Sport in Society

ISSN: 1743-0437 (Print) 1743-0445 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fcss20

Divided loyalty: Jaipal Singh and his many journeys

Ronojoy Sen

To cite this article: Ronojoy Sen (2009) Divided loyalty: Jaipal Singh and his many journeys ,
Sport in Society, 12:6, 765-775, DOI: 10.1080/17430430902944233

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17430430902944233

Published online: 18 Aug 2009.

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 Sport in Society
Vol. 12, No. 6, August 2009, 765–775

Divided loyalty: Jaipal Singh and his many journeys1

Ronojoy Sen*

Senior Assistant Editor, The Times of India

This essay looks at a sporting great and Olympian, Jaipal Singh (1903 – 70), who also
had a lengthy political career after his playing days were over. Jaipal was India’s first
hockey captain in the Olympics. He led the team that won the hockey gold in the 1928
Amsterdam Olympics. This would mark the beginning of India’s dominance of
Olympic hockey for several decades. This essay is less about Jaipal’s Olympic exploits
than about his politics. Through Jaipal’s life and writings I attempt to analyse questions
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of identity, nationalism and democracy both in colonial and independent India.

Precious little has been written about Jaipal – who was once hailed as Marang Gomke
(supreme leader) of the tribals of what is now the state of Jharkhand – and he remains a
largely forgotten figure today.

As a student in England
Jaipal Singh’s early life is not very well documented. Much of the details of Jaipal’s
personal life are gleaned from his autobiography, which is a collection of different
episodes of his life.2 The manuscript was lying with an Oxford University professor for
several years before it was passed on to researchers in Jharkhand who then published it a
few years ago. Born in a small village, Takra Pahantoli, in what is now Jharkhand, Jaipal’s
real name was Pramod Pahan. Later his name was changed to Jaipal and even he isn’t sure
why this happened. The first of Jaipal’s many journeys was in 1911 when his father
admitted him to St Paul’s School in Ranchi. Canon Cosgrove, the principal of the school,
soon became Jaipal’s mentor. It was he who was responsible for baptising Jaipal as a
Christian. In 1918, Cosgrove was declared to be too old to continue as principal, and so left
for England, taking Jaipal along with him. This was the second and, perhaps, most
important journey of Jaipal.
After two terms at St Augustine’s College, Canterbury, Jaipal joined St John’s
College, Oxford, where he won a university Blue in hockey and graduated in economics
with honours in 1926. He recalled in his autobiography that he was the only ‘Asiatic’ in the
college.3 After seeing a notice at the concierge’s entrance, Jaipal volunteered to play
hockey for the Isis Hockey Club. In his first game he was noticed by an Oxford jockey
Blue, Bill Blake, who asked him to put his name down for the freshers’ trial. He was
selected and played the entire season as a replacement for the university captain who was
unwell. Soon he was being hailed as ‘the finest fullback of the century’.4 Jaipal says in his
autobiography that he could well have excelled in cricket: ‘Coming from the Jharkhand
jungle I could have got a cricket Blue. I could see the ball seconds before anybody else.
But the first two terms kept me to hockey and the summer term I could not deny myself to

*Email: ronojoy.sen@timesgroup.com

ISSN 1743-0437 print/ISSN 1743-0445 online

q 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17430430902944233
http://www.informaworld.com
 766 R. Sen

