By K. Arumugam

Today marks the fifth death anniversary of one of the finest sports administrators India has produced, Ashwini Kumar. He was not only passionate about hockey but later evolved to be the reliable deputy of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the longest serving president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and thus carved a niche for himself in the global Olympic movement.

He was a multi-faceted personality. His contribution in all the fields he was  involved with like the IOC, Indian Olympic Association (IOA), music, literature, police service etc are legendary, but Ashwini Kumar is known in India as the most-debated — though he should have been the most admired — president of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF). For many of his era, he was veritable Mr. Hockey

Ashwini Kumar (l) succeeded Naval Tata (r) as the IHF Chief

Dhyan Chand and Ashwini Kumar, circa 1965

He died in New Delhi at his Friends Colony residence on 19th October, 2015. He was a connoisseur of various diverse fields as music, sports and literature.

A decorated Imperial Police Officer, his first love of course was hockey, so much so he even named his first child Hockey. He was a boxer in his college days but changed to hockey by providence, where he would later build a legacy of his own.

Ashwini Kumar took over the IHF mantle in 1958, a couple of months before hockey was played for the first time in the Asian Games that year. As India would lose the Asian title to Pakistan on goal aggregate, the young Inspector General faced the ire of the nation. Then came the Rome disaster (The 1960 Olympic final loss to Pakistan).

He organized at least 12 test series in India to boost the morale of the national hockey team in order to prepare for the resurrection. India went on to win the title at the next Olympics and Asian Games, the former without conceding a single goal!

His long tenure of leading the Indian hockey had its own merits and demerits, often portrayed as controversial. India winning ‘just’ bronze in two successive Olympics — 1968 and 1972 — was the main reason for him getting enough negative press. Those ‘failures’ were often attributed to his ‘whimsical’  team selection. He faced a severe challenge to his chair when one of the top businessmen of the times MAM Ramaswamy entered the ring. The Federation International de Hockey (FIH) obviously reposed faith in the emerging leadership than on its vice-president!

It was in that phase one day the then Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi asked him to relinquish the IHF post in 1975. His long 17-year reign came to an end a couple of months before India won the World Cup.

However, he turned his eyes on the IOC, as he had remained the driving force behind Raja Bhalindra Singh, who was the ruling deity of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for decades. Ashwini was IOA Secretary for many spells.

He was an excellent orator, prolific writer and expert on Indian philosophy.

Controversial or not, Ashwini’s persona and dynamism did much to steady Indian hockey’s flight through a very turbulent period.

MY ARTICLE ON ASHWINI KUMAR, HINDUSTAN TIMES, Oct., 23, 2015. 

The present generation might not know Ashwini Kumar, who breathed his last on Sunday at age 93. But at one time he was one of the most accomplished administrators the country has seen.

Be it sports administration or tackling major security issues, Kumar, who was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) member for more than three decades, carved out a niche for himself.

From gunning down dreaded dacoits like Bhupat in Gujarat to chasing killers of the chief minister of undivided Punjab, Partap Singh Kairon, Kumar, then a young DIG in Punjab Police who later went on to head the Border Security Force, was always in the forefront.

But it was sports that gave him enduring identity. He took charge of hockey from Naval Tata when the sport was in decline, losing the pedestal to Pakistan at the 1958 Asian Games and then the Rome Olympics. He ruled Indian hockey for 15 years, helping it regain lost pride, but as years rolled by controversies surrounded him. The sidelining of such greats like Balbir Singh of Western Railway and Inam-ur-Rahman and his long-standing feud with Prithipal Singh, did affect his popularity. But he remained obsessed with hockey, so much so that he named his elder daughter ‘Hockey’! It goes to his credit that the Indian hockey team never returned without a returned as long as he was IHF chief.

But Kumar’s worth as a sports administrator with immense talent came to the fore when he left hockey and moved to the IOC as its Indian representative in 1973. Those were turbulent times for the Olympic Movement. Cold War, apartheid and athletes seeking asylum in Olympic host countries weakened the movement.

When the United States was contemplating boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Kumar delivered a memorable speech — he said, ‘Let us boycott all boycotts’ at the IOC Congress, ironically held in the US, at Lake Placid. “I was noticed in the Olympic fraternity with that speech,” Kumar said later.

It was Kumar who dealt a blow to Julian Roosevelt’s — younger brother of US President Theodore Roosevelt — aspirations in the IOC vice-presidential election, even though the 1984 Olympics were being held in Los Angeles. Kumar got 49 votes to Roosevelt’s 24.

During his stint with the IOC, he had several meetings with the North Korean dictator-president to ensure the 1988 Seoul Olympics went off peacefully. “I spent hours sitting with the Korean dictator, just listening. Those meetings were meant to buy time,” he used to say. The IOC supremo, Juan Antonio Samaranch, soon made him the first Member Security. “He (Samaranch) invented the post for me,” he said.

It was Kumar’s cool but temperamental genius that earned a name for us in the Olympic Movement.