India's hockey legend KD Singh ‘Babu’: Forgotten in his own city and state

Qaiser Mohammad Ali, www.JantaKaReporter.com

Managing Editor

@AlwaysCricket

The name KD Singh ‘Babu’ might not ring a bell with many people of today’s cricket-crazy generation. He was one of the best-known hockey legends; people who had seen his magical stick work rate him either at par with hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, some a notch higher.

That Kunwar Digvijay Singh ‘Babu’, who excelled while playing at the inside-right position, won two Olympic gold medals as captain (1952) and vice-captain (1948) of the Indian teams is a historic fact. But not many people would probably know is that he was also pretty good at several other sports. He was a more-than-competent cricketer – he hammered three centuries, including a double hundred, in the Sheesh Mahal Tournament in Lucknow — a master shooter/hunter, and a competent golfer and tennis player.

The ancestral home of hockey legend KD Singh ‘Babu’ as it looks today in Barabanki city, 27 kms from Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state. Photo: Qaiser Mohammad Ali

For his priceless contribution to hockey, ‘Babu’ was awarded the Helms Trophy in 1952 by the American Helms Foundation – the first Asian to receive the honour — while the Indian government conferred Padma Shri on him in 1958.

Despite his great achievements, KD Singh ‘Babu’ today is virtually completely forgotten in the city he was born in 1923, Barabanki, and in Lucknow, just 27 kilometres away, where he studied and played most of his hockey. Apart from the two stadiums being named after him, in Lucknow and Barabanki, nothing else is done to introduce the present generation of hockey players to the legend, whose name could be used to motivate them to gain greater glory.

The only occasion in a year when KD Singh’s name is remembered is when the under-14 hockey tournament is organised by the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Hockey Society in Lucknow. Incidentally, the 26^th edition of the tournament is presently on, with the final scheduled for February 6 – four days after the legend’s 93^rd birth anniversary on February 2.

The ignored plaque at the ‘Kunwar Digvijay Singh ‘Babu’ Marg’ (road) in Barabanki city, near Lucknow. Photo: Qaiser Mohammad Ali

“We, the ‘Babu’ Hockey Society, organise this tournament. We manage to get some sponsors to patronise this tournament, which is played at the KD Singh ‘Bbau’ Stadium. Last year we celebrated the silver jubilee of the tournament and gave Rs 10 lakh as prize money to five teams, thanks to our sponsors,” Syed Ali, a hockey Olympian and technical secretary of the Society, told jantakareporter.com.

“This year the prize money for the winners is Rs 1 lakh, the losing finalists will receive Rs 50,000 and the third placed team will get Rs 25,000 ,” said Syed Ali, who had special affinity for ‘Babu’ as he was coached and groomed by him.

“I was fortunate enough to have learnt the game from him for five years, from 1972 to 1975,” said the man who was part of the Indian team that won two silver medals at the Asian Games.

Kunwar Dhirendra Singh ‘Commander’, son of KD Singh ‘Babu’, too rues the failure of successive Uttar Pradesh governments to recognise the immense contribution his legendary father made to Uttar Pradesh’s and India’s fortunes as a player, coach and later as an administrator.

“He did not get his due,” Dhirendra Singh told jantakreporter.com, sitting in front of a couple giant photos of his father, a poster-size painting and the Helms Trophy, in the drawing room of his Lucknow residence.

Dhirendra Singh clarified that by “lack of recognition” he did not mean that the government should give the family of ‘Babu’ money, but that the honour could come in many different ways. “There has virtually been no recognition from the government, except the naming of the two stadiums after him,” he said ruefully.

“As a tribute to the legend, the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Society organises a tournament every year in his name,” Dhirendra Singh points out. “Besides that, the ‘Babu’ Society runs an academy for boys between age of five and 18 years in Lucknow. Presently, there are about 70 boys at the academy.”

