Hockey India, a poor cousin of BCCI, rocked by a cricket-like power struggle

There is an uneasy hush over Indian hockey, the national sport which has given India eight Olympic golds, one World Cup, Asian Games golds and a standing in the World which may not be gold standard at the moment, but potential wise a skill-set few can match.

Yet, a shadow looms large.

No one is saying anything. Everything — according to those who control the game in India and those who aspire to control but cannot succeed — seems to be sub-judice.

But it was not like that even a month ago. Everyone was talking about the game and India’s medal hopes at 2021 Tokyo. Players trained and during the pandemic brushed up their English.

And then, everyone fell silent.

How it started

It all happened after a retired hockey star, who played for India on a $5 daily allowance and helped the nation win its last World Cup in 1975, challenged the continuation of Narinder Dhruv Batra as a life member of Hockey India and Elena Norman as its CEO. It is seen as the proverbial David versus Goliath fight.

Hockey India, with a turnover of over Rs 110 crore, is an important sports body. In addition, Batra holds the reins to IOA, a very powerful umbrella organisation that controls Indian sports.

The Delhi High Court, taking cognisance of the note, has asked both the Sports Ministry and Hockey India to file a response on a plea filed by World Cup winner Aslam Sher Khan, who has also asked why Norman should have voting rights in Hockey India. The response from the Ministry, Hockey India, Batra and Norman must come by September 28, the next date of hearing.

In his petition, a copy of which is with MoneyControl, Khan —a two-time Congress MP and a former Union minister — has cited alleged violations of sections of the National Sports Development Code of India (NSDCI) to seek immediate dismissal of Batra and Norman.

He has also sought the appointment of an independent administrator or an ad-hoc body to run the day-to-day affairs of the federation until the time its Memorandum of Association (MOA) is amended as per the NSDCI. He has argued in his petition that there is no provision for a life member in the NSDCI, which accords voting rights to only members of associations from States or Union Territories.

Attempts to reach Norman and Batra for their reactions proved futile; this reporter was told by the Hockey India office that no one would comment on a sub-judice issue.

What Khan wants

Khan wants to break the glass ceiling of Hockey India, a tightly controlled body run by Norman and Batra, the last named once known in the Indian Capital as the Man Friday of late Finance Minister and top BJP leader Arun Jaitley. Batra has grown through the ranks, he is certainly not an easy pushover. He is a long ranger, one of the most powerful persons in Indian sports. He is the president of Indian Olympic Association (IOA), president of Federation Internationale De Hockey (FIH) and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He became Hockey India president in 2014 after serving the body as its secretary.

But the journey has not been smooth. “The issue raised by Khan is not about developing hockey, he wants transparency in Hockey India. I agree there may have been some violations. I have a feeling Khan wants to scale up the current crisis between IOA and Hockey India,” said hockey historian K Arumugam.

There have been repeated clashes within the IOA where office bearers have asked Batra to hold one post. In July 2020, Batra on Sunday appealed for an end to infighting which even reached the top brass of the IOC. It all started with a turf war between Batra and IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta over the validity of Batra’s election as the IOA president.

A question of restarting

IOA officials said the fight between Batra and Mehta started when Batra told Mehta that he wants to take over a few responsibilities from him to “share his burden”. Mehta refused and told reporters that Batra was encroaching on his domain. The two have been at loggerheads on the resumption of sporting activities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Batra wanted action to resume by October. Mehta said athletes shouldn’t be pushed for training given the rising cases in the country.

Some of the IOA officials even questioned Batra’s election as president of both the IOA and FIH and wrote to both FIH and the IOC seeking their immediate intervention into the issue. Sudhanshu Mittal, one of the nine IOA vice presidents, sought an international inquiry into Batra’s election but it was rejected by the IOC as well as the FIH. A visibly worried Batra issued a statement, saying peace should prevail.

“I appeal to all officials and members of the IOA to shun in-fighting, and work collaboratively towards the best interests of athletes and development of their respective sports,” Batra said in his emotional appeal.

That is one side of the story. Let us return to hockey.

So far as hockey is concerned, Khan wants both Batra and Norman to come clean, providing details of all financial benefits that they have enjoyed since their appointments as life member and CEO, respectively, of Hockey India. Khan has gone a step further. He has made serious assertions of nepotism in team selection and even claimed that “there are serious apprehensions that the Respondent No. 3 (Batra) by exercising perpetual and direct control through Respondent No. 4 (Norman) is siphoning funds of Respondent No. 4 (Hockey India)”.

Power games

Khan, it was clear, was taking on Norman, one of the most powerful persons in Indian hockey who once publicly berated the country’s hockey skipper, Manpreet Singh, for entering an exclusive enclosure during the 2018 World Cup. Those present in the VVIP area described the incident as very serious, though Singh downplayed it. Hockey India didn’t issue a statement and neither did the Odisha government, the hosts of the World Cup. The media was muzzled and it was obvious that in order to protect Norman, Manpreet Singh would be the fall guy.

