Notify hockey as India's national game: Patnaik to Modi

BHUBANESWAR: In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has pointed out that hockey – has never been notified as the national game.

"As you know sir, the next World Cup Hockey will be held in Odisha in November this year. While reviewing the preparations, I was surprised and shocked to know that what is popularly known as the National Game - Hockey, has in fact never been notified as our National Game," wrote Patnaik on Wednesday.

The Odisha CM said it would be a fitting tribute to the great hockey players who had made our country proud if this were done. “In the tribal areas of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, hockey is a way of life. In fact in the first of its kind the state of Odisha is sponsoring the national hockey team for the next five years,” said Patnaik.


Former Indian captain, and former BJD MP, Dilip Tirkey said he, like the the rest of the country, woke up to the fact that India had no national game when in 2012, in a reply to a ten year old school girl's RTI querry, the Ministry of youth affairs clarified that no game had ever been officially granted national status.

"Hockey has given so much recognition to the country - eight olympic medals and a world cup -- ever since 1928 when Major Dhyan Chand shook the world with his skills.It would be a great message to the world and a morale booster if this status can be granted before the World Cup this Novembre," Tirkey told ET.