Dear Rajyavardhan Rathore Sirji,

Greetings from Hockey Lovers across the country.

We are pained to see the state of affairs at Hockey India, which is being run as a private property of one man by a proxy CEO Elena Norman who is given with powers of the Secretary General and President rolled in one. DICTATORSHIP IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY.

This Australian CEO for the last almost decade has controlled and humiliated all and sundry misusing her unconstitutional post. She for the last 3 years is assisted by another bossy Australian, High Performance Director whose only fame to hockey is being a physical trainer for any sport including the Indian team under coach Knobbs. How is his appointment justified. What is the Job description for these posts, and more important what are the Key Performance Indicators. Do we not have better and qualified Indian for the post. Ofcourse we have but they will not tow the dictators line.

We can not keep a blind eye to the wrongful and unjustifiable sacking of Indian Coach Dronacharya Harendra Singh by a scapegoat committee known as the High Performance and Development. As per reports the Chairman R P Singh along with three members Harbinder Singh, B P Govinda and Syed Ali took the decision to sack him. No other names of members present is given as we feel the controversial CEO and HPD could have been there too. The quorum for this committee is 5 and Harendra is part of it, he should have been called.

Is the collective decision of these few toothless members better than that of lakhs of hockey lovers and stalwarts like World Cup winning Captain Ajit Pal, Col. Balbir Singh, last Olympic Gold Medal Captain and long time coach V. Bahaskaran, Padmashri Dilip Tirkey (Former MP), Olympians Zafar Iqbal, Melvyn Fernandes, M M Sommaya, Joachim Carvalho, RG Khel Ratna and Icon Dhanraj Pillay, Arjuna Awardee Ashish Ballal, Lazrus Barla, Jugraj Singh, Prabhod Tirkey,etc etc the list is too long full of Olympians and Padmashri, Arjuna awardees. All have come out openly and condemned this act of vendetta which is bad for the National game.

When Our Prime Minister’s focus is make in India and your vision of Khelo India is launched and in progress this action by a dictator is not acceptable. We cannot keep a blind eye to the lakhs who reacted in the electronic media, press and social websites. Not a single report was seen saying that the HI’s move is good or correct.

It is common knowledge that the former President, Secretary General, present FIH President controls Hockey India and wanted Harendra out. He actually never wanted to appoint him in the first place, and you are privy to this fact of how you intervened when Harendra was made the Women’s coach.

Harendra has been the Coach for just 7 months, and has a reasonable record barring one game loss to Malaysia in the AG where we won Bronze instead of Gold. Under him we won the Asia Cup Gold, and the Champions Trophy Silver. Even in the World Cup he performed well to top the pool qualifying for the quarter finals, where we put up a great fight against finalists Holland.

Sir even the International Community is laughing at us, statements against Harendra’s sacking by Ric Charlesworth, Michael Knobbs, Siegfried Aikman, Jose Brasa and Max Caldas are few I can recollect. The list keeps growing bigger.

It is clear he was not removed for his performance, so a stupid excuse by the committee. How does the Prime Minister become a Cabinet Minister, or the President become a Governor. All this is done at behest of Mr Batra who is wearing to many hats.

There has been no planning, by HI and no thinking about the role of Olympian, former captain and Arjuna Awardee Jude Felix who is doing a great job with the Juniors but is a no nonsense coach too. What happens to him. He is a good enough coach to handle the Senior team too where he served as coach too. But advertising that they need a minimum level three FIH certified coach now puts all Indian coaches out of contention as Harendra was the only FIH certified coach.

We need not talk on the pay parity for Indian and a FOREIGN coaches. You are well aware and you increased the same from 50k to 200k. A FOREIGN coach is simply too expensive and unwanted at that cost of 2.50 crores (ctc)per annum. We could get an additional turf for that cost.

The spirit of the National Sports Development Code 2011 is defeated, and it is no secret the difference of opinion Mr Batra has on it.
Quoting from the code,
Statement of purpose

1.2. At the national policy level, sport is at par with public education and public health, and like them sport is a public good and sport development is a public function. It is for this reason that even though national sports bodies are autonomous in nature both, the Supreme Court of India and several High Courts have, in various judgments, maintained that although national sports bodies are not State‘ within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India, they come within the writ jurisdiction of High Courts under Article 226 of the Constitution of India because they perform state-like functions such as the selection of national teams and representing the country in international sports events and forums.

1.4. Government of India also has been, from time to time, taking various steps and initiatives to promote good governance practices in the management of sports at the national level in pursuance of successive National Sports Policies. These policies are based on the Basic Universal Principles of Good Governance of Olympic and Sports movement and do not, in any manner, contradict or interfere with the autonomy of the national sports bodies in discharging their functions and duties in accordance with the International Olympic Committee Charter.

13.7 The Team of Coaches, sports sciences experts etc. shall not normally be changed or modified once chosen until the Asian/Olympics Games are over.

We would like to add that Hockey India does not follow the RTI act judiciously. Our RTI are pending and no acknowledgement received. We have routed through SAI, who have forwarded to HI. Other than giving names of RTI officers there is no link to submit applications.

(j) TRANSPARENCY IN ITS FUNCTIONING The Ministry recognizes the need for introducing more transparency in the functioning of NSFs. All NSFs receiving funding of Rs Ten Lakhs or more in a financial year have been declared as Public Authority under RTI act 2005. All NSFs getting covered by this provision are required to designate Central Public Information Officers and Appellate Authorities as per Section 5 of the Right to Information Act, 2005. They are further requested to fulfil their obligations of being a Public Authority, as per Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Sir, your intervention is needed urgently to undo the wrong and injustice done not only to the National game of Hockey, lakhs of sports lovers but also the only FIH certified, Dronacharya, most passionate Indian hockey coach Harendra Singh.

HI is a Public Authority as clarified and must heed to your intervention or lose financial Aid.

Sir, as a Sportsperson, Please intervene immediately.

Regards in Anticipation,

Jai Hind.

Leo Anthony Devadoss
And Hockey Lovers of India.