serious studies.’5 Cricket’s loss was hockey’s gain and Jaipal even mentions that the
cricket great Ranjitsinhji’s nephew, Duleepsinhji, never forgave him for taking up hockey.
There are scattered reports of Jaipal’s feats in the Isis, the student magazine of Oxford
University. The 1923 season was an exceptional one for the Oxford hockey team, which
remained unbeaten. The Isis reported, ‘It is impossible to elude the fact that the Oxonians
constitute one of the most effective hockey combinations in the United Kingdom . . . As
for the backs, Jaipal Singh is the greatest find the Varsity has ever had; they say he was an
Isis discovery. According to all reports there are few more polished and cleverer backs
playing in England today.’6 In the 1924 season, he suffered a temporary dip in form and
the Isis hockey correspondent reported, ‘He must realise by now that he is not fast enough
to outpace even an ordinary defence, and would play a much better game if he adopted a
more orthodox style of play.’7
During his Oxford days, Jaipal was active in organizing sporting activities for South
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Asians. In 1925, Jaipal put together a hockey team, called Jaipal Singh’s XI, comprising of
Indian students from Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh and Manchester. They
played a near-full strength Oxford team in November 1925 before embarking on a
European tour during the Christmas vacation. In 1926, Jaipal was part of the annual match
between Oxford Majlis Hockey Club and Cambridge University Crocodiles Club, which
was dubbed the Indian ‘Inter-Varsity’ hockey match. The same year, an athletic club
called the Hermits was formed at Oxford with ‘the object of developing and maintaining
the spirit of sportsmanship among Indian, Burmese and Ceylonese members of the
University of Oxford and thereby furthering their friendship and nationalities’.8 Another
reason for forming the club was the absence of a club like the Crocodiles at Cambridge,
which had players of the calibre of Duleepsinhji, who went on to play cricket for England.
Jaipal writes, ‘Oxford Indians were bookworms. I decided to bring them out to the play
fields by starting the Hermits which every Asian joined.’9 Only those who had won
university or school colours were eligible for membership, with Jaipal becoming the
secretary of the Hermits.
During the time Jaipal was at Oxford, there was a lively debate on why hockey was
awarded only a ‘Half-Blue’ whereas at Cambridge hockey players were given full ‘Blues’.
Before the annual Oxford-Cambridge match in 1924, the Isis wrote a stirring defence of
hockey.
In 1908 the Cantabs were definitely given full ‘Blues’. The Oxonians have repeatedly applied
for the same honour but up till now have had no luck. The ‘Blues’ Committee no doubt have
their reasons for remaining adamant, nevertheless it seems strange that a game like hockey,
which is decidedly faster than Association Football and certainly requires as much skill, and
as much training, should, in the opinion of the ‘Blues’ Committee be entitled to only a ‘Half-
Blue’. Moreover, as regards the true spirit of amateur sport there is no game on earth that is
purer than hockey, and if popularity counts one merely turns to the number of clubs which turn
out four, five or six XIs each week.10

The Isis concluded by hoping that the ‘Blues’ Committee would be ‘enlightened and give
hockey a generous recognition’. Their prayers were answered when in 1926, which was
also Jaipal’s last year in Oxford, the Blues Committee finally granted a full Blue to
hockey. The Isis exulted: ‘This news has been received with great satisfaction by all
sportsmen here and elsewhere. We have been persistent in our appeal for the due honour,
our efforts have at last been crowned with success.’11 Unfortunately for Jaipal, that year
Oxford went down to Cambridge 2– 3 in a hard-fought game.
Though there is no material about Jaipal’s political views during his Oxford days he is
likely to have been influenced by the sports ethic at Oxford. In an essay titled, ‘What is
 Sport in Society 767

Right with Oxford Sport?’ the Isis wrote: ‘Sport in Oxford is considered neither as a
religion nor as a profession. It takes its rightful place in the scheme of any well-ordered
life, but the unbalanced point of view of the specialist in sport is as unpopular as the
extravagances of the so-called aesthete.’12 It goes on to argue that Cambridge students take
sport far more seriously and it has ‘ceased to be either an amusement or pleasure for them
and has become one of the sterner duties of their lives’.
At Oxford, Jaipal made many friends, some of whom would have had an impact on his
future career. One of them was Verrier Elwin, who became a central figure in the study of
Adivasis and in shaping policies towards Adivasis in Nehruvian India. Among his mentors
was the Oxford don, J.C. Masterman, who was also responsible for hockey getting ‘Full
Blue’ status. Jaipal was a member of the Oxford Majlis, a debating society, though he
never took part in the debates. Several eminent people, including Lala Lajpat Rai, Anne
Besant and C.F. Andrews addressed the Majlis during Jaipal’s time at Oxford. Jaipal was
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also most impressed by the future President of India, S. Radhakrishnan, who was then a
Fellow of All Souls College.

