From Partition to penalty strokes, sport has long mirrored India-Pakistan tensions. This rivalry reflects more than just the scoreboard.
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At the 1948 London Olympics, “the Indian and Pakistani teams were billeted at different places,” noted the late Indian hockey player Balbir Singh Sr. “Our old friends were deliberately keeping a distance from us.” How should the dissolution of friendships be understood? Athletes, of course, shake hands. But this is required protocol, much like a diplomat’s handshake. The on-field contest, however, is far less friendly.
At independence, Pakistanis, while comparing themselves to Indians, felt ‘separate and superior’.[1] Pakistan’s late Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, wrote about a Muslim state equal to Hindu India.[2] This sense of equality—if not superiority—remains strong, and was most recently echoed by Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir.
Pakistan’s athletes often champion the state’s “grievance politics,” constructed around a supremacist interpretation of Islam. Why did Mohammad Rizwan perform an Islamic prayer in front of Indian players after a T20 World Cup match? Even if some athletes do not feel personal hostility, they must nevertheless align with the state ideology to receive funding.
Pakistan’s athletes often champion the state’s “grievance politics,” constructed around a supremacist interpretation of Islam.
It is often assumed that sporting rivalries are irrelevant to politics and economics. This is certainly not the case. With the Islamic world acting as a rear defence[3] Pakistan refuses to concede.[4] Notably, Pakistan’s best hockey managers—Air Chief Marshal Nur Khan and Brigadier M.H. Atif—were drawn from the armed forces.
When the sense of equivalence was at its peak, Pakistan led the rivalry 74–42 (between 1960 and 2010). Athletes may have inserted the Partition mythology into sport (with even more evidence of this in cricket). Curiously, Indian athletes, too, appear bound to the idea of equivalence. Former Indian hockey coach Roelant Oltmans had once remarked that India should aim higher than merely defeating Pakistan or winning in Asia.[5] “We should not be Pakistan-centric,”[6] asserts Ravi Kant Srivastava, executive director of Hockey India. However, athletes often fail to grasp this.
Does Pakistan’s 82–67 win- loss record make it the better team? No. Pakistan failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2014 and 2023, and the Olympics in 2016, 2020, and 2024. In spite of a stellar past–earning three Olympics and four World Cup titles–Pakistan’s decline has been precipitous. Since 2015, India has won two silver medals and five bronze medals in elite events, including two bronze medals in the Olympics. “Let’s not talk statistics. Pakistan has fallen behind,”[7] Srivastava adds.
Yet, religious fervour and strategic equivalence alone do not explain why Pakistan once prevailed. Economic factors are also important.
Table No. 1
Per Capita Gross Domestic Product and Head-to-Head Record in Hockey (1950- 2000)
(1990 International Geary- Khamis Dollars)
| Year | Pakistan | India | Years | Won By Pakistan | Won By India | Draws |
| 1950 | 643 | 619 | ||||
| 1960 | 647 | 753 | 1950- 1960 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 1970 | 952 | 868 | 1960- 1970 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 1980 | 1,161 | 938 | 1970- 1980 | 9 | 3 | 1 |
| 1990 | 1,598 | 1,309 | 1980- 1990 | 22 | 14 | 10 |
| 1999 | 1,952 | 1,818 | 1990- 2000 | 13 | 9 | 4 |
Sources: GDP data from Angus Maddison’s The World Economy (2007) and match records from Bharatiyahockey.org.
According to S. Akbar Zaidi, during the Cold War, external aid constituted 5 percent[8] of Pakistan’s GDP. By the mid-1960s Pakistan’s economy grew at double the rate of population growth, investment stood at 20 percent of GDP, prices were stable, and foreign exchange reserves increased by 7.5 percent[9] annually (between 1950 and 1973, India’s GDP grew only by 3.54 percent annually[10]). After the former Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the infusion of foreign aid worth US$ 3 billion,[11] Pakistan’s annual average growth rate reached 6.2 percent[12] (1977–1981). Between 1980 and 2000, Pakistan won the hockey rivalry 35-23.[13]
India's per capita income grew more rapidly in the first 17 years of the 21st century than it did in the entire 20th century, according to Arvind Panagariya, as quoted by BBC. The International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook (April 2024) placed India’s per capita GDP at US$ 2,730 and Pakistan’s at US$ 1,460. Between 2010 and 2024, India won 24 matches, while Pakistan won only 8.
India's per capita income grew more rapidly in the first 17 years of the 21st century than it did in the entire 20th century, according to Arvind Panagariya, as quoted by BBC.
