Pankaj Gupta, the mercurial manager, with Joseph Goebbels the Nazi Germany minister.                              

 

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 autobiography 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 was 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, were willing to learn from them but expected no condescending treatment. Typical of Amarnath and Gupta.

 

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. Especially individuals 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 officially designated as ‘managers’ to keep the various member-State associations happy. The trend continues.

 

But the Indian Olympic Association president, Maharaja of Patiala Bhupindra 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, Pankaj Gupta was a father-figure to Dhyan Chand, Roop Singh, Allen, Tapsell, Jaffer, Claudius, Balbir and company. He earned everyone’s – Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and all others including atheists and agnostics – 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.

 

In 1946 BCCI realized the need for a manager who would not bend according to external dictates. The ‘Amarnath incident’ of the previous tour of England in England rankled their conscience. Thankfully the BCCI selected the highly successful manager of the gold-medal winning Indian hockey team, Pankaj Gupta. On his first with the Indian cricket team to England in 1946, Pankaj Gupta made it apparent that he could not be taken lightly. Accordingly he was the obvious choice for the tour of Australia in 1947-48 where he spread his wings to earn laurels even from the cynical Aussie media as well as from The Don.

 

Before 1947 India played in the Olympics not as an independent nation, but as a British colony. Gupta motivated every player to regard himself a freedom-fighter battling for the cause of independent India. Dhyan Chand considered Pankaj Gupta to be his patron-saint. This was the approach he brought into the Indian cricket team

 

Dhyan Chand’s bonding with Gupta went far beyond the confines of the hockey ground. The great hockey wizard would seek his blessings on Guru Purnima. Whenever Dhyan Chand came to play at Calcutta, he would stay at Gupta’s residence.

 

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 dominating presence. No Indian team was taken for granted when mercurial Peter Gupta was at the helm.

 

Once when India was assigned to play an Olympic hockey match at an unscheduled time in the morning, Gupta insisted and got the match postponed to the originally scheduled evening hours. He had that kind of personality even in pre-independent India. Had Gupta been alive, the rules of hockey detrimental to India’s interests would not have been altered.

 

The highly respected sports journalist of yester-year, 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 did the high-principled, selfless maharajas of Patiala – Bhupindra Singh and followed by his son Yadavendra Singh – choose Pankaj Gupta to be with the Indian contingent, particularly hockey. The high-spirited administrators of the House of Patiala knew their man.

 

One incident in 1952 showed the exemplary attributes of the fearless man. A Test cricketer who had remained not out in the 1^st innings, having gone low in the batting order, loudly passed some awkward comments on the failures of other players. Skipper Hazare was too soft and gentle a person to react immediately.

 

 Not so his highly-charged manager, Gupta. Immediately Gupta retorted, “Your job is to bat for the country and not to criticize others. Let’s see what you can achieve in the 2^nd innings by going higher in the order.” The loud-mouth was sent at number 3, scored a nought and helped his nation to record the amazing start of 4 wickets down for zero runs!

 

That’s the kind of man Pankaj Gupta was. Extremely firm but extremely fair. Soft and sophisticated, at the same time strict and sharp. No player ever got any favoured treatment from him. The gold-medal winning hockey players worshipped him. The spoilt cricketers found him difficult to handle but had little option than to fall quickly in line! He cared for no administrator or political influence when the national cause was at stake. Wish Indian cricket had more managers like Pankaj Gupta. Apart from Polly Umrigar, Maan Singh, Raj Singh, Bishen Singh Bedi and Hanumant Singh in his own quiet way, very few Indian managers had the personality to dictate terms to our international cricketers.

 

Journalist Sunil Bose recounted another remarkable story relating to Pankaj Gupta and the India ‘double-international’ MJ Gopalan. Gopalan was an outstanding hockey player and a certainty for the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. He was also an excellent medium-fast bowler who could swing the ball either way. He was chosen for the India cricket team on its tour of England in 1936.

 

Far-sighted Gupta knew it would be difficult for Gopalan to be in the Test team in 1936.  Confident and generous, Gupta advised, “Gopala, come with us to Berlin Olympic. You will get a gold medal.” Unfortunately the Tamil Nadu (then Madras) pacer opted for the cricket team, went to UK with Vizzy’s team and had to sit out every Test match. If only he had followed Pankaj Gupta advice…he would have been a part of Dhyan Chand’s men and had an Olympic gold medal around his neck.

 

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. Chief guest 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.

 

When Sir Donald George Bradman with his wife landed at the Dum Dum airport in Calcutta in 1953 on their way to UK by Qantas Airways, they were pleasantly surprised to find Pankaj Gupta and former Test cricketer Probir Khokon Sen waiting for them at the lounge. These small but significant interactions gave Gupta a different dimension. This was the first and the only time Bradman had set foot on Indian soil. So happy was Sir Don that he was moved to say, “I wish Australia had come to India to play Tests during my playing days.”

 

Once a sports journalist asked him about the omission of a certain player from some matches at the London Olympics in 1948. 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.”

 

Erudite sports journalist Tapan Ghosh of Ananda Bazar Patrika 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.”

 

Once Gupta was asked by the eminent sports editor Rajan Bala, then of Hindustan Standard, “Don’t you think at times, by your actions, you went beyond your actual duties?” The broad hint about the Mankad issue of 1952 and the hockey team selection at London in 1948 was apparent.

 

The temperamental Gupta did not flare up. Slowly he emptied his Kudu smoking pipe and deliberately nursed his gin and tonic. With a cold stare, he explained, “Rajan, there is an unwritten spirit behind every law, rule, policy and convention. Whenever I found others were shirking their duty for self-interest, I rectified the matter with the national interest in mind.” Without a single reference, the highly intelligent man exposed the ignorance of his critics, whether they were administrators, journalists or players.

 

Indian Hockey Federation was established in the mid 1920s. One of the chief architects 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, Bhupindra Singh, whose visionary spirit and awesome patronage paved the way for the development of India’s sport in the early days. Bhupindra’s son Yadavendra Singh too followed in his father’s foot-steps regarding Pankaj 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 a privilege to be associated with 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. Nothing Beyond, as we would say at Xavier’s, Nihil Ultra.

 

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