Dhyan Chand And Indian Hockey Team's Tryst with the Olympic Gold Medal

On Saturday, 15 August 1936 at about eleven in the morning, the sky was sunny and a slight breeze cooled Berlin. The temperature was an agreeable twenty degrees centigrade. The brand-new hockey stadium specifically constructed for the Olympic Games was jam-packed with over 20,000 spectators. Everyone’s eyes were focused on one man. It was the famed wizard of hockey who could singlehandedly turn the tide in any game. The name of that matchless player was Dhyan Chand.

On that momentous day, the thirty-year-old Dhyan Chand led a team of invincible Indians in the Olympic final facing the formidable German hockey squad. Galvanized with intense nationalist pride the Germans were determined to win the gold at any cost and by any means necessary. The Indian captain had an enviable record of capturing the gold medal at the Olympic games in Amsterdam in 1928 and in Los Angeles in 1932. Now it was India’s and Dhyan Chand’s chance to win the third straight gold. However, after being appointed as the captain for the Olympics, Dhyan Chand was consumed by self-doubt and confessed in his autobiography ‘Goal’, “For the first time, I was captaining the Olympic team; I wondered if India would lose the title under my charge?”

Born on 29 August 1905, Dhyan Chand belonged to the Rajput clan from Jhansi, with a family history in the armed forces. At sixteen he enrolled in the British Indian army and was exposed to the game of hockey for the first time. Subedar-Major Bale Tiwari, a hockey player of his regiment became his guru. The youngster took to hockey like fish to water and after intensive practice evolved into a fine forward on the field. He came into prominence during the finals of the Punjab Indian infantry tournament in Jhelum. With just four minutes left for the final to end, Dhyan Chand’s team, the 2/14 Punjab Regiment well-known in hockey circles was about to be routed with two goals to nil. 

The exasperated Commanding officer roared, “Come on Dhyan”. Among the onlookers was a young Indian army officer Lieutenant Ajit Rudra, son of Principal Sushil Kumar Rudra of St. Stephens College in Delhi. He later recorded that the closing minutes of the game were spectacular. Slowly dribbling his way through each and every opponent the young player with a rare facility for the game in the final three minutes scored the first goal, then came the equalizer and eventually he netted the ball into the goal for the third time leading his team to victory. From that day onwards Dhyan Chand was named the ‘Wizard of Hockey’ and the stories of his splendid performances at the Indian hockey tournaments continued to circulate.

Promoted as Lance-Naik in the army, Dhyan Chand emerged on the national scene as the hand-picked center-forward of India’s first-ever hockey team for the Olympic Games. Leading the charge, the twenty-two-year-old Dhyan Chand delighted the spectators in Amsterdam with his brilliance on the field. On 26 May 1928, the Indian team employing a ‘do or die’ spirit, won the Olympic hockey gold on its debut, and Dhyan Chand was the top-scorer with 14 goals in five matches. Four years later the man from Jhansi promoted to the rank of a Naik in the army, arrived in Los Angeles along with his younger brother Roop Singh to defend India’s Olympic gold. 

The Indians were hosted by Swami Yogananda Parmahansa and Swami Parmananda at their ashrams in Southern California and they also had an opportunity to meet Hollywood stars Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Harold Lloyd in the Olympic Village. On 11 August 1932, the day of the finals, the Indians were cheered by the small Indian community, some of whom were revolutionaries of the Ghadr movement seeking India’s freedom from Britain. In that fatal match, Dhyan Chand’s enchanting triangular passing technique of keeping the ball in motion between the two forwards and the centre forward overpowered the host nation. Dhyan Chand scored eight goals as India retained the gold medal and created a world record by beating the USA 24-1. A local journalist termed India’s hockey team as “a typhoon out of the east”.