At the Olympics
Jaipal’s fame as a hockey player resulted in him getting an offer just before the 1928
Amsterdam Olympics to captain the Indian squad for the Games. Jaipal was then staying at
Oxford as a probationer for the Indian Civil Service (ICS) when he was approached by
Colonel Turnbull and Major Ricketts of the Indian Army. Their offer brought forth the
rebellious streak in Jaipal. ‘I agreed, but told them I would have to get leave from the India
Office for absence during term time. I did not get leave! I decided to defy the ruling and
take the consequences.’13 The great Dhyan Chand, who was part of the Olympic team,
wrote of the team selection in his autobiography:
It was at last announced that only thirteen players would be chosen from India, and three or
four players who were then in England would be asked to join the Indian team there. One of
them was Jaipal Singh, who was then a big name in hockey. He was the mainstay of the
Oxford University team. As a full-back, Jaipal Singh had a reputation in England. The natural
and obvious choice of captaining the Indian team fell on him and he joined us in England.14
The other player from England who played in the Olympics was S.M. Yusuf from
Cambridge University.
Jaipal’s reaction to his teammates, particularly Dhyan Chand, was interesting. Jaipal, who
was only one of two players in the team who had studied in England, describes Chand as
‘humble’. He narrates how Chand had only one pair of trousers and was taken to a store in
Regent Street to buy clothes. But Chand was all admiration for Jaipal. ‘Jaipal Singh’s intimate
knowledge of English players and ground conditions was of great help to us’, he wrote. ‘We
found him to be an exceedingly popular man in England’s hockey world. A most affable man,
he was a great hit in social circles, too, as I found out in the few social gatherings I attended.
We considered ourselves most fortunate in having such a man as our skipper.’15
The Indian team would go on to win the Olympic gold medal convincingly, but Jaipal
did not play in the Olympic final, something which remains an enduring mystery. Chand
writes in his memoirs, ‘Jaipal Singh, I believe, used to fly from London to Amsterdam
most of the time, returning after the match was over. It is still a mystery to me why Jaipal
Singh, after ably captaining us in England, and in two of the three matches in the Olympic
Games, suddenly left us. I have heard many stories, but so far I have not had the truth.’16
He later hints that ‘communal and racial issues’ might have been involved in Jaipal’s
sudden absence. According to Chand, the only person who could clear the mystery was
 768 R. Sen

Jaipal himself. But Jaipal merely says in his autobiography that on his return to London
from the Olympics, Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, congratulated him personally. However,
when he went back to Oxford Jaipal was told that he had ‘broken’ term and would have to
stay one more year. He writes acerbically in his autobiography, ‘Captaining India to world
championship was no prize for the British. I resigned from the ICS and refused to pay back
350 Pounds. I was not put in goal.’17 Jaipal was already clashing with the authorities even
as a student, something that would be a feature of the rest of his life. In this, of course,
Jaipal was no exception. Many leaders of the Indian freedom movement, including
Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi, studied in England and picked up ideas that were
to shape their anti-colonial politics.

Back to India
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After leaving Oxford, Jaipal took up a job in London with the Royal Dutch-Shell Group as
a ‘covenanted mercantile assistant’. After three months of service, his appointment was
confirmed and he was posted to the Calcutta branch of the company. His return to India
as a ‘boxwallah’ would place Jaipal in an elite position in colonial society. But on his very
first day at work he would come face to face with the prejudices of a British company.
Jaipal writes of this experience:
I was sent for by the Branch Manager, ‘You came up by the Baboos’ lift. Remember you are a
covenanted assistant. There is a lift on the other side.’ I was dumbfounded. In London you
found top businessman in the same bus or class in the underground railway. I realized for the
first time that I was in the British empire, an employee of a British firm.18
There was a list, too, of clubs where Indians were not allowed. Jaipal says he was ‘not
interested in trying to be British’. He accepted the offer to play hockey for Mohun Bagan –
the club that had beaten a British football team in 1911 – and led the club to victory in the
Beighton Cup, India’s oldest hockey tournament. This, Jaipal admits, did not go down well
with his firm. While Jaipal was chafing against these racial hierarchies, he was at the same
time poised to move up in the Indian social order. He had begun courting Tara Majumdar,
granddaughter of the first president of the Indian National Congress, W.C. Bonnerjee. If he
had any doubts about Tara, they were quelled by Jaipal’s former teammate Shaukat Ali.
‘Jaipal, don’t lose her. She is an aristocrat’, he said.19 Jaipal heeded this advice and after a
brief courtship married Tara in Darjeeling. Soon after Jaipal would leave Burmah-Shell for
other journeys.
These journeys would take him to different corners of the empire, from Prince of
Wales College at Achimota, Ghana, to Rajkumar College (not the college where Ranji
studied but another college for young princes) in Raipur and then to the princely state of
Bikaner. In Bikaner, he would experience first hand the intrigues of the princely states.
K.M. Pannikar, foreign minister of the Patiala state and later the chancellor of the
Chamber of Princes, would come in the way of Jaipal. According to Jaipal, Pannikar
conspired against him from becoming foreign minister of Bikaner. Perhaps it was the
entrenched hierarchies in the princely states as represented by Pannikar who sought to
marginalize figures such as Jaipal, seen as outsiders to the system.
Jaipal quit Bikaner and made another of his many journeys, this time back to his home.
This would also mark the beginning of a new and momentous phase in his life. Jaipal
recounts that Maurice Hallet, governor of Bengal (1937 –39), invited him to Government
House and gave him advice that would eventually change the course of his life. ‘Don’t
waste your time with congressmen. Go to Ranchi. There is an Adivasi agitation just
started. You have wandered round the world in all sorts of good jobs. Do something for
 Sport in Society 769

