I was undergoing an operation in Mumbai when I learnt Indian hockey’s ouster from the Beijing Olympics. Therefore excuse me for giving my views so late.

I watched all the Olympics since 1948 in some capacity or other. As I am invited for Beijing this August, the very thought that hockey will not be there shatters me. It’s a tragic loss. I could not sleep for a week, I wish I had a Cavalier attitude. I named my daughter ‘Hockey’ and the game remains my first passion.

Don’t blame a single individual for what has happened. Hockey is far bigger an entity that could have been killed by an individual or two. If you attack an individual, he will always wriggle out from the onslaught. That the person whom the country blames now for all the evils did not provide quality answers should not be allowed to mask the variety of factors behind our downfall.

I walked out of the FIH meeting in 1975 when it decided to introduce Astroturf. I never attended another meeting of the FIH. Market forces drove the FIH to go in for the drastic step. With that what transpired on the turfs in the name of hockey is not what we are used to excel to the envious wonderment of the world. This is a new game altogether.

This in no way means, we could not have excelled on the synthetic pitches also. But we were not prepared to face the new challenge. Still worse, we were not even prepared to believe the game is different.

I and Juan Antanio Samarach, then president of the International Olympic Committee, watched the Moscow Olympics hockey final between our countries. Being a hockey player himself, Samaranch initiated a move so that India can acquire a foreign coach. I am talking about early 80s. When I was the senior member of the Olympic Solidarity Committee shortly later, even a grant was made to the Indian Olympic Association to go in for a foreign coach by the name Horst Wein. But by and large the governments and the IHF of the day did not have it in them to avail the godsend opportunity.

We constantly shunned the brains. We did not even have enough playing surfaces.

During a book releasing ceremony in 2001, I apprised the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of dire need for more turfs in India. Subsequently, I was told the government of India sanctioned Rs.200 crore. Very unfortunately a lot of MPs met him and got the money spent towards conduct of the Afro-Asian Games. We could have easily laid down one hundred turfs in India with that money, but the opportunity had been wasted. I don’t think another edition of the Afro-Asian Games was ever held. During that time Indian Olympic Association advised me not go against the Afro-Asian Games.

Banks, Oil and Airlines sectors are prepared to form teams, but not their own grounds?

Some of the mistakes we committed and continue to do so is not conducting Nationals, but go by a variety suitable for television. Ajit Pal Singh and Gurbux Singh are my boys but I don’t know how to punish them for not being good selectors? In my days, I used to have Railway Board Chairman and Army Generals in the Selection Committee so that they cannot be approached.

Do we have players who can push the ball across the length of the ball? Do we select players who have a strong wrist and stout barrel? On wet grounds, tribal players won’t be successful, as they learn their game on dry surfaces. Players of Dhanraj’s caliber are needed, but unlike Sachin Tendulkar, he takes on everyone which shortens his career. Hockey granaries in Punajb and Uttar Pradesh dried up, and the youth are into drug and hooch nowadays.

The Olympic Charter assigns bigger role for the National Associations, like our IOA, to monitor their units such as the IHF. Strict monitoring is very important without which the spirit of the Olympic Charter cannot be realized.

As told to K. Arumugam

Ashwini Kumar, 88, is former Vice President, International Olympic Committee and President, Indian Hockey Federation.