Earlier on 29 April 1931, at the 29th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Berlin was chosen to host the 11th Olympic Games. However, the rise of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (Nazi Party) to power in Germany in 1933 sent shockwaves around the world. The reports of the Nazi Party’s racial prejudice, antisemitism, strict racial laws, the oppression of the Gypsies, and the undeclared world war on Jews, began to appear in the media. From 1933 onwards Jews escaping from one of the most evil regimes the world has ever seen, found refuge in India, the nation that had never persecuted the Jews. Jewish Relief Association was formed in Mumbai to assist many engineers, doctors, teachers, scientists, and artists to resettle in India, The Indian political leadership fought hard with the British authorities to obtain visas for Jewish refugees on humanitarian grounds. Even the Indians living in Germany were not spared by the fascist dictatorship. 

In January 1936 disheartened by the racial attitude towards Indians and the extremely pro-British policy of the Nazis, Indian leader Subhas Chandra Bose ended his three failed missions to the German Foreign Office for Indo-German cooperation. In Mumbai, Nazi Germany’s Consul Karl Kapp, with a bullet wound scar on his head from WW1, witnessed a student protest outside the consulate. The protestors denounced Adolf Hitler’s recent racist slur that “the English went to India to teach the Indians how to walk.” They demanded an embargo on all German goods and for India to withdraw from the Berlin Games. There was talk of a mass boycott of the Berlin Olympics across the world. At this stage, the IOC forced the Nazis to tone down their extremist ideology and they unexpectedly complied. Hiding their antisemitism, racism, and expansionist ambitions momentarily the Nazis wanted to exploit the Olympics to score a global propaganda victory.

The idea of a boycott melted away and after a glorious sendoff from Ballard Pier in Mumbai, the Indian Olympic contingent arrived in Berlin Hauptbahnhof on 13 July 1936 enduring a long intercontinental journey by sea and land. In the German capital the Nazis had drawn a curtain over their racial persecution and the city streets were all keyed up with Olympic flags beside the swastikas. On the opening day of the Olympic Games, almost 100,000 people were in the stadium and there was a live TV broadcast for the first time. Each nation marched in a procession around the Olympic arena in alphabetical order. Since India was a member of the British Empire, Dhyan Chand, leading the small Indian delegation could not carry the Tricolor. The Indians dressed in distinctive flowing light blue turbans, were among the few nations that did not stretch their arms forward to perform the Nazi salute as a mark of respect for Hitler and instead favoured the smart eyes-right salute. Nevertheless, they were warmly greeted by the huge crowd.

Over the next sixteen days, forty-nine nations competed in nineteen sports. Germany dominated the field of sports and emerged as the finalist among the eleven countries that participated in the hockey tournament. The Indian hockey team also won all its matches and reached the hockey finals that were rescheduled for 15 August due to rain. On that day the Indian players were uneasy having been surprisingly defeated by the Germans in a practice match on 17 July. The deputy manager Pankaj Gupta summoned the entire team to the dressing room and reverently unfolded the Indian Tricolor before them. The Indian hockey players, Dhyan Chand and his younger brother Roop Singh, along with Ahmed Sher Khan, Ali Dara, Baboo Nimal, Ahsan Khan, Carlyle Tapsell, Cyril Michie, Earnest John Cullen, Gurcharan Singh Garewal, Joseph Galibardy, Joseph Phillips, Lionel Emmett, Mirza Masood, Mohammed Hussain, Peter Fernandes, Richard Allen, Sayed Jaffar, and Shabban Shahabuddin, represented a multicultural and diverse India with multiple languages, traditions, and faiths. The entire team saluted the flag, prayed, and then steamed out with their hockey sticks to give their best for their motherland. The national honour now rested on the shoulders of these men.

Indian royalty including Maharaja Sawai Man Singh of Jaipur, Maharaja Sayajiroa Gaekwad of Baroda, and Princess Abida Sultan of Bhopal along with a handful of Indians, many of them students in Europe, occupied the stands in the stadium to cheer the Indian players. At the sound of the whistle, the Indian centre forward Dhyan Chand sprang ahead, the ball bonded with his hockey stick and the two forwards Roop Singh and Dara, were primed to receive a short pass. The German side had carefully studied the Indian hockey skills and made tremendous strides in improving their defence. 