your people in memory of the Canon.’20 The canon was, of course, Canon Cosgrove,
Jaipal’s mentor from Ranchi. On this trip, Jaipal visited all the sites associated with his
childhood, including his old school and his village. It was as if he was preparing himself
for his new political career. Before he embarked on that, though, his mother had some
advice about joining politics: ‘Do what you would like, but expect no thanks.’
On the request of several Adivasi leaders, such as Ignes Beck, Julius Tigga and Paul
Dayal, Jaipal agreed to become president of the newly-formed Adivasi Mahasabha and
chair its first conference on 20 January 1939. The response to the meeting was an eye-
opener for Jaipal. He recalls: ‘The January 20th meeting was a revelation . . . About one
lakh people attended the conference. I spoke first in English, written speech for the
pressmen, then in Hindi, Sadani and my mother tongue Mundari. This was my triumph.’21
Subsequently, Jaipal toured extensively and he wrote ‘everywhere the attendance was in
thousands’. Jaipal had well and truly launched his political career. K.S. Singh, the prolific
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chronicler of the Jharkhand movement and someone who met Jaipal in the 1960s, was greatly
impressed by Jaipal’s charisma and called him ‘easily the greatest tribal leader of the
period’.22 Though Jaipal’s party did well in the 1946 elections to the legislatures, he himself
lost in the elections. However, Jaipal’s party had enough seats for him to be nominated from
Bihar to the Constituent Assembly, which framed the Indian Constitution, and the
Provisional Parliament. This would be the most publicized theatre of Jaipal’s career.

Speaking for Adivasis

Jaipal’s relationship with the nascent Indian nation-state was a complex one. At one level,
he was an adversary of the Indian state as a leader of an ethnic movement. But he was also
very much part of the founding moment of the Indian republic as a member of the
Constituent Assembly. The complexity of Jaipal’s identity was apparent in his opening
speech in the Constituent Assembly on 11 December 1946.
So far as I have been able to count, we are here only five. But we are millions and millions and
we are the real owners of India. It has recently become the fashion to talk of ‘Quit India’. I do
hope that this is only a stage for the real rehabilitation and resettlement of the original people
of India. Let the British quit. Then after that, all the late-comers quit. Then there would be left
behind the original people of India.23
One might note here that Jaipal right from the beginning was labelling the tribals as the
original inhabitants of India and using the Hindi term for ‘original inhabitant’ – Adivasi –
in subsequent debates. The use of the word ‘Adivasi’ itself was intensely political. During
the fag end of the Constituent Assembly debates, Jaipal commented that Scheduled Tribes –
the term used to denote the tribals eligible for reservation – should not be translated into
Hindi as ‘Banjati’. Switching to Hindi, he asked: ‘The word “Adibasi” has not been used in
any of the translations made by the several Committees. How is it? . . . The word Adibasi has
grace. I do not understand why this old abusive epithet of Banjati is being used in regard to
them – for till recently it meant an uncivilized barbarian.’24
Jaipal would make a stirring speech outlining his own identity and that of the tribals
during a debate on the resolution moved by Nehru on the nature of the Indian republic and
the safeguards for minorities and backward and tribal areas.
I rise to speak on behalf of millions of unknown hordes – yet very important – of
unrecognized warriors of freedom, the original people of India who have variously been
known as backward tribes, primitive tribes, criminal tribes and everything else. Sir, I am
proud to be a Jungli, that is the name by which we are known in my part of the country. Living
as we do in the jungles, we know what it means to support the Resolution. On behalf of
30 millions of the Adibasis, I support it.25
 770 R. Sen

