Wrong end of the stick

UMPIRE'S POST

It's time to release Indian hockey and maybe IHF as well from life imprisonment.

Surely, someone can do something about Indian hockey. A reasonable beginning can be made with two steps that may never be taken "" unless force majeure strikes. The first is to ease out K P Singh Gill from the top post at Indian Hockey Federation (IHF).

Last week, unimaginative phrases such as "national game to national shame" were back in fashion as India failed to qualify for the Olympics. This will be the first time in 80 years that the country with the largest number of hockey golds will be missing from the event.

Coach Joaquim Carvalho promptly resigned, as he had promised. Appointed in April 2007, he becomes the fourth coach to exit since the Athens Olympics in 2004 and at least the 16th (many have had more than one stint; V Baskaran has had four) since Gill took charge 14 years ago.

Gill, the former supercop, has many achievements to his credit. He was instrumental in quelling terrorism in Punjab. So much so that the excesses of his force were treated mildly by the rest of the world "" the world of those who did not suffer.

When he misbehaved with a woman IAS officer, it was not made out to be the national scandal that it was, even though he was convicted by a court.

When he took charge of IHF after retirement, he was supposed to regain the lost glory. He did not. Instead, he has presided over new nadirs punctuated with not many high points.

It is not this column's wish to analyse Gill's tenure. It is far too late for that. The point is that 14 years is quite enough even for a very successful tenure. In many cases, this is also how long life imprisonment lasts.

However, the indications are that Indian hockey's sentence will continue. On Friday, refusing to blame IHF for the national team's failure to qualify for the Olympics, Indian Olympic Association ruled out any drastic action.

IOA Secretary General Randhir Singh said the national Olympic body and IHF would meet this week to take stock of the debacle. You read it right, "take stock"!

The second step needed is to make the sports ministry more accountable for the hundreds of crores of rupees it gets every year in the Union budget. For long, games other than cricket have been made out to be poor cousins.

It is true that sponsorship money has not poured into hockey in spite of Chak De! India. Still, the sports ministry gets pots of money. Where does it go? And it has over 400 employees. What do they do? Or, is the money spent on their upkeep?