Pankaj Gupta with Nazi minister Goebbels at Berlin in 1936

Pankaj Gupta, the mercurial sports ambassador.                              

While there is a long tradition in India of doling out sports-team managership to sycophants and stooges, it is worth relating that  we actually possessed a manager who was rated very highly by no less a discerning persona than Sir Donald Bradman in his book Farewell to Cricket. Sir Don christened him ‘Peter’ out of respect for the man’s personality and prowess.

While in Australia with the India team in1947-48, Pankaj Gupta was at the peak of his eventful career as a sports administrator. When Sir Don was making mincemeat of the Indian bowling, the Aussie media became very critical of Bradman for his ruthlessness. But Gupta, the proud manager, would have none of it. He and his captain Lala Amarnath categorically stated that India had come to play Australia on equal terms and expected no condescending treatment.

Pankaj Gupta holds a unique place in India’s sports history. Thrice he went to the Olympics as a hockey-official but never as the prime manager! In 1932 he went to Los Angeles Olympics as the non-playing captain. In 1936 to Berlin as assistant manager. In the next Olympic at London in 1948 as 2^nd official. In all three Olympics India won the gold medal. If he was not a playing member, why was he sent at all? Why was he so desperately needed between 1932 and 1948?

There were many aspirants to the manager’s role. People who stayed in close proximity to the powers-that-be in expectation of favours. As is the typical Indian administrative system, these ‘favoured’ individuals were designated as ‘manager’ to keep the various member-State associations happy. Most managers did and still do go for a vacation and have fun.

But the IOA President, Maharaja of Patiala Yadavendra  Singh – pioneer and primary patron of Indian sport – well knew that India needed a man of Pankaj Gupta’s personality and knowledge to uphold the country’s self-respect and the team’s interest. Although Gupta was not ‘close’ to any of the influential royals, he was considered indispensable to India’s success. That is the kind of reputation he had.

As an official of the touring India hockey teams during their glory years in the 1930s and 1940s, Gupta was a father-figure to Dhyan Chand, Roop Singh, Allen, Tapsell, Jaffer, Claudius and company. He earned everyone’s – Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and all others – respect for his transparency, generosity, complete lack of bias and no less for his knowledge of sports and sportsmen. He was a master in man-management. Supreme as a mentor he was, as the maestro Dhyan Chand always acknowledged.

Before 1947 India, played in the Olympics not as an independent nation, but as a British colony. Gupta motivated every player to consider himself a freedom-fighter battling for the cause of independent India. Dhyan Chand, no less, considered Pankaj Gupta to be his patron-saint.

Dhyan Chand’s bonding with Gupta went far beyond the confines of the hockey ground. He would seek blessings on Guru Purnima. Whenever Dhyan Chand came to play at Calcutta, he would stay at Gupta’s residence. So close was he that it is believed Gupta became the ‘ghost’ who assisted Dhyan Chand to pen his autobiography Goal.

Gupta could write and speak as the best. Courageous and forthright, the energetic man earned universal acclaim. His after-dinner speeches – a most essential formality of those grand old days – could be bold and witty; courteous and commanding. At technical committee meetings his was always a commanding presence. No Indian team was taken for granted when mercurial Peter Gupta was at the helm.

The highly respected sports journalist of yesteryears, Sunil Bose was Pankaj Gupta’s junior colleague at Amrita Bazar Patrika in Calcutta. Gupta was the sports editor for 20 years at a time when the newspaper was associated with India’s freedom struggle. Sunil Bose, himself a State-ranked badminton player, related an amazing incident involving Pankaj Gupta and Nazi Germany.

 In 1936 when the Indian hockey team was at Berlin for the Olympics, assistant manager Pankaj Gupta rushed onto the road and forced Joseph Goebbels, the German Propaganda Minister, to stop his motorcade! The Nazi guards were taken aback. Before they could react, Gupta calmly walked up to the minister, shook hands with him and wished him on behalf of India as the common enemy of Great Britain!

No situation daunted him. No personality overwhelmed him. He was a self-made man with a passion for sport. His oratory gave India a shining image. His diplomacy made India a treasured friend. His passion for sports left him with no time for politicking. And so after almost of two decades of rare excellence, he became a victim at the hands of people he had helped to establish.

