­cal con­clu­sion.  The vig­i­lant In­dian ju­di­ciary awarded him a ‘sus­pended sen­tence’ when his crime of mo­lesta­tion of a se­nior bu­reau­crat –Ru­pan Deol Ba­jaj was proved.  Then there came the time to re­ha­bil­i­tate him for his ‘ex­em­plary con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try’. So he was ‘elect­ed’ the chief of the In­dian Hockey Fed­er­a­tion.  How KPS Gill used his po­lice pow­ers to get elected by over-aw­ing his op­po­nent is an­other story. Had it not been hockey, it would have been some­thing else.  Had he not been con­victed, he would have been Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of a tin-pot lit­tle African na­tion, en­joy­ing the fruits of serv­ing his moth­er­land.

So, the story goes on.  The In­dian gov­ern­ment, which does not care for sports any­way, is not go­ing to so eas­ily dis­band the IHF and make KPS Gill ‘vul­ner­a­ble’.  Af­ter all he is a state as­set and can­not be left in the lurch. Hockey can wait. 

Un­less, Chak De spills to the streets from the cel­lu­loid, un­less the state amends its poli­cies and prac­tices, KPSG will be very much around, IHF will be there, SM will also be there, hockey jave thathe khooh vich (hockey be damned!). 

I was con­scious that not many would have writ­ten to you nor even re­called you, for had they done, things would have not come to such a pass –that is the rea­son I dwelt on so many pe­riph­eral as­pects of In­dian hockey and that is why I chose to write to you.   You need to wield your magic stick or else as Rick Charlesworth –the Aus­tralian tech­ni­cal ad­viser has said, “In­dian hockey has the po­ten­tial play­ers but the fu­ture is bleak with the way in which sports is man­aged there”. 

“Un­less, Chak De spills to the streets from the cel­lu­loid, un­less the state amends its poli­cies and prac­tices, KPSG will be very much around, IHF will be there, SM will also be there, hockey jave thathe khooh vich (hockey be damned!).”

In case, In­dia chooses to rep­ri­mand the ‘giller’ for the hockey de­ba­cle and send him to Tim­buktu for soul-search­ing and re­pen­tance, or he ac­tu­ally un­der­goes train­ing for hu­man­i­tar­ian con­flict-res­o­lu­tion from the United Na­tions or neme­sis catches up with him through some dar­ing judge’s or­der in the case of in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance of hu­man rights ac­tivist Jaswant Singh Khalra and hun­dreds of other in­no­cent Sikhs, then I will have bet­ter things to say. 

May be, then we will have Shah Rukh Khan as the new hockey chief with his vast ex­pe­ri­ence of pro­mot­ing hockey in films and pro­mot­ing cricket in real life and per­haps his son would be a well-de­served hockey player. 

Till then, Rab Rakha. 

Jag­mo­han Singh 

12 March 2008