Apart from these stadiums named after KD Singh ‘Babu’, a road in Barabanki is also named after legend. But the district administration’s apathy towards the versatile hockey player is starkly visible from the stone plaques on both ends of the road. They are completely invisible behind paper bills and outgrown bushes while a bill board on top of the plaques, on the edge of Lucknow-Faizabad highway, attract all the attention (see photo).

This, despite the ancestral home of ‘Babu’ (see photo), as well as a cabinet minister of Akhilesh Yadav’s government and a senior Rajya Sabha member of the Congress party having their residences on the same road.

KD Singh ‘Babu’ was a man of principles and he never compromised with that, said Dhirendra Singh, who himself was a good cricketer. He said that but for a word of recommendation from his influential father he might have progressed further in the game.

“When I asked my father if he could put in a word, he told me firmly not to expect him to seek favours for my selection,” he said, recalling those words that he still clearly remembers.

KD Singh, who attended a Government School in Barabanki and Kanyakubj Inter College in Lucknow, was a truly multi-faceted personality who also served as coach of the Indian hockey team that competed at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Dhirendra Singh has many tales to tell about his famous father – the player, the sports administrator, and the man. He, however, candidly admits that by the time he grew up and started understand the game his father, one of the six brothers, had retired.

What Dhirendra Singh does remember is watching his father work as a sports administrator. As a cricketer, KD Singh scored three “classical” centuries in the Sheesh Mahal Tournament, now discontinued, he said. “He would play cricket with a hockey stick in the nets,” informed Dhirendra Singh.

In hockey circles in Lucknow, a story goes that ‘Babu’ would dribble the hockey ball from Barabanki to Lucknow, all of 27 kilometres. But Dhirendra Singh says it was not true, though he was an early riser and would train every morning with utmost sincerity.

“My father had a strict regimen. He would have dinner at exactly at 9 pm and go to sleep at 9.30 pm. He would wake up at 4 am for training. He would do dribbling, running and brisk walking for about eight kilometres every morning,” said Dhirendra Singh.

KD Singh ‘Babu’, who served as Director Sports in Uttar Pradesh, was instrumental in setting up the present-day Lucknow Sports College and Sports Hostels, said his son.

“He was offered the post of Director of National Institute of Sports in Patiala when it was opened. He was also offered several coaching jobs outside Uttar Pradesh. Hong Kong government wanted him to settle down in the city-state,” said Dhirendra Singh. “But he was disillusioned with the prevailing system [in India].”

Dhirendra Singh also said that his father was kind hearted person. “After India’s war with China, ‘Babu’ offered to donate one of his Olympic medals to help the soldiers. But the then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister CB Gupta declined it, saying that the medal was a national honour,” he informed.

EXCLUSIVE: Did a top DDCA official sabotage India-Sri Lanka T20 tie in Delhi?

Qaiser Mohammad Ali, www.JantaKaReporter.com

@AlwaysCricket

It has now emerged that a top DDCA administrator “never wanted the India-Sri Lanka T20 International to be played at the Kotla” and that was why the “news” of DDCA having been allotted the match was “deliberately” kept away from retired justice Mukul Mudgal, who was to oversee this match.

According to multiple sources, this DDCA administer, who has widely shown his “displeasure” at the appointment of justice Mudgal to conduct matches due to the association’s inability to perform this task competently, didn’t let the “news” of the Sri Lanka match, scheduled for February 12, 2016, reach the former chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

DDCA insiders say that the attempt to “self-destruct” by this DDCA official is bewildering and his act has cost the association a handsome income, which will now be earned by Jharkhand Cricket Association, where the T20 Match has been shifted to by the BCCI.

DDCA officials cannot say that they were unaware that the Sri Lanka match was to be played in Delhi in February due to some hard facts.

Consider these facts: Eight months ago, the BCCI’s Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee, at a meeting held in Kolkata on May 24, had allotted the India-Sri Lanka T20 International to Delhi (besides Visakhapatnam and Pune). The BCCI duly announced this through a press release the same day.

The BCCI press release had specifically said: “Sri Lanka will play 3 T20 Internationals in February 2016.” The exact dates were announced later.

