Legendary hockey player late Balbir Singh Senior – Partition, carnage and the Olympic gold

By Saurabh Duggal

Leaving behind the heartburn memories of the partition that saw the biggest migration of human population, dividing the sub-continent into two nations (India-Pakistan) on religious lines and inviting large-scale violence killing lakhs of people on both sides, the Indian hockey team gave a young nation something to feel proud of.  

A British colony a year ago, India defeated Britain on their home turf and saw the tri-colour of the Independent India hoisted for the first time on a foreign land and that too in a nation which ruled them for more than two centuries.

BBC described Indian hockey’s 1948 London Olympics gold as one of the most politically significant episodes in the history of the Games. 

“Though it happened more than seven decades ago, the memories of the London Games are as fresh as it happened yesterday. When I was a child, I used to ask my father (Dalip Singh Dosanjh), who was a freedom fighter, what independence means and what we would get out of it. He used to reply that independence would give us our own identity, own flag and pride forever. That day (August 12, 1948) when our flag was hoisted in front of thousands of Britons in Wembley Stadium, I realised what Independent nation means. It was the proudest moment for me and for all the Indians back home,” late Balbir Singh Senior had said. “When the national anthem was played and flag was going up, I felt that I was flying. I am short of words to describe that glorious moment in the history of Indian sports.”

“If 1948 triumph was the greatest day of our lives, 1947 carnage was the blot on our society,” Balbir Singh Senior had said. “At the time of the partition I was posted in Sadar thana of Ludhiana and almost on hourly basis we were getting calls regarding fires, killings, abductions and loot in the far-flung areas of the city. People were at each other’s throat. There was a mass exodus of the population fleeing to Lahore or coming from the other side.”