Hello, friends!

After the outstanding performance of the Indian hockey teams in the Tokyo Olympics,

there is a renewed excitement for hockey among Indians.

Men's as well as the Women's hockey team

have performed really well.

Historic, on so many levels.

So it's not surprising that people are now more interested in watching hockey.

Today's generation may be surprised to know this,

but there was a time in India, friends

when hockey used to be the most popular sport in India.

But then there was a point in history

when cricket overtook hockey in terms of popularity.

People started to love cricket more.

Why did hockey lose its popularity among the masses? And cricket became so popular. Can hockey revive its popularity among Indians?

Come, let's try to find the answers to these questions in today's article.

Friends, let's start our story from the year 1936.

Adolf Hitler was in power in Germany.

The 1936 Olympic games were being held in the German capital, Berlin.

It was the final match of hockey.

India versus Germany.

India's Men's hockey team seemed a bit nervous.

Because Germany had defeated them in a previous match.

But India had a special player.

Who was known as the Wizard among us?

The name of the player was Dhyan Chand.

India played a fast-paced game.

Germany tried its best to win.

But Germany could score only one goal against India.

On the other hand, India scored 8 goals against Germany.

3 of the goals were scored by Dhyan Chand.

This was a very historic game.

Impressed by Dhyan Chand's performance,

Adolf Hitler offered German citizenship to Dhyan Chand.

Going as far as saying that he would be given a position in the German army.

But Dhyan Chand wasn't one to

bow down to a dictator.

Dhyan Chand did not hesitate to tell Adolf Hitler

that "India is not for sale!"

It was during the prize distribution ceremony.

The whole stadium went silent.

People were afraid that the fearless reply

might lead to Hitler shooting Dhyan Chand.

But fortunately, it wasn't so.

Rather, Hitler was even more impressed by Dhyan Chand.

In fact, this "Wizard of Hockey" title to Dhyan Chand,

was given to him by Hitler.

What a fascinating story!

Believe it or not, friends,

This was our third consecutive Olympics Gold medal in hockey.

Perhaps what may be even more unbelievable is that

the Indian hockey team went on to win 5 more Gold medals.

At this stage, India was literally the world champion of hockey.

Dhyan Chand, the Wizard's story reached schools,

were told to kids at their homes,

His stories reached far and wide in the country.

And we, as Indians, were very proud of our hockey players.

Did you know friends, that the game of hockey is older than the Olympics?

If we look into hockey's history,

a similar but rough game was played in Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia.

There would be a small disk, that we know as the puck.

And sticks would be used to hit it.

Today, ice hockey is also played like this.

With a disk.

But the modern Field Hockey

was actually developed in Britain in the 18th century.

Like the British made cricket popular in India,

the credit of making hockey popular in India also goes to them.

Hockey clubs started forming in cities like Calcutta and Bombay.

British organized hockey tournaments as well.

Like the Beighton Cup.

And Indians became good at playing hockey soon.

We had amazing players from cities small and large.

In fact even from Army Cantonment.

Dhyan Chand and his brother Roop Singh,

both of whom had played in the Olympics,

had actually started playing hockey in the Jhansi Cantonment.

The Indian Hocker Federation was soon established.

And then the Indian hockey team went to play in the Olympics.

Although, initially, there was only a Men's hockey team.

What followed is now history.

After 1928, the Indian hockey team won six Gold medals,

and won 24 consecutive matches.

Along with Dhyan Chand, there is another hockey player whom I'd like to mention here,

Jaipal Singh.

A player from Ranchi, who completed his studies at Oxford.

His story is interesting because

after becoming the captain of the Indian hockey team,

he became a member of our Constituent Assembly.

The group of people who wrote the Constitution of our country.

Additionally, he had fought for reservation as well.

for the tribal communities in Government jobs.

It was

two goals

in the 7th and 15th minutes, I scored.

That joy, that happiness

can't be explained.

It can be experienced.

I was thrilled.

This was Balbir Singh Sr who had scored 2 winning goals in 1948's Olympic final match.

Against England.

This Olympics was very special for India.

Because this was the first Olympics in which Independent India had played.

The country got independence in 1947.

And it was a matter of chance

that the final match was against Britain.

And India won this match.

Just imagine how symbolic it must've been.

