The city of Gojra in Toba Tek Singh district has historically remained part of various administrative units, namely Sandal Bar, Chenab Colony, Lyallpur district and Faisalabad district. But it is more famous for being a nursery of world famous hockey players.

The credit of grooming such a large number of players from Gojra goes to two former members of the Pakistan hockey team — Ustad Aslam Roda and Iqbal Bali — both fullbacks. Both of them worked selflessly to give the country numerous hockey players. However, it is a forgotten fact that the first hockey Olympian from Gojra was Gurcharan Singh Grewal, who participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin. His younger brother Mehar Singh Grewal was also a prominent hockey player.

Gurcharan and Mehar belonged to Chak No 297/JB (also called Gapgarh) situated only two kilometres from Gojra off the Gojra-Jhang Road. Though Gurcharan is stated to have been born on May 4, 1911 in Lahore, Mehar was born on December 25, 1916 in the village. They had another brother named Bhajan Singh Grewal. Their father, Sardar Inder Singh Grewal, was an engineer and remained chief boiler inspector for the Punjab Government.

The settlement of Sandal Bar was started by the British in the late 19th century. People from various districts were given incentives for inhabiting it. Gurcharan’s grandparents came from Qila Raipur (also spelled as Kila Raipur) village in Ludhiana district (in current India) to Chak No 297/JB as settlers, where they were allotted agricultural and residential land.

Gojra in Pakistan is renowned as a factory line for some top hockey players of the country. But what’s often forgotten are two illustrious pre-Partition hockey players from the same area, including its first Olympian

Inder was also a philanthropist. Though a permanent resident of Chak No 297/JB, he continued to care for the welfare of the people of the ancestral village of his grandparents. It was Inder who formed the Grewal Sports Association in 1933 and organised the first Qila Raipur Sports Festival. The festival has been a regular annual feature since then.

He had also built a kothi (bungalow) on Temple Road in Lahore so that his sons could receive better education in Lahore. He was fond of horses and played polo. Inder died on September 10, 1942 after a fall from a horse near Gojra.

Gurcharan studied at Government College, Lahore. He was a member of the Punjab hockey team which won the 1932 Inter-Provincial Hockey Championship. He was selected for the Indian hockey team for the first and only edition of the Western Asiatic Games, held in Delhi in 1934. He played as a right-fullback in the only match of the tournament, which was played between Afghanistan and India. The host country won this match 5-0, to clinch gold in the tournament.

He was again a member of the Punjab hockey team in the Inter-Provincial Hockey Championship held in 1936 (no championship was held in 1934). He was selected to the Indian hockey team to participate in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and played one match as left-fullback against the US in this tournament. India beat Germany 8-1 in the final to win gold. After the Berlin Olympics, Gurcharan completed two years of practical training in mechanical engineering at Glasgow and returned to his homeland in 1938.

Mehar started playing hockey at Lahore’s Forman Christian College and later shifted to Government College. After the Berlin Olympics in 1936, both brothers played against each other in a match in Lahore, played between the Punjab hockey team and the Indian hockey team. Mehar was the Punjab hockey team’s goalkeeper and Gurcharan one of the fullbacks of the Indian hockey team.

In an extraordinary accident on February 28, 1937 in Lahore, the young captain of the Government College Lahore hockey team, Faqir Chand Khanna, was killed during the course of play.

The 25-year-old fullback was leading the college team against the North Western Railway team in a semi-final of the Punjab Hockey Championship. Mehar, who was the college goalkeeper, stopped a shot from an opposite player and cleared it with a forceful drive. His hit struck his own captain, who somehow came in the trajectory of the shot, just above his heart and Khanna fell unconscious. He was taken to the Mayo Hospital, but the injury proved fatal within 10 minutes of the incident.

Mehar was subsequently made captain of the Government College hockey team, which won the Punjab Hockey Championship in 1937-38. Similarly, he represented the Punjab hockey team in the Inter-Provincial Hockey Championship in 1938. In March that year, he was selected to the16-member Indian hockey team for the second Asiatic Games, which were planned in Tel Aviv (Palestine) from July 10 to 15, 1938. However, later these games were cancelled. The same year, Mehar went off for further studies to the University of Sheffield and returned only in 1946.

Towards the closing phases of World War-II and after, two Indian Services hockey teams visited various stations to entertain British troops. The first team was led by Dhyan Chand (then a lieutenant in the British Indian Army), which visited Manipur, Burma, the Far East and Ceylon. The captain of the second team was Gurcharan (then a captain in the British Indian Army); the team played matches in India, Burma and Malaya. 

At the time of Partition in 1947, the Grewal family crossed the newly created international border to migrate to India. Their destination was the same Qila Raipur village in Ludhiana district.

Gurcharan died of a heart attack at the young age of 37 on February 7, 1949 in Madras (now Chennai). At that time, he was serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army. He was chief ordnance officer of 206 Base Ordnance Depot in the suburb of Avadi.

Meanwhile, after Partition, Mehar joined the Indian Punjab Civil Service. He also became president of the Grewal Sports Association in Qila Raipur. He was selected to the Indian Hockey Federation team that toured East Africa in 1950-51. He also led the Patiala and East Punjab States Union hockey team to victory in the Indian Punjab Hockey Championship in 1952. His hockey career came to an end after a shooting accident in 1953.

Incidentally, Mehar’s son Melvinder Singh Grewal, a flight lieutenant in the Indian Air Force, became a Prisoner of War (PoW) in Pakistan during the 1971 war, when his plane was hit by ground fire and crashed. In August 1972, along with two other pilots of the Indian Air Force, he attempted to escape from the PoW camp, but they were apprehended. Melvinder was released in December 1972.

The writer is currently working on the history of hockey in British India

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 9th, 2025