Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award will now be known as Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, PM Narendra Modi announced on Friday. Modi said he has been receiving several requests from citizens across India to name the Khel Ratna award after Major Dhyan Chand. “Honoring his spirit, the Khel Ratna Award will be called the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award! Major Dhyan Chand was one of the foremost sportspersons of India who brought honor and glory to India. It is true that the highest sporting honor of our country will be named after him.”
But who is Dhyan Chand? Know all about the great hockey.
• Major Dhyan Chand was born on 29 August 1905 in Allahabad. His family played hockey for the British Indian Army.
• He graduated from Victoria College, Gwalior in the year 1932.
• Dhyanchand was very fond of wrestling during his childhood days. He had no particular interest in sports.
• Dhyan Singh got the name ‘Chand’ because his teammates saw him usually practicing at night after duty.
• With his exceptional goal scoring feats, the player earned his name and fame in the field of Indian hockey.
• He earned three Olympic gold medals in 1928, 1932 and 1936. For his contribution towards Indian hockey, Dhyan Chand was also known as the magician or magician of hockey.
• He has been honored with many honours, including the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honor in 1956. Apart from this, the Government of India also celebrates his birthday on 29 August as National Sports Day.
• This player was the leading goalscorer in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. He scored 14 goals while earning the rightful name as the ‘magician of hockey’.
• For Dhyan Chand, his favorite hockey match was Smriti from the 1933 Beaton Cup final between Calcutta Customs and Jhansi Heroes.
• Several reports mention that Dhyan Chand was offered German citizenship by the then German dictator Adolf Hitler. However, he turned down the offer.
• In his playing career spanning 22 years, Dhyan Chand has scored more than 400 goals between 1926 and 1948.
DHYAN CHAND’S BERLIN SAGA: CAPTAINCY TEST IN NAZI GERMANY, ADOLF HITLER MYTH
When Adolf Hitler commissioned Nazi Germany’s favorite film director Lenny Reifenstahl to document the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels could not have imagined there would be a nation other than the United States, which Will refuse to salute the Führer. The British India contingent consisted of a group of inexperienced athletes, with only a two-time champion hockey team, led by its resident magician Major Dhyan Chand. Global media attention was focused on the United States refusing the traditional right-hand salute to Hitler during the opening ceremony, but who would have thought that a contingent of amateur athletes dressed in golden ‘Kullahs’ and light blue turbans did the unthinkable. Will do
The team refused to salute with its flag bearer Dhyan Chand and it was a more emotional than political decision, taken by the team, when the entire Third Reichsang sang the two national hymns ‘Deutscheland’ and ‘Horst Wessel Laid’. In the book ‘Olympic History: The India Story’ co-authored by Boria Mazumdar and Nalin Mehta, he quotes gold-winning team member Mirza Naseeruddin Masood as describing the opening ceremony. “It left a strange impression on the Indian contingent and not a single eye remained dry. India stood before our imagination… somehow touched the fountain of our national sentiments, and the unity and solidarity of the people in the ‘stadium’ made us look at our poverty, plight and discord with shame and regret.” Masood Ek He was an accomplished man beyond the field of hockey, as he served the Government of India in various capacities, including as personal secretary to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first education minister of independent India.
He was also the UNNESCO Head of Mission in Australia, Consul General responsible for Muscat, Oman, and finally Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. However, despite being socially elite compared to Dhyan Chand, one of Masood’s biggest regrets was his deprivation of the captaincy of India in 1936. And very few people knew that Masood was actually one of the five national selectors tasked with choosing the captain.
In fact, Masood had expressed his displeasure in a book ‘The World’s Hockey Champions’ – 1936, written and published in 1937. For Dhyan Chand, what the score-line of India’s matches at that Olympics will not reveal is the tremendous pressure he faced as media reports suggested the defending champions were no longer invincible.
