Diaspora and Sports: Hockey has been a great unifying factor

It was a great reunion. So impressed by the event that the Kenyan Chief Secretary for Sports and Youth Welfare Ababu promised to work with the Sikh Union Club Nairobi to take hockey where it once was. He congratulated the whole team behind the successful conduct of the inaugural Vaisakhi HockeyTournament featuring international teams from Malaysia, UK and Kenya as teams from India, Pakistan and Canada could not participate for logistic or other reasons.

Success of the tournament has motivated its Director and six-time Olympian Avtar Singh to take young Sikh Union Club teams on a tour of India, Pakistan before the year-end Junior World Cup in Malaysia. Olympian Sarjit Singh of Malaysia has extendedan open invitation to Sikh Union to bring its youth team promising practice games against various international and local teams in Malaysia during the direction of the Junior World Cup.

We plan to play at least 20 games during the tour, including five games each in India and Pakistan – in two Punjabs – besides 10 in Malaysia. We are trying to work out modalities. This would help in reviving the old sporting relations Sikh Union Club, Nairobi, had with both India and Pakistan..It will be good for hockey and also for the revival of Asian hockey.

Recalling contribution of Sikh Diaspora in promoting hockey in Kenya, Avtar Singh Sohal, Tari to his friends, recalls how a Sikh was the brainchild of the Kenyan Hockey Union in late 50s and early 60s.Since then it has never looked back.

Between late 60s and late 80s, Sikh Union Club contributed not only 26 Olympians but also 13 World Cuppers. In the last Junior World Cup qualifier. It sent an 18-year-old player to represent Kenya. The contact has been revived. Though at present, Sikh Diaspora is not represented in the Kenya Hockey Union board, Tari hopes for its early return.

By becoming the first club to have a floodlit astroturf in Kenya, we are pioneers in taking the sport to its roots by providing the latest playing facilities

Joining Avtar Singh Sohal is Kuljit Singh Dhatt, also a former Kenyan player, who had been one of the victims of political boycott of Montreal Olympic Games because of the apartheid policies of the then South African government. The Kenyan team, of which Kuljit was a member, had checked in the Olympic village and played some practice games against other participating teams before the unfortunate withdrawal of Kenya from Olympic Games just before the start of the mega event. Six months of hard work and training had gone down the drain. It did not end with that. Subsequently, we were again the victims as the US-led group called for a boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games. Our prime years of playing hockey and aspirations of playing in Olympic Games were all dashed to the ground.

I want to come back and work at grassroots and train young Kenyans to be Olympians in hockey, says Kuljit Singh Dhatt, who came as a coach of London Tigers for the Vaisakhi Tournament.

The Vaisakhi event also revived memories of many many players, many of whom were not only born in Kenya but had their initial hockey years in this God’s Heaven country. They all look for opportunities to come back home and revive their association with this great game that has given them a special and separate identity as Simbas or Lions.

We all are proud of our lineage and rich heritage. We remember those old days when we watched legends like Avtar Singh Sohal, Surjit Singh, Inder and others play. We want that glory to return and see Kenya back on the World hockey map as a major force.

With Sikh Unions of both London and  Nairobi joining hands, it may not be far to see their dreams coming true. In fact, it was interesting to see some former Kenyan hockey stars like Ravinder Singh Laly.  Jaswant Singh Bansal, Harvinder Singh Sibia and Ghataure back on field to make the first major hockey event of Sikha Diaspora after the Covid pandemic  a roaring success.