AN INDIAN SCOOP TRICK

A Berlin exhibition on Dhyan Chand to celebrate 80 years of 1936 Olympic gold

By QAISER MOHAMMAD ALI, Outlook magazine

Eleven years before India first celebrated August 15 as Independence Day, it held significance for the hockey fraternity. On August 15, 1936, the Indian hockey team completed a golden hat-trick at the Olympic Games, having won gold at the 1928 and 1932 Olympics.

The brilliant Indians, captained by the legendary Dhyan Chand, duly clinched their third successive title in Berlin, with the crack centre-forward scoring three goals in his team’s 8-1 routing of Germany. It was Dhyan Chand’s third Olympic gold too.

The final was scheduled to be played on August 14, but was postponed by a day due to rain. In the audience was German chancellor Adolf Hitler, who had striven to use the Berlin games to showcase natio­nal socialism in all its imm­aculately choreographed ‘Aryan’ glory.

Now, the Indian Embassy in Germany is honouring Dhyan Chand, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the magical win with a exhibition in Berlin on August 15. Fans and family of the hockey wizard, not unjus­tly, feel the Bharat Ratna should be conferred on him.

“I would like to have an exhibition honouring your eminent father, the great Major Dhyan Chand (who was in the 2/14 Punjab Regiment after the First Brahmin Regiment, which he had joined as a sepoy in 1922, was disbanded). While his life and artistry does not need any reason to celebrate, this year will mark the 80th anniversary of his leading the Indian team to an Olympic gold medal in 1936,” said Gurjit Singh, India’s ambassador to Germany, in a letter to Ashok Kumar, also a former India hockey captain. 

Gurjit Singh, himself a cricket fan and a qualified cric­ket umpire, contacted Ashok for a loan of Dhyan Chand’s memorabilia—rare papers, photographs, mementos—that he and his extended family possess.

Ashok Kumar is delighted about Gurjit’s organis­ing the exhibition. But, having gone through a bitter experience before, he was apprehensive of losing the mementos. In the past, people have ‘bor­­rowed’, and never returned, items belonging to Dhyan Chand. The 1928 Olympic gold medal is among the casualties. “I’m grateful to Gurjit Singh has shown such keenness; he traced my phone number and called me. Since he is from Punjab and a sportsman, he has a lot of love for Dhyan Chandji,” says Ashok.

A wide variety of Dhyan Chand’s photos and honours are being sent to Germany. They include the 1932 and 1936 Olympic gold medals; a medal he received for ‘Fine Play’ at the 1936 games; the Padma Bhushan he received in 1956; the photograph of a 30-foot statue his fans have built atop a hill in his hometown Jhansi; photos of his meetings with B.R. Ambdekar, C. Rajagopalachari and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur; and the first day cover that the postal dep­artment had brought out on December 3, 1980, besides on-field action photos. Ashok says the Indian army too had rec­ently contacted him. “They requested me to send copies of the Dhyan Chand memorabilia to them as well, so that they could preserve it,” he says.

The 1936 Olympics also has non-sport significance for India-Germany relations. As Ashok Kumar points out: “Hockey helped consolidate the relations between the two countries. Besides,

Adolf Hitler had famously offered Dhyan Chand a commission in the Wehrmacht after watching him play at the final.” Legend  has it that Dhyan Chand politely declined Hitler’s offer—made after the hockey magician had scored 11 scintillating goals (as did his brother and teammate, Roop Singh) in the Berlin Games. But he was a true patriot and it was one of the few times the Fuehrer had got a no for an answer. 

(This story was published in OUTLOOK magazine, Issue dated June 6, 2016)