In subsequent speeches, Jaipal would make a few additional points about the place of
tribals in the independent Indian republic. The most important of these was that the
Adivasis should not be regarded as minorities.
I do not consider the Adibasis a minority. I have always held that a group of people who are
the original owners of this country, even if they are only a few, can never be considered a
minority. They have prescriptive rights which no one can deny. We are not however asking for
those prescriptive rights. We want to be treated like anybody else. In the past, thanks to the
major political parties, thanks to the British government and thanks to every enlightened
citizen, we have been isolated and kept, as it were, in a zoo.26
Jaipal also consistently focused on the exceptionalism of the Adivasis. He pointed out
that the Adivasis were the ‘most democratic people on earth’ and did not need to be taught
democracy. Further, he said that Adivasis had been the first to hoist flags and that from
now on, ‘there will be two flags, one which has been here for the past six thousand years,
and the other will be the national flag’.27 Later, during debates on the prohibition of
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alcohol, Jaipal again pointed to the unique nature of tribal life and the centrality of
drinking for tribals. ‘It would be impossible for the paddy to be transplanted if the Santhal
does not get his rice beer’, he said. ‘These ill-clad men, without even their barest wants
satisfied, have to work knee-deep in water throughout the day, in drenching rain and in
mud. What is it in the rice beer that keeps them alive?’28 He also added that drinking was
part of the religious customs of a tribal.
During debates in the latter half of 1949, Jaipal made a strong case for reservations
for tribals. ‘I think that [the] situation has to be appreciated when we take up questions
like the reservation of seats’, he said. ‘Sir, we are not begging anything. I do not come
here to beg. It is for the majority community to atone for their sins of the last six
thousand years.’29 He went on to clarify that demands for reservation should not be seen
as separatism.
Reservation is very necessary for the backward people whether they are Adibasis or whether
Scheduled castes, or Jains or Muslims. Once you acknowledge that something has got to be
done, some fulcrum has to be pushed in to tilt them up to a higher level, then the question of
separatism does not arise at all. Therefore, I as an Adibasi representative, am not ashamed to
accept the principle of reservation.30
Jaipal, however had a problem with reservations being there for only 10 years since he said
that India was not ‘going to become heaven’ in one decade.
When debates began on the Fifth Schedule, Jaipal would come back to his primary
identification as a jungli that he had made during his debut speech. He ended his speech on
5 September 1949 by speaking in his native tongue, Mundari, which he called ‘the most
ancient language of this country’. Directing his comments at K.M. Munshi, a prominent
member of the Constituent Assembly and someone sympathetic to the cause of Hindu
nationalists, Jaipal said, ‘I am very sorry to disappoint him [Munshi] that in, supporting the
Fifth Schedule, I did not dress up in bows and arrows, the loin cloth, feathers, ear-rings, my
drum and my flute. I have disappointed him I know.’31 This would prompt another
member of the Assembly, Biswanath Das, to enquire whether Jaipal had ever put on such
clothes. This was a calculated remark since most photographs of Jaipal show him dressed
immaculately in western clothes. Jaipal responded,
What makes Mr Das think I never wear the clothes that my people wear? There has to be
reciprocal cooperation. That distrust, that fear that existed before must be made to vanish from
both sides. The non-Adibasi must go to the Adibasi as his friend, and, similarly, the Adibasi in
his turn should take his proper place, the role of honour that is accorded in the national life of
this country. I know Adibasis will respond.32
 Sport in Society 771

