When India Won The Football World Cup

You’re right. The headline is a clickbait. India has never won a football world cup. To further rub salt in the wounds of Indian fans, I may add here that India has never even qualified for a World Cup. You must be incensed. You have every right to be. But if you bear with me, the story I am going to narrate is about a victory which would make a World Cup success pale in comparison.

It’s the story of indomitable spirit, hard work, determination, and eventual success. It’s the story of a colonised peoples clapping back at their imperial rulers. It’s the story of Mohun Bagan’s victory in the IFA Shield, 1911.

But first, a little background is necessary to fully grasp how mammoth of an achievement it really was. India was a colony of the Great Britain, as you all know. In the fag end of 19^th century and early 20^th century, Bengal had emerged as the leading hub of Indian Nationalism. The Britishers, true to their concept ‘divide et impera’ or ‘Divide and Rule’ philosophy, cut Bengal into two – East and West in 1905.

The Bengalis, especially of the West Bengal, did not like this idea one bit. There were protests with cries of “Vande Matram”, boycott of British made goods, assassination attempts directed at a number of British officials etc. In the annals of Bengali history, this phase is aptly referred to as the “Ogni Jug”, which loosely translates to “Era of Fire”.

The IFA Shield in those days reflected the power imbalance between the coloniser and the colonised. The Indian Football Association (IFA) itself was governed by a British dominated executive committee with Indian nationals finding no more than one seat on it, that too occasionally. The IFA Shield was dominated by British Regimental teams.

In those circumstances, entering the IFA shield was an achievement in itself for the all-Indian side Mohun Bagan. But the team was not content with merely competing – it craved for more. The team, which was bestowed with the moniker “Immortal XI” by the Amrita Bazar Patrika after its 1911 success, consisted mainly of Bengalis – defender Bhuti Sukul from UP was the only exception.

The team played barefoot as against the boot studded regimental teams. In this regard, Sudhir Chatterjee was the exception. He was also the only Christian in the team. On its way to glory, the Mohun Bagan defeated St. Xavier’s College, Rangers Club, Rifle Brigade, and the Middlesex Regiment.

It is surmised by some pundits that weak monsoon in 1911 may have inadvertently helped the Immortal XI as playing barefooted on a dampened ground would be a huge disadvantage. On a dry pitch, the game boils down to skills instead of accessories. Whatever the reasons might have been, everyone had begun taking Mohun Bagan seriously.

On the fateful day of July 29^th, 1911, the Mohun Bagan went to the temple of Kali to seek blessings. The Immortal XI were to play against a well-trained side of East Yorkshire Regiment, based in Ghaziabad. The match was much hyped – it was after all, a chance for the brown subjects to show the white masters their place. It was an opportunity to show that Indians could defeat the British in a game they invented. It was an opportunity, albeit token, to avenge the colonialism, racial injustice, religious prejudice, and most pertinently, the partition of Bengal.

The hype helped bring a crowd of eighty thousand to one lakh spectators at the venue – Calcutta Football Club. People thronged from various parts of eastern India to witness history. In fact, the East Indian Railway had to run special trains to accommodate the sea of humanity pouring into Calcutta. The two-rupee tickets to match were sold for as high as fifteen rupees – perhaps the first recorded instance of black marketing of tickets in India.

The venue did not have proper stands and most of the people had to follow the match through the roars of the crowd and Chinese whispers. To signal goals, kites of a particular colour were flown – Black for East Yorkshire, Maroon and Green for Mohun Bagan.

In the early minutes of the match, the Mohun Bagan did not seem to be organised enough, and the British team scored the first goal off a free kick. Black kites were flown and British ladies in attendance burnt the effigy of Mohun Bagan. However, the native boys came back slowly but strongly. The captain and left winger Shibdas Bhaduri shot in an equaliser in the twentieth minute of the first half and then assisted the winning goal in 87^th minute, which was netted by the centre forward Abhilas Gosh.

The team had become immortalised. In Bengal, as in the rest of India, it was clearly seen as a payback. There were loud shouts of “Vande Matram”, and “Mohun Bagan ki Jai” in the streets of Calcutta, the entire city was bathed in lights, and the players were taken in a procession atop a horse driven carriage – quite like the European Clubs’ bus ride following a victory we see these days.

The Indian newspapers made a big deal out of it and it was seen as a Bengali/Indian victory over their colonial masters. But the club itself played down the national sentiments. Following the victory, the club management told the government mouthpiece The Statesman that it was not desirable to make a “fuss of the success”. And it made sense too. The then secretary of the club, Sailendra Nath Basu was a Subedar Major in the British Indian Army and half a dozen players were employed either in Government service or British owned companies.

Be that as it may, the victory had given wings to Indians – not only to be emulated later in the sports arena by the Indian hockey team but also in a general socio-political sense. The victory was seen as that of “Good” over the “Evil”, as if the incident was a retelling of ancient Indian epics. The team was eulogised as “Immortal XI”. The club saw unprecedented rise in fan following, which survives a century after that fateful day. In a telling departure from its erstwhile offcial stand, the club’s fans take pride in this win by locating it within the political context of those days.

Following is an excerpt from the narration on the club’s fan-run website, which is rife with nationalistic fervour:

“It is said that when the team was returning to the club with the shield, a Brahmin pointed to the Union Jack atop the Fort William and asked – “When will that come down?”

Someone replied that it will come down when Mohun Bagan will win the shield again.

It may be a coincidence, but Mohun Bagan won their next shield in 1947 – the year of Indian Independence”

Clearly, the victory has been etched in the memory of Indian football fans forever – it is as if India won a football World Cup.