Also the fact that the 1932 Olympics, without the participation of the major European countries due to the Great Depression, became a sham and those who know hockey would tell that India suffered a lot of fighting while retaining the yellow colour. had not faced. Metal in Los Angeles. This impression gained strength when India lost to a select Delhi XI 1-4 at the Mori Gate ground in the national capital. It was the same Delhi XI that the Indian team defeated 0-12 on their return from LA four years ago. Dhyan Chand, in his autobiography ‘Gol’, which first appeared in weekly installments of the prestigious ‘Sport and Passtime’ magazine published by ‘The Hindu’ group in 1952, wrote about that loss before the Berlin Games.
“…This particular defeat kept worrying me. This was the first time I was captaining an Olympic team; will India lose the title to my charge?” Dhyan Chand’s skepticism was evident in his autobiography. The Hockey Federation had only Rs 6600, according to the book, Rs 40,000 was needed to send the team to the Indian Hockey Federation and for this the Nizam was required. Gaikwad of Hyderabad and of Baroda to grant him bail.
The Nizam donated 5000 rupees, the rulers of Baroda gave 200 GBP (then 3600 rupees) and, with contributions from other princely states, ensured that the team boarded the ship. A further 1700 rupees were spent on the flight of Ishtiaq Dara to SOS, who played a big role with Dhyan Chand at the business end of the tournament. Interestingly, during the next Olympics in 1948, Dara moved to post-Partition Pakistan and represented the new nation.
Training in the Gulf of Aden ‘The Statesman’ sent a correspondent to cover the games and old reports suggest that the first five days of their journey were difficult and that the players, usually on deck, were used to training. , they had to postpone their plans. When the ship finally halted for four hours in the ‘Gulf of Aden’, the Indian crew found a brick-layered sandy ground for a quick training session.
Suddenly they learned that the 5/14 Sikh Regiment stationed in Aden used that field. Once the word spread that Dhyan Chand was there, the entire regiment set out to take “one of his” and watch the training session. Autographs of Josef Goebbels and Hermann Göring Two of Hitler’s trusted men – the chief campaigner Goebbels and the Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring – were there to ensure that no stone was left unturned in their quest to change the image of the Führer, as well as a spotless To conduct the event for which 30 million USD was being spent.
Call it a classical case of paradox or irony, but those who did not wish to salute Hitler, flocked to get autographs from two real war criminals. “One day when we were in the dining hall, who should walk, but almost Hermann Göring, dressed in his military attire! We followed him at Triss to get his autograph. Later some of us took Dr. Goebbels’ autograph took it,” Dhyan Chand had said.
Hitler’s eight goals case against Germany Did Dhyanchand face media scrutiny? Of course he did. After India won the opening match 4-0 against Hungary,’ the statesman wrote in his next day’s report, “The most disappointing was the revelation that Dhyan Chand, the world’s greatest centre-forward, has had his best days. ..” How dominant India was in that era can be understood from the fact that even after defeating USA 7-0 and Japan 9-0, the media said that “if Germany wins, it is for India”. There will be a lesson he deserves.” Worst of all, these comments were fed by team manager Pankaj Gupta. However, the tone and tenor changed after beating France 10-0 and Germany’s 8-1 crushing in the final, Berlin’s ‘Morning Post’ applauded India’s effort. Legend has it that Dhyan Chand wanted better speed and maneuverability, and therefore, wearing rubber-soled sneakers, sacrificing traditional spike boots on the grassland. This helped him dribble at a faster pace. He scored a dozen runs and the Morning Post’s match report had some unforgettable lines. “These players are said to glide on the turf as if it were a skating rink and the Japanese in twinkling sticks, normally so agile, were mesmerized.” Dhyan Chand was at the top of the world, his team scoring 38 goals to win the gold medal, securing his place in history. He was ‘Captain Marvel’ and accepted in every sphere of society that once discriminated against him.
The statue of Dhyanchand was installed in the Austrian capital Vienna before the National Stadium in Delhi. Post Script: Dhyan Chand never met Adolf Hitler personally and according to scholars and researchers the story of Hitler offering him a post in the German Army is an urban myth.
(with PTI inputs)
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