With Pakistan’s economic decline, the notion of equivalence has been reduced to a totemic principle. The Dawn newspaper refers to a ‘psychological barrier’[14] and Pakistani athletes now appear resigned to inferiority. “If these young boys go out there, fight and stand equal against India, that is a win for us as coaches," said Pakistan’s head coach Rehan Butt in 2023. Conversely, hyper- nationalism has shaped the mindsets of Indian athletes. "We don't want to disappoint our soldiers by losing,” asserts P.R. Sreejesh.
Such is the gap—still growing—that doubts must arise whether this remains the ‘fiercest’ of rivalries. Even with the possibility of real relegation, fans have remained loyal, but for how long? Given India’s unrelenting boycotts (except for the International Hockey Federation’s events), there is a risk that the rivalry will eventually fade from memory.[15]
Looking beyond sport, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, the international community acknowledged India’s right of response without the need to prove Pakistani complicity. Have athletes been guided in understanding India’s growing influence? Perhaps so, given the psychological dominance now evident.
The Cold War—and the foreign assistance that accompanied it—once helped support Pakistan’s rise as a hockey power. In 2025, practitioners and scholars must look beyond the sport and consider the intersection of sport and power within the international system. The study of International Relations must incorporate the analysis of sport within the Realist theoretical framework, and governments would do well to integrate sport into their statecraft.
Jitendra Nath Misra is a former ambassador, serving as Professor of Diplomatic Practice at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat. He is the editor and co-author of Radhaland and Worlds Beyond.
[1] Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 35.
[2] Zulifkar Ali Bhutto, If I am Assassinated… (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1979), 219.
[3] Jitendra Nath Misra, “The Partition Notebooks, A Review Essay,” Nação e Defesa (Nation and Defence), No. 150, 2018, 174- 175.
[4] In a video posted by Sana Amjad on YouTube a man identifying himself as Bilal says, “Against a mightier enemy we have, we are keeping, we are going on.” An unnamed woman: “I’m very biased towards the military.” See YouTube, “Which Is The Strongest Country INDIA Or PAKISTAN? | Pakistani Youth Opinion | Sana Amjad,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxKerdD6tB0.
[5] Soumitra Bose, “Beating Pakistan is not enough, says angry Oltmans after Canada defeat,” Hindustan Times, June 26, 2017, https://www.hindustantimes.com/other-sports/beating-pakistan-is-not-enough-says-angry-oltmans-after-canada-defeat/story-ZokvxydpjOjBjOb3KaX03J.html.
[6] Interview with the author in Delhi on April 22, 2025.
[7] Ibid.
[8] S. Akbar Zaidi, “Who Benefits from U.S. Aid to Pakistan?” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVI, No. 32, August 6, 2011, quoted in Praveen Swami, “CIA used India as base to spy on China’s nuclear programme in 1960s, JFK assassination files show,” The Print, April 8, 2025, https://theprint.in/world/cia-used-india-as-base-to-spy-on-chinas-nuclear-programme-in-1960s-jfk-assassination-files-show/2581981/.
[9] Gustav F. Papanek, Pakistan’s Development: Social Goals and Private Incentives (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 2.
[10] Angus Maddison, The World Economy (New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2007), 217. See “Table A3-e. GDP Growth Rates in 56 Asian Countries, 1820-1998.”
[11] Peter A. Pentz, “The Mujahidin Middleman: Pakistan's Role in the Afghan Crisis and the International Rule of Non-Intervention,” Penn State International Law Review 6, no. 3 (1988): 383.
[12] Government of Pakistan (GOP), Finance Division, Economic Adviser’s Wing, Pakistan Economic Survey 1980-81 (Islamabad, n.d.), 11.
[13] “Indo-Pak Year-wise Win-Loss Record,” September 30, 2024, http://www.bharatiyahockey.org/sankhya/indopak/years.htm. See also B.G Joshi, “Indo-Pak Year-wise Win-Loss Record,” Bharatiyahockey.org, http://www.bharatiyahockey.org/sankhya/indopak/years.html. Indian goalkeeper Mir Ranjan Negi was destroyed by the 1- 7 defeat to Pakistan in the 1982 Asian Games hockey finals.
[14] “Hockey’s Fortunes”, Dawn, November 1, 2016.
[15] The author has watched India and Pakistan play at Dhaka, Atlanta and Antwerp, and there was not the fan interest that we might have had in a home game in India or Pakistan.
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Jitendra Nath Misra is a former ambassador, serving as Professor of Diplomatic Practice at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat. He is the editor and co-author ...
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