Aslam Sher Khan has a long career as hockey player to tap into as he finds ways to give useful lead to the five-member selection committee set up by the Indian Olympic Association. The committee is part of the apparatus put in place after the IOA arrogated to itself the responsibility to run the sport after dissolving the Indian Hockey Federation on Monday. A day later, Khan said he would seek inspiration from the recent Hindi film Chak De India. That film told of a coach and his team of women hockey players overcoming the odds of an indifferent and even vengeful hockey association to win a world championship. We hope that his comment is just a statement of inspiration, and that success is to be gotten by not in spite of the odds, but by reconfiguring hockey administration.The circumstances, however, do not inspire hope. Hockey is, of course, in trouble. This year, the men’s team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 80 years. Former captain Viren Rasquinha has written in these pages that this was a loss of face waiting to happen. For one, Indian children, who start out with superb dribbling skills, lose their advantage on account of poor facilities. As an example, he said, consider an average German city like Stuttgart — it has as many astroturfs as all of India. If the simple measure of dissolving the IHF and getting rid of its long-time chief, K.P.S. Gill, were enough to rectify matters, we would have been on the same page as the IOA. It has acted upon a warning from the International Hockey Federation, but the IOA’s own record has been dismal. How many medal hopefuls is the IOA taking to Beijing this summer? Any at all? Does the IHF dissolution indicate a reform of other federations, those football, rifle, cycling fiefdoms of assorted politicians? Yet, the IOA goes to Beijing with the resolve to bid for the 2020 Olympics.The cynical will point out that it is Indian hockey’s burden that it has a history of achievement. That makes its failures stand out amidst a landscape of sporting non-performances. In a way, this is why this week’s coup by the IOA cuts little ice with those who care about hockey.