Independence and after

Once the Indian Constitution was officially ratified on 26 January 1950 the Constituent
Assembly ceased to exist. However, the assembly remained alive in the form of the
Provisional Parliament till the first general elections in 1952. In the final days of the
Provisional Parliament, Jaipal delivered one of his finest speeches – one that summed up
his divided loyalty to the Indian nation-state. In a frank appraisal of the limited capabilities
of the government and Parliament, Jaipal said:
I find that the present Government and present Parliament are in a very peculiar position. The
present Parliament can by no stretch of imagination or generosity be considered to be a
representative Parliament. About 1,800 MLAs selected on a severely limited franchise by 30
million people have indirectly sent us here. We cannot claim to be representative in the
democratic way of life.33
Though he admitted that he had been a ‘severe critic’ of the Congress party and had ‘strong
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differences’ with them, he had high praise for Nehru. He said that the country was ‘most
fortunate in having a Leader who in the imbroglio of very disconcerting and disturbing
factors, has stuck to his principles and chosen the harder path than the soft line of least
resistance’.34 Jaipal then launched into a critique of the project of democracy in India and
the considerable obstacles it faced:
The myth of democracy has not bitten deep into the minds of the people yet. It will take time.
We all say so much about passion for liberty, but we care very little for the conditions of
liberty. The spirit of democracy has not yet permeated us fully. Yet it ought not to be forgotten
that the people cannot bring democracy into their midst by a sudden change of attitude and it is
certainly obvious that no borrowed scheme of democracy can be abruptly thrust upon a people
who are not ready or who have not already made some of the conditions necessary for it.35
Next, he raised an issue that was possibly dear to his heart: the continuing presence in India
of the ICS, of which he had once wanted to be a member of. ‘Now it is the ICS and all the
servicemen who are here serving our country. It takes time to change the machinery. You
cannot overnight turn a bureaucracy into something else’,36 he said.
Finally, Jaipal would turn his attention to the issue that would occupy much of his
political career in independent India – the creation of a separate state for tribals. The
creation of new states was already an intensely controversial topic, and from the early
1950s several statehood movements based on language and ethnicity would rear their
head. Jaipal put forward a passionate argument that these demands were legitimate.
Among other deleterious forces that have been let loose as a result of Independence is what
has come to be known as provincialism. My friend Prof. Ranga wants Andhra. Somebody else
wants Maharashtra. I want Jharkhand and so forth. These are legitimate demands. Whether it
is linguistic, whether it is geographical or whether it is administrative, whatever it is, they are
demands that have to be democratically met . . . I am not prepared to say that the demand for
new provinces, States or a revision or a redistribution of the States is not a fissiparous one. It is
not anything of the kind. I am firmly of the opinion that that there should be realignment of the
provinces or States so that there may be unity in diversity.37
If Jaipal’s language was relatively moderate and inclusive in Parliament, it was far
more radical outside it. The Adivasi Mahasabha was created with the idea of fighting the
dikus – as outsiders were referred to by tribals – and to eventually create a separate
province of Jharkhand for the tribals. Indeed, a slogan raised by Jaipal during the 1946
election was: ‘We shall take Jharkhand, Jharkhand is the land of the adivasis and
non-adivasi exploiters will be turned out of the region even by violence.’38 Again in the
early 1950s, a popular slogan used by Jaipal and his compatriots was: ‘Jharkhand abua,
daku diku senoa’ (Jharkhand is ours, and all robbers and dikus will have to leave).39
 772 R. Sen

