Written in March 2008, this is an indictment of the role of KPS Gill as the chief of the Indian Hockey Federation, a post given by the government of India, to keep him in circulation. 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

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?

“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.”

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.

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 batting 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.

“Mr. KPS Gill, when Rudalis (professional mourners) are at your doorstep 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.”

Aslam Sher Khan, Sukhbir Singh Grewal, Pargat Singh and you are few who have dared to you’re your 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 astroturf 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.

“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? 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 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 doorstep 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

26 March 2008