The Independent India’s one of the greatest sporting moments was 400m gold in the 1958 Cardiff Commonwealth Games.

Indian Army athlete Milkha Singh placed the country on the world’s sports map by clinching gold in the 400m, then 440 yards, in the Cardiff Games.

Before that no Indian was able to be on top of the podium in any individual sports discipline at the world-level meet.

To make it a moment to rejoice for the entire country, Milkha Singh requested then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to declare a national holiday.

“When I got a message from Pandit ji, what I wanted in return for this gold medal, I couldn’t think of anything. As the medal belongs to every Indian, I requested him to declare a national holiday, celebrating India’s victory at the global level,” legendary athlete late Milkha Singh had said in one of the interactions.

It was for the first time that a national holiday was declared in honour of a sporting moment in Independent India.

Horrors of partition

The journey of the legendary athlete started from the horrors of partition.

The Redcliffe line divided the sub-continent into two nations (India-Pakistan) on religious lines. The partition led to riots, killing lakhs of people on both sides and Punjab province felt the impact the most.

Milkha, then in his early teens, had lost his parents and four siblings (three brothers and a sister) in the massacre.

Spent his childhood in Gobindpura village of Muzaffargarh (in Punjab province of Pakistan), Milkha had gone through the nightmare of partition. The rioters had turned the village into a cremation ground. Many dead bodies including Milkha’s mother, two brothers’ and their wives’ could not even be recognised.

Of the 2,000 odd people at his native village, only a handful survived. In Milkha’s family, his eldest brother Makhan Singh and his wife, two married sisters and Milkha survived.

Till his last, he didn’t forget how lucky or unlucky (for having lost his closest relations), he was to have survived the massacre.

Milkha stayed in the refugee camp, had to do odd jobs for survival, and had seen the worst of his life. But he had given Independent India one of its biggest sporting moments.  

Jai Hind