In 1950, the Adivasi Mahasabha was renamed the Jharkhand Party (JHP) with Jaipal
Singh as its president. This period would also see Jaipal and the JHP trying to broaden
the support base of the party by wooing non-tribals. This led to a dilution of the rhetoric
against outsiders and it paid electoral dividends. The JHP performed well in the 1952 and
1957 general elections. In 1952, the Jharkhandi parties won three of the eight Lok Sabha
seats in Jharkhand. Jaipal himself won from the reserved Ranchi West constituency with
61% of the votes. In the next elections in 1957, the Jharkhandi parties won eight of the
12 seats in Jharkhand with Jaipal again winning from Ranchi West with an almost
identical margin as in 1952. Though the Jharkhandi parties did well in the two elections,
there were already cracks in their dominance because of the failure of the Jharkhandi
parties to deliver on their promise of a separate province. The States Reorganisation
Commission, set up in 1953 to look into the creation of new states, rejected the demands
of the Jharkhandi parties, primarily on the grounds that it did not meet the linguistic
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criteria which was the principle being used to carve out new states. This and increasing
factionalism within the Jharkhandi parties led to electoral reverses in the 1962 elections.
In addition, most of the JHP leaders were urban professionals with a limited base
in rural areas. The Jharkhandi parties won only three of the 13 seats in Jharkhand with
an average of 22% of votes in all constituencies in Jharkhand, down from 47% in the
earlier elections.
The downturn in fortunes and in-fighting between the Jharkhandi parties led Jaipal to
merge the JHP with the Congress party, which had been an adversary for most of his life.
Jaipal would even join the Congress’ Bihar government as minister for community
development. Jaipal’s second wife, Jahanara Jaipal Singh, also joined the central
government in Delhi as a junior minister. This would deal a serious blow to the
credibility of Jaipal and the JHP and lead to further factionalism. As political scientist
Amit Prakash points out, ‘Most tribal people and leaders were unhappy with the merger.
There were speculations that the Congress had bribed Jaipal Singh and that for a place in
the government ministry, he had sold the cause of the Jharkhandis to the INC
[Congress].’40 As for Jaipal himself, he had only this to say: ‘The mid-term elections in
Bihar were a severe challenge to my Jharkhand leadership, in that, most of my former
colleagues deserted me and declared themselves as having revived the Jharkhand Party.
For quarter of a century I had fought successfully the Congress party and it was uphill
work facing the Adivasis whom I had made hostile.’41 Contesting on a Congress ticket,
Jaipal managed to win in the 1967 elections from Khunti constituency but with a much-
reduced margin.
The merger with the Congress and the subsequent election debacle was a watershed
event in the career of a man who all his life had fought the central government and the
Congress. Jaipal’s youngest son, Jayant Jaipal Singh, observes, ‘The failure which JS
[Jaipal Singh] had to live with was both political and personal. The merger of the
Jharkhand Party with the Congress in 1962 was a personal defeat as the identity of
the Jharkhandi was drowned in the larger identity of the Congress. The loss of identity
within the Congress led to his political demise as the larger numbers from Bihar
effectively shut out the Jharkhandi.’42 According to Prakash, Jaipal ‘despite being a
revered legend, was never forgiven for having agreed to the merger and the resulting
fragmentation of the movement’.43 Just before his death in 1970, a disillusioned
Jaipal is believed to have told a long-time compatriot that he felt cheated by Nehru
who had not created a separate Jharkhand.44 The state of Jharkhand would eventually
come into existence – in a much truncated nature – nearly three decades after
Jaipal’s death.
 Sport in Society 773

Conclusion
The discussion of Jaipal’s long and chequered career after he hung up his hockey boots has
taken us very far from Olympics and sports. In my brief concluding remarks, let me come
back to Jaipal’s engagement with sports and the legacy of his Olympic participation.
He was a founder-member of the Bengal Hockey Association and president of the Chhota
Nagpur Hockey Association and the Delhi Hockey Association. But his involvement did
not stop at hockey. He was president of the Delhi Cricket Association, the Delhi Football
Association and the Delhi Flying Club. He was also the manager of the Parliamentary
Sports Club. Ironically, K.S. Singh reports that Jaipal was once denied the post of Director
of Sports in Bihar in the late 1930s! ‘It is idle to speculate as to what would have happened
if he had been made Director of Sports in recognition of his sterling performance at the
Olympics. Jharkhand would have certainly lost a charismatic leader’, he writes.45
There was good reason why Jaipal was so much in demand. As he says, ‘Everyone of
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the associations was financially unsound and they thought my reputation would
rehabilitate them. I certainly put the flying club on its feet. Hockey and football were
minor problems, though I could not understand at first why persons were so keen to get
into executive positions. There was money to be made dishonestly.’46 In his
characteristically blunt manner, Jaipal had identified a basic malaise of Indian sports –
administrators who were in sports bodies merely for the money.
For many years, Jaipal was a member of the All-India Council of Sports as well as
the Indian Olympic Association. He was also appointed member of a three-man
committee, comprising Jaipal, General K.S. Thimayya and G.D. Sondhi of the
International Olympic Committee, to enquire into the state of sports in the country. This
was in response to several questions being asked in Parliament about India’s
performance in the Olympic Games, Asian Games and Empire Games. The outcome of
this exercise was not a happy one. ‘I submitted an interim report to the Minister of
Education, Dr [K.L.] Shrimali, so that he answer the questions or place my report in the
library for members to read. He dodged questions by saying he was awaiting the Probe
Committee. My interim report was frank, blunt and critical of the Ministry and several
sports federations’, writes Jaipal.47
Having drawn a blank with regard to improving Olympic sports, Jaipal ironically
turned to a game that he had spurned at Oxford – cricket. In his memoirs, Jaipal writes in
some detail of a cricket match that he organized at the National Stadium in Delhi between
a Prime Minister’s XI led by Jawaharlal Nehru and a Vice-President’s team under
S. Radhakrishnan. He arranged for special blazers and caps to be made with parliamentary
badges. Jaipal got a founder-member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Anthony
de Mello, to print the brochure. He also ensured that all the tickets were sold out. Jaipal’s
description of the match brings out an important aspect of sport as spectacle or tamasha in
the Indian context.
The two captains had to go out to the field for the toss. Nehru, the Harrovian, inspected the
pitch and Tony (De Mello) had his famous comments . . . Majithia and M.K. Krishna went and
thrashed the bowling. An Indian crowd is not interested in the finer points of cricket. They
want boundaries. Majithia gave them the boundaries. The spectators were not interested in
cricket as such. They only wanted to see the national hero in action with the lot.48
The resounding success of the cricket match organized by Jaipal juxtaposed against his
comparative failure to do anything for other Indian sports, including hockey, is a stark
reminder of how things stand today. Cricket has swamped all other sports in India and
India’s performance has over the years been pathetic in the Olympics. Hockey had
 774 R. Sen