Gupta, as the manager of the Indian cricket team to England in 1952, selected Vinoo Mankad, who was omitted by the national selectors from the touring squad, to play the 2^nd Test at Lord’s! Mankad went on to display one of the greatest-ever individual all-round performances in the history of cricket. The match came to be known as ‘Mankad’s Test’. This incident itself is a fascinating story to relate. Another time. Another day.

Without the intervention of the mercurial manager Pankaj Gupta, Vinoo Mankad – among the greatest all-rounders in the world – would not have played the Test and it is highly doubtful whether he would ever have played for India again.

This was Gupta at his best. Once convinced, he would anything for India’s prestige. He had no time for personal gain or for personal fame. No selfish motive ever clouded his judgement. His mission was to uphold India’s image high in the international sports arena. A role he played with great distinction both at hockey as well as at cricket. Not for no reason the selfless Maharaja of Patiala chose Pankaj Gupta to be with the Indian contingent, particularly hockey. The magnificent administrator Patiala knew his man.

I saw Pankaj Gupta just once, in 1969. He was the chief guest at a function organized by Mohun Bagan Athletic Club to honour the players from its various disciplines for winning all the local trophies. Pankaj Gupta spoke for hardly five minutes. He lambasted the club officials for organizing such lavish functions instead of utilizing the money to provide more facilities to junior players. Even as a teenager, I could feel the integrity and the commitment inherent in him. 

Surprisingly for an Indian sports administrator, he was far, far above provincial or communal bias. He had no time for ‘favourites’. Media people with shallow ideas and statistical obsession often misunderstood him. But little did he care. None ever dared to confront him. No time he had for the influential. Nor would he suffer fools. He carved a distinct niche for himself.

While he earned wide respect from all his players, in India many influential sports administrators despised him but none found the courage to confront him. He became very popular among the sportspeople in India for his brave and unbiased approach. The Indian sports media however never gave him his rightful due.

Once a sports journalist asked him about the omission of a certain player from some matches at the London Olympics in1948. Point-blank Pankaj Gupta raised his eye-brows, “Which team won the hockey gold in London? India? Then I do not care who played and who did not play. Never believed in favouritism or individualism. For me India first, India last, India in-between. Full stop.”

Tapan Ghosh of Ananda Bazar Patrika, a man who probably pioneered investigative sports journalism in India, met Pankaj Gupta several times at the latter’s Park Circus residence in Calcutta. Ghosh always maintained, “He was by far the best sports administrator we have ever had. Had a distinctive style and an excellent command of the English language. Amazing knowledge of sports history and the laws, particularly of hockey and cricket. Till the very end, he sported the famous Hitler-moustache and carried an ornamental walking stick.”

Indian Hockey Federation and Indian Football Association were both established at Calcutta in the 1920s. The chief architect happened to be the stocky man from Chittagong (now in Bangladesh). Then in his twenties, the young man’s exceptional administrative prowess was not lost on the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupendra Singh, whose visionary spirit and awesome patronage paved the way for the development of India’s sport in the early days. Bhupendra’s son Yadavendra too followed in his father’s foot-steps regarding Gupta of Bengal.

Pankaj Gupta was the founder member of the National Cricket Club, which happened to be the custodian of Eden Gardens before CAB took over in the 1950s. Pankaj Gupta expired in 1971 after a glorious lifetime in the service of sport, particularly hockey and cricket.

CAB named the new indoor cricket facility at Eden Gardens after him. At its inauguration in 1979, as the current captain of the Bengal State team, I acknowledged that it was an honour to speak on Pankaj Gupta’s contribution to sport and described him as a sports ambassador nonpareil.

Although the Government of India could not find any award for him, ironically the British Government awarded him a MBE (Member of the British Empire) for his services to sports administration in 1944.

He was the perfect embodiment of a sports ambassador. Totally undaunted and forever free, all along Pankaj Gupta remained a singular man with a singular purpose: to uphold India’s prestige and image in the international sports arenas. Nihil Ultra.