Will hockey ever get out of the shame?
It seems our national game is condemned to be in ugly news forever. If it is not about the men’s hockey squad being kicked off the global pedestal, not being able to make it to the Olympics, and coming only on the bottom part of the ladder in the World Hockey Cup, held in India apparently to boost the game in the sub-continent, it is the latest revelations (or should we say allegations) which have rocked the women’s hockey that has our nation hanging its head in shame.
Not just shame, but consternation too as to why a much celebrated coach who has the job of his life to prove to the world that he can make a mediocre team say Chak De, actually risk his integrity by indulging in sexual harassment of his own wards! That, too, when he has had a good run as coach. Himself an Olympian gold medallist (was in the men’s squad for the Moscow Olympics), he was coach of the men’s team when it got the Asian gold in 1998. His performance with the women’s squad, since 2003, also has been good — he got them the gold in the Afro-Asian Games and an Asian bronze too. But murmurs have followed him often and, this time, 31 players have signed in support of the girl who has charged him with verbal sexual abuse.
If this charge, made by a hockey player from Manipur, is proved to be true, it will not only be a shame for the game but also a huge setback to its progress, which in any case, has long been dismal. Already, however, former players like Zafar Iqbal are saying there is not enough evidence to get to the bottom of the complaint which Kaushik insists is motivated because, according to him, the girl was angry with him for pulling her up for consistent non-performance.
Whatever be the truth of this latest scam that has hit our national game, fact is that there is nothing right with Indian Hockey. Intense politics, settling of personal scores at the expense of the game, big-time swindling by officials, a huge infrastructural mess, lack of funding and a maze of non-performance at all levels has become endemic to Indian hockey.
Elections, which have been long overdue, are nowhere in sight and even the international federation has given up after a slew of boycott threats delivered to the Indian federation coming to a naught. The World Cup came and went but the promise of holding elections was not kept by warring officials.
So intense is the politicking in the game that even a serious charge like sexual harassment is mired so deep in it that there is no scope of anything concrete coming out of the inquiry. Already, there is resentment against the fact that the inquiry panel (Hockey India insists it is only a fact-finding panel and not a full-fledged inquiry panel) set up to probe the allegations against the coach is male-dominated. Not just that, it also violates the Supreme Court ruling that there should be 50 per cent representation of women on any such panel. The present panel has three men and only a lone woman representative, a fact opposed by the women’s commission but no corrective action has been taken.
Other than that, the entire sorry saga has turned into a sorrier saga camp war. So, there is a Kaushik camp supporting the coach and a rival camp out to fix Kaushik. Whoever has more clout will win. Which means the truth of these allegations will never come out.
Sexual and other forms of harassment of women have been endemic to all sports so it takes a lot of courage for an individual player to come out with it and risk her entire career in doing so. Ranjitha Devi who has named Kaushik in a letter to Hockey India is only 21 and at the mouth of her career. It must have been difficult for her to have gathered all her wits in deciding to do so at this level of the game and despite the stark truth that such allegations are very seldom proven.
Ranjitha, who plays centre forward, has not gone in the squad touring Busan, South Korea for the first Asian Champions Trophy (Kaushik says since she was dropped from the squad she gunned for him) and there is scant possibility of her returning to the national team after having stirred the dirt.
Not just that, with managing officials having a free run of the squads they man, there have been enough incidents of corruption being protected by officialese and players are all but reconciled to this sad truth — and they sometimes even use it to propel their careers.
One may never forget the pictures of our national woman athletics champion serving tea to officials sprawled in a room at a training institute in Ludhiana. Much time has flowed out of the wall clock since that ignominious fact came to light more than a year back. But nothing seems to have changed, and nothing will — at least not till the time a proper administration is put in place, the game is given pride of place by the Government and an earnest effort made to weed out corruption from the ranks of the game. Till this happens, there are many and will be many coaches and officials whose taint will be discovered only once in a while — actually in a long while.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, July 25, 2010
Not just shame, but consternation too as to why a much celebrated coach who has the job of his life to prove to the world that he can make a mediocre team say Chak De, actually risk his integrity by indulging in sexual harassment of his own wards! That, too, when he has had a good run as coach. Himself an Olympian gold medallist (was in the men’s squad for the Moscow Olympics), he was coach of the men’s team when it got the Asian gold in 1998. His performance with the women’s squad, since 2003, also has been good — he got them the gold in the Afro-Asian Games and an Asian bronze too. But murmurs have followed him often and, this time, 31 players have signed in support of the girl who has charged him with verbal sexual abuse.
If this charge, made by a hockey player from Manipur, is proved to be true, it will not only be a shame for the game but also a huge setback to its progress, which in any case, has long been dismal. Already, however, former players like Zafar Iqbal are saying there is not enough evidence to get to the bottom of the complaint which Kaushik insists is motivated because, according to him, the girl was angry with him for pulling her up for consistent non-performance.
Whatever be the truth of this latest scam that has hit our national game, fact is that there is nothing right with Indian Hockey. Intense politics, settling of personal scores at the expense of the game, big-time swindling by officials, a huge infrastructural mess, lack of funding and a maze of non-performance at all levels has become endemic to Indian hockey.
Elections, which have been long overdue, are nowhere in sight and even the international federation has given up after a slew of boycott threats delivered to the Indian federation coming to a naught. The World Cup came and went but the promise of holding elections was not kept by warring officials.
So intense is the politicking in the game that even a serious charge like sexual harassment is mired so deep in it that there is no scope of anything concrete coming out of the inquiry. Already, there is resentment against the fact that the inquiry panel (Hockey India insists it is only a fact-finding panel and not a full-fledged inquiry panel) set up to probe the allegations against the coach is male-dominated. Not just that, it also violates the Supreme Court ruling that there should be 50 per cent representation of women on any such panel. The present panel has three men and only a lone woman representative, a fact opposed by the women’s commission but no corrective action has been taken.
Other than that, the entire sorry saga has turned into a sorrier saga camp war. So, there is a Kaushik camp supporting the coach and a rival camp out to fix Kaushik. Whoever has more clout will win. Which means the truth of these allegations will never come out.
Sexual and other forms of harassment of women have been endemic to all sports so it takes a lot of courage for an individual player to come out with it and risk her entire career in doing so. Ranjitha Devi who has named Kaushik in a letter to Hockey India is only 21 and at the mouth of her career. It must have been difficult for her to have gathered all her wits in deciding to do so at this level of the game and despite the stark truth that such allegations are very seldom proven.
Ranjitha, who plays centre forward, has not gone in the squad touring Busan, South Korea for the first Asian Champions Trophy (Kaushik says since she was dropped from the squad she gunned for him) and there is scant possibility of her returning to the national team after having stirred the dirt.
Not just that, with managing officials having a free run of the squads they man, there have been enough incidents of corruption being protected by officialese and players are all but reconciled to this sad truth — and they sometimes even use it to propel their careers.
One may never forget the pictures of our national woman athletics champion serving tea to officials sprawled in a room at a training institute in Ludhiana. Much time has flowed out of the wall clock since that ignominious fact came to light more than a year back. But nothing seems to have changed, and nothing will — at least not till the time a proper administration is put in place, the game is given pride of place by the Government and an earnest effort made to weed out corruption from the ranks of the game. Till this happens, there are many and will be many coaches and officials whose taint will be discovered only once in a while — actually in a long while.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, July 25, 2010
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