Sports cognoscenti said the case filed by Khan, which sprang out of the blue, could be a setback for Batra, the IOA Big Boss. And if the judgement goes against him, there will definitely be a question mark over Batra’s position as the IOA chief. One needs to remember that Batra fought for the IOA top slot on the back of his life membership of Hockey India.

Batra, who came to hockey and also slotted himself into IOA realised that cricket was way beyond him. At the 2016 FIH Congress in Dubai where polls took place for the top slot, Batra was the first-ever Indian to be elected as the FIH president. Batra, who was then the president of Hockey India, defeated David Balbirnie of Ireland and Australia's Ken Read to become the 12th FIH President – the first Asian to grab the post despite stiff opposition from Europe. Batra got 68 votes in his favour while Balbirnie and Read managed 29 and 13 votes respectively.

Hockey’s power centre shifted to Asia from Europe. His critics blamed him for the fact that Batra had crisscrossed the globe to seek votes. While it is obvious for big guns to travel across the world to seek votes, many felt Batra walked through because FIH, then struggling for funds, gave into India’s big cash power.

Batra came in when world hockey didn’t have the greenpacks and the IOC was even contemplating dropping hockey from the Olympic Games. But Batra’s inclusion saw the start of big bucks investment in the game, no questions were raised. In some ways, many called him the Jagmohan Dalmiya of Indian hockey. So if everything is fine, where is the problem? Or, for that matter, the need for a legal wrangle?

In private conversations, Khan has told his friends that he is against what he claimed was a one-man dominance across IOA, Hockey India and FIH. He said a dictatorial type of operation is not good for the game.

Battles off the turf

There are others like Khan who feel Indian hockey is not going the right way at all. Let’s go step by step. Former Indian skipper Pargat Singh has had several run-ins with Batra. A Congress legislator, Singh has often argued the need to spread hockey across India and not keep it confined to one state, say Odisha. The eastern Indian state hosted the Hockey World Cup in the fall of 2018 in Bhubaneswar.

While Batra expressed his happiness that the World Cup would take Odisha to great heights, his critics pointed out that not a single school in Bhubaneswar had astroturf that is an absolute necessity for the game. Worse, the next Hockey World Cup was also allotted to the same state by FIH which said it liked the Odisha government’s plans to project Bhubaneswar as the country’s sports capital through cross-promotional tourism activities to run in tandem with the tournament.

In the first World Cup, the state government of Odisha ended up spending something close to Rs 180 crore on events linked to the tournament, all from the taxpayers' cash. Bhubaneswar also hosted the FIH Champions Trophy 2014, Indo-Japan Test Series 2015, 22 and Asian Athletics Championships 2017, Hockey World League Finals 2017 and Hero Super Cup 2018. Odisha also replaced Sahara as the chief sponsor of the men’s and womens’ hockey team.

But why only Odisha? And why only Bhubaneswar which does not produce great players like the ones from the tribal belt of Sambalpur, asked Pargat Singh. He wanted some matches to be shifted to Punjab, which produces nearly 70 percent of players of the national selection. He got no replies.

Troubles crept into the Hockey India League (HIL), once touted as the biggest money spinner for the game. It did not see the light of the day from 2018 onwards. The biggest roadblock came from the franchisees, some of whom earned nothing. Hockey India said the tournament will return in 2019 in a five-player format but it has not happened. Players and officials across the world maintain that a 5-a-side tournament will kill the game. It’s Batra’s obsession that a five-a-side would be the T20 version of cricket.

Controversy again hit Hockey India this year over the Dronacharya awards, the highest for coaches in India. Strange recommendations filled the Sports Ministry. Former Olympian V Bhaskaran recommended Jude Felix, and Hockey India recommended Romesh Pathania. Both got the award, a very, very unusual thing.

“Coaches heads roll every time there is a medal-less finish,” laughs Pargat Singh. Harendra Singh was fired after India's quarter final exit, a 1-2 defeat against three-time champions Netherlands at the World Cup in Bhubaneswar in December 2018. Harendra Singh had been sacked eight months into his two-year contract.

Déjà vu for Indian hockey

But Harendra did his best. In 2018, India beat every top 10 nation, barring Australia and Netherlands, at least once. India got silver after losing to Australia on penalties at the Champions Trophy and a bronze at the Asian Games.

Harendra Singh became the coach in May 2018 under some bizarre circumstances. He was coaching the women’s team, and was asked to swap positions with Dutchman Sjoerd Marijne, who was shuttled to the men’s team from his initial stint with the women. Harendra, who led the junior men’s team to the World Cup title in 2016, was brought in after India’s fourth-place finish at the Commonwealth Games under Marijne.

Aslam Sher Khan’s case could open up a pandora’s box.

Strangely the case was filed in the court a decade after another shocking incident had gripped hockey. It took place in 2010 when players boycotted the training camp for unpaid dues 45 days before the start of the World Cup in the Indian Capital.

Many years back when Batra ousted KPS Gill from the presidency of the Indian Hockey Federation (the then body), he accused Gill of being autocratic with a dictatorial style of functioning. Today, he stands accused of the same.

Shantanu Guha Ray is a Delhi-based journalist.