Another fact is that DDCA club secretary Sunil Jain, then a member of the Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee, had attended that meeting and had duly informed his DDCA colleagues about the outcome of that meeting, besides the BCCI separately intimating the association about it being allotted the match.

It was expected of the DDCA to have started preparations for this match well in time, instead of leaving it till the eleventh hour to seek permissions.

Then, on 14 November, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur, in an email addressed to Chetan Chauhan and SP Bansal (accessed by JantaKaReporter.com), the supposed ‘working president’ and ‘suspended president’ respectively, reminded them that since the DDCA had been allotted the India-Sri Lanka T20 match and ICC World Twenty20 games, the association should get all permissions in “accordance of the laws of the land and the guidelines of the ICC”.

However, sources say that neither Thakur’s email nor the news of allotment of the India-Sri Lanka T20 International was shared with some key people, including Mudgal, who on directions of the Delhi High Court had supervised the fourth India-South Africa Test in Delhi last month.

Former DDCA director Suresh Chopra, who was responsible for securing all permissions for the upcoming ICC World Twenty20 matches at the Kotla and also the India-Sri Lanka T20 game, said that Chauhan told Mudgal for the first time about Sri Lanka match only on 24 January, which was too late to get all required permissions from government agencies.

It is quite possible that Mudgal had not heard about the Sri Lanka match being allotted to the DDCA before 24 January when he called a meeting of a DDCA core committee at his residence.

Chopra said that he immediately set about applying for permissions with the various government agencies, except MCD, the very next day.

“During a meeting with Mr Mudgal on 24 January, Chauhan told him that the DDCA had been allotted an India-Sri Lanka T20 International too. Before that meeting, I had already applied with government agencies, barring the MCD, for the requisite permission for staging ICC World Twenty20 matches,” Chopra told jantakareporter.com.

“After Chauhan told Mudgal about the Sri Lanka match, I immediately issued a corrigendum to all the government departments the next day [25 January], signed by Chauhan, saying that in addition to the ICC World Twenty20 matches, the DDCA would also need permission to stage an India-Sri Lanka T20 match on 12 February. And we even got permissions from some departments,” Chopra explained. “I was not responsible for applying permission from the MCD as that responsibility was of Chauhan, treasurer Ravinder Manchanda and Siddharth Singh Verma (DDCA director).”

It is pertinent to note that Mudgal had praised the work done by Suresh Chopra in his report on the India-South Africa Test, played in Delhi last month, submitted with the Delhi High Court. “Mr. Suresh Chopra, venue manager for the Test match, who was entrusted with the task of seeking permissions from various departments at the last minute, did his job day and night diligently. It was only with his concerted help and persistent efforts that permissions could be obtained from the various departments at such short notice,” Mudgal had written, besides praising some other DDCA officials.

However, the moot question being asked by some DDCA directors is: Why did the DDCA official deliberately supress the news of Delhi being allotted the India-Sri Lanka T20 game, and whether he is bigger than the association?

“One particular DDCA official went around saying that he was not happy at the appointment of Mudgal to supervise international matches at the Kotla as he had ‘hampered’ his freedom to work as per his whim and fancy. This official was not allowed to have is say by Mudgal, who instead stuck to transparency ways of working in everything he supervised — and that seemed to have annoyed this official as he is known for his non-transparent ways of working,” said a source.

Interestingly, a few colleagues of this DDCA official wanted the appointment of Mudgal to supervise international matches at the Kotla and for that they moved an application in the Delhi High Court.

Now that the BCCI has shifted the Sri Lanka match to Ranchi, it remains to be seen if this DDCA official would be held responsible for the huge embarrassment cause to the association, besides monetary loss, and punished. Going by the DDCA’s history, it is highly unlikely.

There could be more embarrassment coming DDCA’s way. The BCCI has given the DDCA a deadline of 31 January to secure all permissions for the ICC World Twenty20, otherwise those 10 matches would also be relocated to other venues. If that happens it would mean no World Cup matches in national capital – in other words, more capital embarrassment for the mismanaged DDCA. And the story goes on.