If India today is a theatre of absurdity in terms of hockey administration, it is purely the making of FIH.

There is no doubt about that.

Take the India map. Locate five major cities. Even a class one student will say these are

1. Kolkata (Bengal)
2. Mumbai (Maharashtra)
3. Delhi
4. Chennai (Tamil Nadu)
5. Bangalore (Karnataka).

Ask any layman in India about hockey, he will say its game played in Punjab.

Add this region to the above five cities and then know the fact that these cities govern the State Hockey Associations of respective region.

Recently, Hockey India announced election after leaving out all of the above regions. It is akin to a daylight robbery, mockery of democracy.

All the international tournaments that India hosted are in the above six areas. These regions collectively account for about 80 percent of hockey players that India produced so far.

Now we are all told due to the intervention of Indian Sports Ministry and the FIH observer the farce has been stalled.

At least the FIH need not feel playing a saviour role and saving Indian hockey. Because, the whole scenario is the mess created by the FIH, for whatever reasons best known to them. They were in a hurry to accord recognition to Hockey India, giving legitimacy to a near-fraud.

FIH handed over hockey to caretakers who have become now overtakers.

Anybody who is somebody in hockey will know the present administrators formed Hockey India fradulently so that they want the World Cup and Commonwealth Games take place under their regime.

Now, they got it. February is the new deadline for election, the month in which the World Cup will start in India. What is the guarantee the same people will not invent another bizarre thing, quote success of World Cup and then want to continue for some more time?

The constitution that the Hockey India formed is a farce. It cannot stand legal scrutiny simply because they don’t have mandate to make the one. Having got power from alien support, I mean FIH, first thing they did was to disenfranchise almost three fourth of the electoral college. How can you disenfranchise the associations which are older than even the Indian Hockey Federation, like the Services & Railways?

Hurried recognition to Hockey India by the FIH is the most unthoughtful one that defied all canons of logic. “Do it within 15 or else..”, the type of letter that the FIH seemed to have written is insult to any sovereign country especially the one like India that follows democracy as a tool of state governance. The likes of Powars and Dalmias, cricket adminos, would have thrown such letter into the dust bin.

See what happens now.

Despite having enormous time at their disposal, Hockey India did not do its job, procrastinating affiliation issues.

Again take the example above six regions.

Bengal’s both men and women associations merged under BHA and the State Olympics Association (which has been unnecessarily drawn into the picture to suit some vested interests) have recommended its affiliation.

Hockey India did not accord the affiliation even after three months.

After many sittings and after a two-member committee submitted its report, Tamil Nadu Olympic Association recommend Unified Tamil Nadu Hockey for affiliation.

Hockey India did not accord the affiliation even after two months.

No association in India follows rules, regulations and conventions as that of Karnataka State Hockey Association, where the strength of electoral college is about one thousand. It has created more wealth than any other SHAs. Still they did not get affiliation. On the behest of Indian Olympic Association, the State Olympic unit is dilly-dallying its recommendation. This one is striking because there is not even any rival group in the state to oppose the KSHA’s unified body.

Punjab is another classic case. Four associations have merged and formed Hockey Punjab with the powerful Dy. Chief Minister of the State as its President. There is no rival camps or groups here also.

Hockey India did not accord the affiliation even after two months after the state Olympic association recommended for it.

Delhi and Mumbai hardly seemed to have taken any step to merge and form an unified body.

That the Hockey India wanted to organize election on Nov 18 without these powerful units in the process is a proof of their malafide intentions.

Nobody is bothered who wins the elections. The concern is proper process, transparency, and the FIH’s inability to enforce time-honoured ethics.

The FIH’s image is certainly sullied in India among those who know the world of hockey. The present regime headed by Leandro Negre handled the Indian hockey issue not with the measure of maturity it deserved.

As a result it is now difficult to judge who is holding World Cup at ransom, the FIH or the Hockey India.

The same organizations that seemed to have urged the then Ad-hoc Committee to form the unified body within 15 days, could not see the elections held on time in a proper way. Why this double standard?

It is unfortunate the FIH did not feel it necessary to take out even a single official media release on the matter, what we all have is selective distribution of FIH letters during the Hockey India press meets and releases.

How can one give the steering of the vehicle to a hijacker and then advise him drive to police station?

This is what exactly the FIH has done in India.