been the only saving grace but the last hockey gold for India came way back in 1980.
In 2008, the seal was put on the steep decline in Indian hockey with India failing to even
qualify for the Beijing Olympics. Jaipal, India’s first hockey skipper, had perhaps foreseen
the shape of things to come.

Notes
1
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ‘Olympic Legacies’ conference held at
St Antony’s College, Oxford, in March 2008.
2
Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra.
3
Ibid., 20.
4
Ibid., 21.
5
Ibid., 22.
6
Isis, no. 642 (November 21, 1923), 17.
7
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Isis, no. 667 (November 26, 1924), 22.

8
Isis, no. 699 (March 10, 1926), 22.
9
Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra, 24.
10
Isis, no. 649 (February 20, 1924), 24 – 5.
11
Isis, no. 696 (February 11, 1926), 24.
12
Isis, no. 725 (May 4, 1927), 1.
13
Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra, 36.
14
Dhyan Chand, Goal. http://www.bharatiyahockey.org/granthalaya/goal/1928/page11.htm.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra.
18
Ibid., 51.
19
Ibid., 56.
20
Ibid., 95 –6.
21
Ibid., 99.
22
Singh, ‘Jharkhand and Jharkhand Movement’, 166.
23
Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD), vol. I, 46 – 7.
24
CAD, vol. IX, 992.
25
CAD, vol. I, 143.
26
CAD, vol. IV, 209.
27
CAD, vol. IV, 751.
28
CAD, vol. VII, 559.
29
CAD, vol. IX, 651.
30
Ibid., 654.
31
CAD, vol. IX, 993.
32
Ibid.
33
Parliamentary Debates, August 10, 1951.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid.
38
Quoted in Prakash, Jharkhand, 99.
39
Quoted in Ibid., 103.
40
Prakash, Jharkhand, 108.
41
Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra, 155.
42
Jayant Jaipal Singh, ‘Foreword’, in Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra.
43
Prakash, Jharkhand, 110.
44
Ibid., 109.
45
Singh, ‘Jharkhand and Jharkhand Movement’, 170.
46
Katyayan, Lo Bir Sendra, 143.
47
Ibid., 149.
48
Ibid., 146.
 Sport in Society 775

References
Constituent Assembly Debates. New Delhi: Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1999.
Katyayan, Rashmi, ed. Lo Bir Sendra. Ranchi: Prabhat Khabar Publication, 2004.
Prakash, Amit. Jharkhand: Politics of Identity and Development. New Delhi: Orient Longman,
2001.
Singh, K. S. ‘Jharkhand and Jharkhand Movement: A Personal Perspective’. In Jharkhand Matters:
Essays on Ethnicity, Regionalism and Development, edited by Rajiv Balakrishnan. New Delhi:
Konark Publishers, 2004.
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