Indian hockey team and Indic heritage both have many things in similarity; from having a glorious, triumphant, and unrivalled history both came to a point of being obliterated and buried.

The tales are many as with Indic heritage but remembered by none. In the 1936 Olympics hosted by Nazi Germany in Berlin, the Indian team led by barefooted Major Dhyan Chand defeated host nation Germany 8-1 for a hattrick of gold in the Olympics. Adolf Hitler who was in the audience was impressed so much that he invited Major Dhyan Chand for a meeting where he offered him a very high position in the German Army.

Being a patriot, he politely declined the offer, imagine saying no to Hitler!

But as is the case with Indic historical figures, Major Dhyan Chand too was forgotten to be added in our history books. The demand for a Bharat Ratna is still pending, caught in political red tape.

Indian hockey team went from having 12 Olympic medals to not getting qualified for the 2008 Olympics, with the last medal a gold coming in the 1980 Olympics. The two main reasons for the decline were increased popularity of cricket after the 1984 world cup win and the introduction of the astro turf which was not only expensive but also did not suit the Indian style of play.  In 2011, the condition was so bad that the team did could not afford the right shoes.

2021 Olympics was a game changer, as the saying goes success has many fathers but failure is an orphan everyone jumped in to take credit; the credit was given to Chake De India by some influencers, BJP and Congress IT cell started their own fight to give credit to their respective leaders and the worst of all CMs started claiming credits for having players from their respective states in the team. A unifying moment was reduced to regionalism.

The credit obviously must be first given to the players and the support staff, but one man behind the scenes has supported the team immensely without taking an inch of credit. This underdog is none other than the humble CM Naveen Patnaik.

In 2018, Sahara India cancelled its sponsorship to the hockey team, with the team being left in doldrums with no sponsors and finance. Odisha government stepped in and gave a sponsorship of 150 crores for 5 years not minding the sceptics.  Describing the 5-year sponsorship deal as Odisha’s gift to the nation, Patnaik then described the game as a way of life in his state’s tribal region “where children learn to walk with hockey sticks”.

In collaboration with the Tata group, in 2018 the state government set up the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High-Performance Centre (HPC) at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. It was opened with a vision to groom the upcoming sporting talent in hockey and produce world-class sportspersons. It also has 12 grassroots centres, at which over 2,500 young trainees are being trained.

Odisha not only supported hockey with finances and grassroot level programmes, but it also did host marquee events. The hockey capital of India shifted from Delhi to Odisha as a resul, these events often carried glamour and pomp with the presence of Bollywood celebrities invited by the government to attract people.

In 2017, his government also sponsored Kalinga Lancers club that won the Hockey India League in January and followed up by hosting Hockey World League in December 2018 when Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Stadium hosted World Cup Men’s Hockey tournament. The following year, Odisha hosted FIH Men’s Series Finals and Olympic Hockey Qualifiers 2019 and even the FIH Pro League in 2020. India is set to host the 2023 edition of the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup, after successfully organising it in 2018.

In Rourkela of Sundargarh district, Patnaik government is building the country’s biggest hockey stadium with a seating capacity for 20,000 spectators that will be named after tribal leader Birsa Munda. To further strengthen the hockey ecosystem in Sundargarh, Odisha is also planning to lay a synthetic hockey turf in each of the 17 blocks of the district.

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Upcoming Birsa Munda stadium, Rourkela. ( Source: Olympics website )

Even Patnaik’s critics agree that his decision to support hockey made a world of a difference. “He has given hockey a new lease of life through sponsorship and raised the profile of the state in the process. I only wish the money could be spent more on grassroots,” said Prasad Harichandan, former Odisha Congress president.

The credit must be given where it is due, CM Naveen Patnaik must be acknowledged as he revived Indian hockey in the same way PM Modi revived Indic heritage.