After the 1948's Olympics victory,

hockey became even more popular in the country.

The sentiments and the national pride of the citizens

were quite attached to the Indian hockey team.

Around the 1970s and 1980s, India's Women's hockey team

performed quite well.

Like in the Moscow Olympics in the 1980s,

They were in the fourth position.

Around this time, had you asked anyone

"Which is the favorite sport of India?"

Even a toddler would've answered:

Hockey!

But now if you'd ask kids,

"Which is the most popular sport in India?"

They'd answer, cricket.

Which isn't incorrect.

Today, cricket is the most popular, the most famous, sport in India.

What happened that caused hockey's popularity to fade out?

And cricket became a popular sport.

In 1976, there was a magazine,

called the World Hockey.

They published a detailed article with the title

the Fall of Rome.

They weren't actually talking about Rome here.

They were comparing the Roman civilization with Indian hockey.

They had analyzed in detail

the cause of the decline of Indian hockey.

Exactly like the Roman Civilization.

What was once a spectacular and well-known civilization,

eventually started declining.

The decline of Indian hockey had actually begun in the 1960s.

Around this time, the Indian hockey players had changed the way they played the game.

Before this, Indian hockey gameplay

was admired around the world.

How the players would skillfully chase the ball while dribbling it.

The game was played by chasing and dribbling.

But around this time, India changed its tactics,

And the hockey players started using western tactics.

In this new type of hockey that they were playing,

instead of chasing the ball, they were chasing the players.

This point of criticism was levied by a German hockey player around that time.

For the Indian hockey team.

But this wasn't the only reason.

After this, another major change took place.

In 1975, the International Hockey Federation said

that they will change the field on which they played hockey.

Before this, hockey was played on the grass.

After this, they said that they'd play hockey on AstroTurf.

It's basically artificial grass.

The bright blue or purple fields that you see during the hockey matches,

are made of rubber.

And this was a huge change for the Indian hockey team.

Because the Indian hockey players were used to play on grass.

On grass fields, the Indian hockey players could actually trap the ball,

between the blades of grass.

They could dribble it and skillfully pass it on.

On the other hand, the friction on the AstroTurf was low.

So instead of strategically passing around the ball,

physical strength was needed

to run fast and play the game.

And this was an advantage for the European players

as compared to the Indian players.

Perhaps an even bigger problem was that

there were no AstroTurfs in India.

So we had to first make the AstroTurfs

and it was quite expensive to manufacture them.

So we couldn't manufacture many AstroTurfs.

So the players didn't have sufficient place to practice.

Since the players couldn't practice,

their performance was affected.

Because of this, India's performance in the Olympics wasn't good.

When the decision to change the field was made,

the Indian Hockey Federation accepted it without much reluctance.

Many people consider the internal politics in the Federation responsible for this.

This step is criticized even today.

Why didn't the Indian Hockey Federation

show resistance to the International Hockey Federation?

That they don't want the field to be changed.

That they want to continue playing on grass fields.

Had it been done, perhaps hockey would've been played on grass fields even today.

Or perhaps not.

It's difficult to say what would've happened today.

What the effect would be on the present had this decision not been taken.

Dhanraj is a retired hockey player.

He lays out these reasons for the decline in hockey in our country.

That the people in the Federation had big egos.

That there was a lot of internal politics in the Federation.

There was a change of turf.

The players changed their style.

The style of playing the game.

And there was a lot of friction between the players and the Federation.

Because of these reasons, the performance of the Indian hockey team kept falling

in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

But on the other hand, during this time in the 1970s and 1980s,

Cricket's popularity grew rapidly in India.

Ramchandra Guha considers the year 1971 as when

India had a Coming of Age.

This was the year when the Indian team had gone to England to tour

for a test match.

Before this point in time,

India had not won a single match against England.

But that changed in 1971.

On the fourth day of the test match,

India won this test match.

And India started getting international respect in the game of cricket.

More importantly, around this time,

a fan base of cricket started developing in India.

One of the reasons for it was that

many international tournaments were hosted in India.

International teams came to India to play.

But a more interesting reason was that

the national fan base of cricket

developed like a habit.

Neighbors would sit together

to listen to cricket commentary on the radio.

This habit started around Independence.

Today, people listen to the commentary while watching the match on TV,

but at that time, people could only listen to the commentary on the radio

and didn't watch the match.

