THERE can be two opinions about what has been done by the Ajay Maken-led Sports Ministry team on the vexed hockey federations issue. Those who subscribe to the first would say, “Oh, he just pushed the date once again, and in any case, tried to be good to all parties… this will not work!”
The second band of people would stand up and lead the applause: brilliant. And it just confirms what SportzPower had deduced after the first few steps that Maken made on taking up his assignment:. that he had been forewarned of the posting and had done his homework well.
So what has Maken, rather, the team of officials led by Maken done?
On the face of it, he has
• Retained the name HI for the body that should govern the sport in the country
• Retained the president and secretary general of the federation
• Brought in senior vice president from the rival Indian Hockey Federation
• Added as many members in the executive as there are currently in HI, and all the newly co-opted members will be from IHF
• Limited the tenure of this expanded committee till October 2014, when the next HI polls are due, and after which the size would go back to the original 17, as per the constitution of HI
• Made it clear that any co-opted member who resigns is not replaceable
• And formed a committee which will sort out things in the state federations, basically meaning that straighten them out from being either an Narinder Batra supporter or a KPS Gill one.
For the uninitiated, these would seem to simply continue the problem, even fuel the crisis further, what with equal numbers of HI (read Batra) EC members and IHF (Gill) supporters keeping any decision making permanently in limbo. “The players (meaning the officials), will now keep on dribbling and no one will want to score a goal. Hockey is finished!” argued an industry watcher.
But any stroke of genius has two characteristics: it comes after a long time, and two, is made to look very simple, even like the solution offered by a simpleton.
The set of proposals did take a long time coming, and it does look naïve at first glance.
But if you analyse each step, it will be clear what the course of action will be as the days come.
First, the name HI has been retained: The FIH is happy, and that’s Leandro Negre off the ministry’s back; and IOC cannot say the government has trampled on the Olympic Charter.
But this means that IHF as a legal entity would cease to exist, which would be a bitter pill for the men who have been ruling the roost in hockey. How many of them will agree? Will KPS Gill accept this and swallow the lollypop of being made the Lifetime Patron of HI, a name he abhors?
This could be the first breaking point of the proposal receiving consent from both sides, and by next Tuesday evening.
OK, let’s assume that Gill agrees and the 16 men from IHF get co-opted. What then?
There comes the second part of the proposal: Narinder Batra remains secretary general. By this one stroke, the government has put in his hands the very men who had been completely out of his reach till now, the top men in IHF. Now Batra will preside over them across the table as the ‘first among equals’! Not brilliant enough?
Stay with the thought….
The IHF will supply the senior vice president but… the REAL power in any Indian NGO / association / federation is always with the secretary, or secretary general, depending how one styles the post.
Batra is known in government circles as a man who works, and spends much of his own money for running the HI show. For good or for bad, and given all other foibles, the ministry looks at such a person with a degree of respect, and we have it on good authority that this is the case in hand.
Then he will remain as the real boss, and the co-opted members will work with but under him.
On to the fourth masterstroke: None of the co-opted members, who are all from IHF, can be replaced if they resign for any reason whatever.
So, Batra is at the helm, and has a wide range of options. A divided house is a house whose members can be offered chances of getting better assignments. Many can resign ‘in disgust’ because for all his dedication, Batra is a man hard to swallow for his abrupt directness of approach and dictatorial temperament.
Gill too is much the same, but Gill now has nothing to offer and his men, who had been following him because he gave them at least a hope. That hope is now gone, and it will be easy for any former IHF-now-HI EC member to say he is resigning because he cannot take the same kind of treatment from Batra, that he silently swallowed for so long under the Gill dispensation.
Hark back to the fabled Agatha Christie novel “And Then There Was None!” The Gill men could do a repeat show. After all, Batra can take care of them. He needs just a few of them out by 2014, when the polls for the next committee would be held. Then he commands a majority, because his 16 men would remain intact anyway.
As election time approaches, everyone in the expanded EC, if at all it happens, would look for retaining at least their EC seats, if not a promotion in the hierarchy, so they would have to side with the team that is in the majority.
The IHF cannot send in any new face to replace them.
But even before that stage comes, the state federations have to be sorted out. By HI!
Till now, each state federation was in the pocket of either Batra or Gill, and the federations owned the few hockey stadia in the country, so the HI had the players but the IHF had the infrastructure.
And though the official proposal is that the issues in the state federations will have to be sorted out by a committee of four, they will now no longer be in any one of the two teams. In fact, the proposal is the solution, for now the state federations will all be under HI! So the players were there and the fields now are just coming.
Those against the sports ministry would start to appreciate the tact with which they patiently held their position, and meted out a set of proposals that are together a fait accompli, or call it a Hobson’s choice.
There is, of course, the chance that all such long-winded politicking does not take place at all, in case the IHF decides not to accept the proposals in writing on Tuesday. Either way, the course of the hockey river is clear for the future.
