Haripal Kaushik
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A brief biography
Avijit Ghosh, Dec 29, 2023: The Times of India
With a stick he wiped away the scars of battlefield
TIMES Special
Hockey Champion. War Hero. But Barely Remembered Now. A New Book Recounts Olympian Haripal Kaushik’s Incredible Life
Avijit.Ghosh@timesgroup.com
When India regained the men’s hockey gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the triumph sparked euphoria across the country. Four years ago, India had suffered its first defeat in Olympic history after an unbroken reign of 32 years, a 0-1 loss to Pakistan. That agonising defeat in Rome had caused national mourning, filling the team with self-doubt. The Tokyo story – a win by the same margin over the same rival – was about restoration of faith and a collective national upliftment.
Among the hockey heroes of that cold and rainy day was also a war hero: Haripal Kaushik. Just two years back in the 1962 Sino-Indian war, Haripal’s courage and leadership had earned him a Vir Chakra. But the war had scarred his soul. He had almost given up the game.
Haripal’s resurrection and return is among the most heartwarming yet littleknown stories of Indian sports. Now, a new book pieces together and recreates his rare and remarkable life, in which the two disparate worlds of booming guns and sizzling runs coalesce.
“It is tragic that the story of Haripal’s comeback has never found the place and prominence that it deserves,” says former infantry officer Probal Dasgupta, whose book, ‘Camouflaged: Forgotten Stories From Battlefields’, devotes a chapter to the reconstruction of the soldier-sportsman’s life. Haripal had tasted agony and ecstasy much before Tokyo. A versatile forward, he was a member of the gold medal-winning team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics as well as the heartbroken unit of 1960 Rome. “He was magnanimous, never kept the ball to himself… he was the coolest player on the circuit,” fellow Olympian Col Balbir Singh had told The Sunday Tribune in 2018.
A Valiant Stand
In 1959, Haripal joined the 1st battalion of the Sikh Regiment as a commissioned officer. But the hockey stick made way for the gun when Lt Haripal, leader of the Delta Company, was posted with his battalion in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in July 1962, just a few months before the war in the cold mountains began. They were stationed at Tongpen La, a mountain pass close to the Sino-Indian border.
Dasgupta says that when his Commanding Officer told Haripal to prepare for a likely Chinese attack in October of that year, he immersed himself in preparations. He thoroughly studied the terrain and sought suggestions from seasoned JCOs like Joginder Singh, who was later decorated with a posthumous Param Vir Chakra for his gallantry.
“To deceive the enemy, Haripal cleverly positioned his Delta Company across different points, creating the illusion of a larger defensive force. Leading from the front, the energised leader moved between platoon posts, maintaining contact and motivating his men amidst flying bullets and falling shells… the valiant Sikhs, supported by accurate artillery fire inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, with Chinese historians estimating around 175 killed,” writes Dasgupta.
At this juncture, Haripal was asked to make a tactical withdrawal to another mountain pass, a tough task considering there was an enemy with superior firepower on the prowl. But the move was carried out with precision. Later, he was part of a column that the Chinese ambushed. But Haripal and 14 other soldiers managed to dodge the bullets. For a fortnight, they battled disease and hunger in the harsh winter. When the haggard bunch reached the new battalion base in Assam, they had been reduced to skeletons, their clothes in tatters.
“My father told me that they drank the water they found, even caught and ate snakes to survive. But he didn’t like talking much about those days of hardship. They brought back painful memories,” his daughter Veronica told TOI.
Battling Demons
Haripal came from Khusropur in Punjab, a village close to Jalandhar and in love with hockey. As a student, he would cycle around 10-15km to play the sport. He would eat gur-chana (jaggery and black gram) for energy. “He would say, ‘ghodey ka khana khaate thhey’ (we used to have a horse’s diet),” recalls Veronica.
That was then. After the 1962 war, Haripal lost the drive and the vitality to play the game. Though the war was over, it continued to haunt and torment him. The trauma of losing comrades on the battlefield affected his health. “He gained weight and appeared unfit,” writes Dasgupta.
That’s when Lt Col Karnail Singh Sidhu, the new commanding officer of the 1st Sikh Battalion, stepped in. En couraged by him, Haripal found a second wind. Yet when his name was included among the Olympic probables, many wondered if he still possessed his touch. However, by the time Kenya came to play a hockey Test series in the summer of 1964, Haripal was nearing his best. After a game in Lucknow that India won 3-1, TOI reported (May 4, 1964 edition), “Without doubt the most attractive player on view was inside-right Haripal Kaushik… Haripal, who is improving with each match this season, put in a grand performance.”
The Tokyo final was an intense affair. In the stands, the Pakistan supporters were cocky and vociferous “as though India were a fly merely to be swatted away”. But with custodian Shanker Laxman unbeatable under the bar, and Mohinder Lal’s penaltystroke goal, India prevailed.
‘Finding Peace’
Victories mean different things to different people. “For Haripal, the victory was also a closure, a way of finding peace,” says Dasgupta. But he wasn’t finished yet. As the team’s vice-captain, he helped India reclaim the Asian Games gold in Bangkok in 1966.
Haripal was a Lt Colonel when he took early retirement, shortly after his wife passed away in 1983. He worked as a general manager at a sugar mill in Phagwara, and also created his own brand of hockey sticks, Goal Getter, while playing the caring father all along. “He would tie my hair in plaits. He was both father and mother to me,” says Veronica. A tattoo on her right hand says, “Love, papa.” A textile designer, Veronica was away on work in Kolkata in 2014 when her father called her several times, wanting to know where she was. “He wasn’t worried. He just didn’t remember,” she says. It was the onset of dementia.
Haripal Kaushik passed away in Jalandhar in 2018. Fittingly, it was Republic Day.