The efforts of the Indians to access the goal area were effectively blocked. All seven bids to score failed. The first thirty minutes of the game went by without a goal by either side. Dhyan Chand and his men had finally met a worthy contender for the gold. Then in the thirty-second minute, taking advantage of a gap, Jaffer passed the ball to Roop Singh who after dribbling two challengers hit it from a difficult angle towards the left side of the goalkeeper scoring the first goal.

At half time India led by just one goal. As the second half commenced, in the seventh minute Tapsell successfully converted a penalty corner into a goal. India led by two goals. Dhyan Chand realized that the two–zero lead was not enough to retain the title. The situation demanded out-of-the-box thinking and he had to rise to the occasion. The Indian captain discarded his studded shoes and stockings and wore rubber-soled shoes to commence an all-out attack. The spectators witnessed hockey at its finest, with Dhyan Chand’s flick of the wrist, dribbling, sharp turns, and short passes. It was sheer poetry in motion. Inspired by the captain’s mesmerizing display on the wet field, the Indian team elevated its game by several notches. 

Then Dhyan Chand’s magic took centerstage. The greatest hockey player in the world proved he had no equal. Under the gaze of thousands, he took it upon himself to break through the German defences and gracefully scored the third goal. Moments later in close coordination with Dara, Dhyan Chand swept over the Germans again to score yet another goal. Suddenly twelve minutes after the interval India led by four-zero. The Germans stunned by the Indian onslaught decided to retaliate. They increased the pace of the game by hard-hitting, undercutting, and lifting the ball. In the sixteenth minute of the second half, a German forward attempted a weak shot from the edge of the striking area. The ball rebounded from the two-time Olympic gold medal-winning goalkeeper Richard Allen’s pads and gave the versatile German decathlete Kurt ‘Kutti’ Weiss a microsecond to score a goal. The German spectators erupted. This was the first-ever goal scored against India at the Berlin Olympics.

The Indian team instantly got back into their rhythm. Within the next minute, Jaffar in a terrific spurt from the centre line rushed to score India’s fifth goal. Then Dhyan Chand gave a reverse pass to Dara who pushed the ball into the goal extending India’s advantage to six-one. Despite the aggressive rough tackles of the opponents, Shahabuddin managed to land a decent pass to Dara, and with a bullet-like accuracy, he scored the seventh goal. 

By now Dhyan Chand in an ill-fated collision with the German goalkeeper Tito Warnholtz had lost one of his teeth. Not to be thwarted by the injury he returned to the field after getting medical attention. With a cross pass from Shahabuddin near the striking area, Dhyan Chand’s wonderful control of the ball sealed the fate of the Olympics finals as he scored for the third time. The closing whistle shrilled, and the phenomenal Indian team won by eight goals to one. They also earned their third consecutive gold medal at the Olympics. The victory of Dhyan Chand’s team in Berlin electrified the Indian masses as they struggled for freedom from the oppressive British rule.

Berlin was to be Dhyan Chand’s last Olympics. In September 1939, the Third Reich unleashed the fury of the Wehrmacht on the world and the battlefields substituted the sports fields worldwide. Consequently, the self-effacing and immensely talented Indian captain lost the opportunity to win two more golds for India since the Olympic Games were cancelled in 1940 and 1944. During WW2, Dhyan Chand serving in China in 1942 was ordered to return to Ferozepur. Providence saved him from being captured by the Japanese who conquered the area six months later. In 1943, he was honoured with the King’s Commission and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. In 1956 he retired from the army as Major Dhyan Chand. He was conferred the Padma Bhushan - the third-highest civilian award in India though he deserved the Bharat Ratna and was later named the chief coach of the Indian team. The man who epitomized the golden age of Indian hockey passed away on December 3 1979.

In the foreword of Dhyan Chand’s autobiography, Major-General Ajit Rudra wrote, “Dhyan Chand has put India on the world map in sport. We want another like him; many more like him.” As the Indian Olympic contingent departs for Paris 2024 the legend of the wizard of hockey remains an inspiration for all Indians.

Bhuvan Lall

Guest Author The author is the Chairman of Lall Entertainment