Who will clean up the mess?

A friend of mine called me today and advised to focus on real villains of hockey instead of just highlighting the acts and omissions of only top functionaries.

According to him, the top leaders say Ashwini Kumar or KPS Gill were as bad or worse as that of those who elected them, meaning the State Hockey Associations did the real sabotage en masse.

The former player of repute is more than hundred percent correct in his advice.

If one sits and reviews the hockey scenario and tries to find out the real persons behind the liquidation of Indian hockey, it is just not at those who sat at the top and tried to justify all wrongs of their constituent units but its those who caught the powers of the state, doing nothing to promote hockey, are the real villains of the piece.

Many of the State Hockey Association are still controlled by the very people whose incompetence and lack of imagination destroyed Indian hockey through the seventies and the eighties .

I have not written this. The above was penned by none other than KPS Gill (Hindustan Times, Bully off boys) nine years ago. He surely identified the malaise but never tried to remedy it — because exactly on whose support he was holding on to the chair.

If you look around, who are the people who run the show at grass root – state or province – one thing is clear. Katares in Madha Pradesh, Mahajans in Delhi, Sujlanas in Mumbai, and imperishable Ahers in Vidarbha …. the list goes on.

90 percent of states are run by the likes of Katares, Ahers, Mahajans and Sujlanas. They never cease to exist.

None of them are known to have contributed anything to the development of hockey.

Katares, Mahajans, Ahers and Sujlanas are above 80 and seemed to have developed adequate bench strength of cronies to support them and thus remain seated to chairs and rise above scrutiny. Add to this the likes of Amrit Boses and one of her supporters from Orissa, a former MP now in her late 80s, the picture is complete.

You can, as one keen observer put it recently, purchase their votes ‘in a bar over a night’.

Whoever becomes the boss of hockey, as long as these parasites continue to persist – they have the unique survival sense — Indian hockey cannot be cured at all.

Can you believe Inder Mohan Mahajan is President of Delhi Hockey Association since the 70s, almost more than three decades by now. Delhi press prides itself the national spokesmen, but never bothers to write a line on this gentleman.

Katara is also there for donkey years. Sujlana, out of seat of power courtesy Commander Kehar Singh, is back and it is anytime he and his friends circle start playing cards in the Bombay Hockey Association building as they had been doing in their last stint!! Seven or eight years ago whenever I visited BHA this was what I used to see — playing cards in the evenings at the BHA.

Uttar Pradesh used to churn out unending number of players till a decade ago, so also the case of Bengal. Why did these states dry uo, does anyone bother to know that. These two States, for instance, did not oppose when the second tier in the PHL was abolished of which they were the directly losers!! Hockey means nothing to them, what counts is holding on to the local unit.

What happened to Bhopal? It produced a Samir Dad even in the mid 90s. Can anyone who knows hockey believe an Indian side without a Bhopal player in it? Hockey had gone to dumps in Bhopal but Guffran-e-Azams and his ilk are still throttling hockey in the guise of state hockey association.

The single body in each state is one step to weed out some of them though Mahajans and Boses will still escape.

In this bleak scenario, the entry of Sukhbir Badal in Punjab augurs well for, among others, two vital factors.

The most illogical of constitutions – the Punjab Hockey Association statues so far gave officiating DGP its head and senior most police officials head of each state – has been wiped out. Secondly, the non-entity called Patiala unit met its deserved death.

Further, a man who is almost the chief minister has been persuaded to head hockey is a good thing as Lalus and Modis enter State Cricket scenarios. Hockey has at least one Chief Minister in its roll, it enhances its profile after all. This benefit of Hockey India concept is a welcome one. We already had a taste of it in the form of highly successful Punjab Gold Cup and it was at the blessings of Badals.

But there are forces who support these hang-arounds and parasites in the name of democracy. OK, agreed. Those who seek to oust these State Associations are doing it for their own survival and this site has amply exposed them – and will do so in future as well. Because we believe the arbitrator IOA cannot swallow the clients for whatever reasons.

We welcome JB Roy just because we welcome businessman’s entry into hockey — to run it businesslike. Naval Tata and MAM Ramasaamy are two businessmen in the pantheon of IHF leadership who have never been accused of corruption. They left the scene when they felt so, never stayed even a day more than required. So, we expect the same from Roy as well. Had the rival camp projected, say a Tata or Ambani, to oppose JB Roy, this site would have taken a neutral stand. We want hockey to escape from the clutches of another set of retired bureaucrats or jobless but ambitious politicians. It has not happened till now.

Coming back to the crux of the matter, will the moribund State Hockey Associations continue to be in the hands of same elements who control hockey at grassroot without contributing to its development?

At least one State Association with which I am familiar does this every year. Two reputed former Olympians select 16 players for the state. The SHA adds another 8 on its own and makes them State Players. Everyone of them gets the necessary National Player Certificate and lands in a local job. This racket flourishes unhindered. The institutions who take these players in their role, never play their teams in good tournaments but in rural ones to avoid exposed.

Its is moribund state associations who squeeze hockey even now. One way to steamline the system is to throw out some state hockey old heads, bury them under the sand; unless it is done, unless new faces emerge on the state horizons hockey has no chance of survival. The question now is, who will bell the cat?

Thank you, dear friend, for reminding me of real villains of hockey.