But still, it used to be a superb experience.

The suspense while listening to the match

especially, listening to it together with others

it was its own brand of fun.

And the 1971 match that I told you about a while back,

was heard by 80 million people around the country on the radio.

Other than the radio,

newspapers, and magazines started to cover cricket in a detailed manner.

Weekly magazines were published.

Like Sports Week, Sports Star, Sports World

Wherein you could know all about cricket.

And our cricketers

became celebrities because of these newspapers and magazines.

It is quite interesting to know about the journey of these famous cricketers.

Where did they come from?

How did they become so popular?

Their stories are very motivating and inspiring.

If you want to get to know their stories in detail

then I'd recommend that you listen to Rahul Dravid's biography on KUKU FM.

Of Suniel Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar as well.

These three biographies are available on KUKU FM.

If you don't know KUKU FM,

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On where you can listen to books summaries, biographies, and several courses.

I prefer to listen to the audio format

as compared to reading.

Because you can listen to an audio podcast while doing something else.

Like while cleaning your house or going to the gym.

It normally costs ₹399 per year.

But because KUKU FM has sponsored this article,

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Coming back to our story,

fan followings of cricketers started forming.

Cricketers had become celebrities.

But unfortunately, hockey never had these.

The media coverage that the cricketers got,

the hockey players didn't get it.

And because of the media coverage, people were paying more attention to it.

And so the money started to flow in that direction.

After the 1983 World Cup victory,

no one could've stopped the increasing popularity of cricket in India.

After some years, Economic Liberalisation took place in India.

Foreign investors could now come to India.

Markets had opened up.

Brand deals started coming for cricket.

Large advertisers started tying up with cricket tournaments.

More money started to flow in,

and eventually, BCCI became the richest and most powerful cricket body in the world.

The logic is simple.

If people were interested in watching cricket only,

then all the major advertisers, brands, and private companies

would invest only in cricket.

And why are people drawn to watching cricket?

Because the Indian cricket team is one of the best cricket teams in the world.

Apart from the fact that the Indian cricket team gets the most publicity and media coverage.

People's attention can be directed towards other sports too.

If the chances of India's win increases in other sports.

Take the example of hockey.

Now, in the Olympics, the performance of the Indian hockey teams has been outstanding

so people are now interested in hockey.

If people think that India has a good chance of winning

then they are motivated to watch the game

and cheer the team.

But apart from this, basic infrastructure is also needed

in the country

which will enable anyone that wants to play the sport to do so.

The government's support and money is needed for this,

so that infrastructure can be built,

stadiums and training fields can be built.

Additionally, media coverage and film coverage also makes a difference.

If the sport is talked about in films

people would be more motivated to watch the games

and even get motivated to play.

There would be some influence on kids as well.

But to return to the point on Government's support,

a lot of credit in promoting hockey goes to

Odisha's Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik.

First, he had requested our Prime Minister to declare hockey as the official National Sport.

If you don't know, hockey is NOT the National Sport of India.

Officially.

I talked about it on the Spotify podcast.

if you don't know about my Maha Bharat podcast on Spotify,

then do check it out.

The link will be in the description below.

Every week, I make audio podcasts there on such topics.

So Odisha's Chief Minister told the Prime Minister

that for the states like Odisha, Chattisgarh, and Jharkhand,

hockey is a way of life.

In 2018, the Odisha government spent millions of rupees

to become the sponsor of the Indian hockey team.

This is the reason why even today

the jerseys of both men's and women's hockey team

has ODISHA written on them?

Additionally, Odisha's Chief Minister has tried to develop world-class facilities in his State

And has hosted multiple tournaments.

In fact, Odisha's CM has recently

laid the foundation stone for India's largest hockey stadium.

That is to be built in Odisha.

It will be named Birsa Munda.

It is being designed to host the Hockey World Cup 2023 tournament.

Exactly these things are needed, friends,

if we want to revive hockey.

Some support from the government,

some support from the public, and some support from media and Bollywood as well.

If we want to promote this sport in our country.

I hope friends that in the future

apart from cricket, the other sports in our country

would get their well-deserved recognition.

I hope that you liked the article.

Hit the like button if you liked this article.

And comment below.

Let's meet in the next article.

Thank you very much!