Biography Of Milkha Singh

Introduction 

Who is not familiar with the name of the Flying Sikh, Milkha Singh? The man who dominated the field of track athletics for over a decade. The man who set up some of the world-class records which remained unbeaten for decades. Milkha Singh was a man who had to run all his life. From running for his life to becoming a world-renowned track star he has undergone quite the journey. If you want to Know more about the legend that is Milkha Singh, then this is the place for you to start! Read this summary to know the awe-inspiring life story of Milkha Singh! 

Early Life 

Milkha Singh, better known by the name the Flying Sikh, was born on 20 November 1929 in Govindpura, a small village 10 kilometers away from Muzaffargarh city in Punjab Province, British India (now Muzaffargarh District, Faisalabad, Pakistan). There are quite a few records for Milkha Singh's birth date. In Pakistan (his birthplace}, records show it as 20 November 1929. Some other records note it as 17 October 1935 and 20 November 1932. His passport shows his birth date as 20 November 1932 as well. But 20 November 1929 has been used according to sources published after his death. Milkha Singh’s family was of Rathore Rajput origin, and they followed Sikhism. His parents were named Sampuran Singh and Chawali Kaur. Their occupations are unknown. Milkha Singh's parents had 15 children, but eight of them died before the partition. His educational qualifications include studying ina village school in Pakistan up to the 5th standard. 

As achild, Milkha Singh did have a slight experience in sprinting because he had to run 10 kilometers to and fro from his home and the school even though he did not realize it at the time. During the partition, he lost his parents and three of his siblings to the riots that arose at the time. Unfortunately, Milkha Singh bore witness to these killings. A few days before the carnage which turned his life upside down, Milkha Singh was sent to Multan to ask his older brother, Makhan Singh, for help. His brother was serving in the army at the time. On the train ride to Multan, Milkha Singh sneaked into the ladies' compartment to hide under a seat.He did this because of his fear of being killed by murderous mobs. By the time Milkha Singh and his brother, Makhan Singh, came back, rioters had burned down their village. They could not even recognize the dead bodies of their parents and siblings. 

Life After Partition 

In 1947, a few days after the devastating incident in which he lost his parents, Milkha Singh boarded an army truck headed for India, along with his brother and his wife, Jeet Kaur. Thus, started his tumultuous journey as a 15-year old refugee. They were dropped off near the FerozepurHussainiwala border in Punjab, India. After arriving in independent India, Milkha Singh frequently polished shoes to earn money. A lack of funds and opportunities forced him and his brother to move to Delhi, India. There he lived with his sister and her in-laws for a brief period. His sister's family resented having an extra mouth to feed and ill treated him. During this time, he earned a living by working ina small roadside restaurant. 

He was once taken as a prisoner at Tihar jail for traveling on a train without a ticket. Ishvar Kaur, his sister, sold some of her jewelry to pay for his release. After this, he stayed at a refugee camp in Purana Qila and then at a resettlement colony in Shahdara, located in Delhi. Milknha Singh’s brother got him admitted to the 7th standard at a local school, but he could not continue his studies as he fell into bad company. These experiences resulted in Milkha Singh becoming disappointed and disillusioned with life. As a result, he decided to live a life of dacoity. But his older brother, Makhan Singh, stepped in and persuaded Milkha Singh to join the Indian Army. After being rejected twice from recruitment in the Indian Army in 1949 and 1950, respectively, he started working as a mechanic. Later on, he got a job at a rubber factory where he was paid INR 15 per month. But due to a heat stroke, he could not continue his work and remained bed ridden for two months. In November 1952, on his third attempt, he finally got recruited into the army with his brother’s help. Milkha Singh was first posted to Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. From Srinagar, he was transferred to the Electrical Mechanical Engineering (EME) unit of the Indian Army at Secunderabad, a city in Telangana. During his tenure in the Indian Army, while stationed in Secunderabad, he was introduced to the sphere of track and-field athletics. The reward of the first race he participated in was a glass of milk every day, which was a boon for an underfed young adult. While in the army, after finishing in sixth place in a mandatory cross country run for the recruits in January 1953, he was selected to get special training in at.

International Career 

Milkha Singh has represented India in three Olympics from 1956 to 1964. Some of Milkha Singh’s coaches and mentors include Gurdev Singh, Charles Jenkins, and Dr. Arthur W Howard. In the 1956 Meibourne Olympic Games, he represented India in the 200 meters and 400 meters competitions. But because of his lack of experience, he was eliminated during the preliminary heat stages. He got the opportunity to meet Charles Jenkins, the winner of the 400 meters competitions at those Games. This meeting inspired Milkha Singh, and he also gained knowledge about various training methods. The loss at the 1956 Olympics hit him hard. 

“To keep myself steadfast to my goal, | renounced 

all pleasures and distractions, to keep myself fit and healthy, and dedicated my life to the ground where | could practice and run,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “Running had thus become my God, my religion, and my beloved.” In the National Games of India, held at Cuttack (in Odisha) in 1958, Milkha Singh set new records for the 200 meters and 400 meters competitions. At the Asian games held in the same year, he won gold medals in the same competitions. In the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, he won a gold medal in the 400 meters (440 yards at this time) competitions. He finished the event with a time of 46.6 seconds. It was independent India’s first athletics gold in the history of the Commonwealth Games. He credits this victory to his American coach, Late Dr. Arthur W Howard. Milkha Singh was the first Indian male to win an individual athletics medal at those Games. This record was broken in 2014 when Vikas Gowda won the gold medal. In the March of 1960, Pakistan invited Indian Athletics Team for a championship in Lahore. Milkha Singh was resistant to this because of his horrifying experience at the time of the partition. Jawaharlal Nehru (the then Prime Minister of India), convinced Milkha Singh to participate in this championship for the dignity of India. He raced against Abdul Khaliq in Pakistan, despite his ugly memories of the Partition era. After this race, General Ayub Khan (the then President of Pakistan), made a comment which resulted in Milkha Singh obtaining the nickname - The Flying Sikh. 

Some sources mention that Milkha Singh set a world record of 45.8 seconds in France, before the Rome Olympics in 1960, but the official! records list Lou Jones as the record holder, who ran 45.2 seconds at Los Angeles in 1956. At the Rome Olympics, he finished fourth place in the 400 meters final. At the 250 meters mark, Singh slowed down his pace, which allowed others to pass him. Singh says those errors cost him the gold medal and are some of his worst memories aside from the death of his parents. Otis Davis, Carl Kaufmann, and Malcolm Spence passed him and got the first three places in the competition. The game resulted in a photo-finish, and Milkha Singh finished at 45.73 seconds, losing the bronze just by 0.1 seconds. It became the Indian national record and remained unbeaten for almost 40 years. This record was broken in 1998 when Paramjit Singh beat it in 45.70 seconds. 

During the 1960 Rome Olympics, he became popular among the Romans because of his long hair and beard. Romans thought he was a saint after seeing him in his headgear. They were amazed at how a saint ran this fast. In 1962, at the Asian Games held in Jakarta, Indonesia, Milkha Singh won the gold medal in the 400 meters and the 4X400 meter relay races. In 1964, at the Tokyo Olympics, he had entered in the 400 meters and 4X400 meter, and the 4X100 meter relay races. 

But Singh did not partake in the 400 meters and the 4xX100m relay. In the 4X400m relay, the Indian team, comprising Milkha Singh, Makhan Singh, Amrit Pal, and Ajmer Singh were eliminated, after finishing last in the preliminary heat stages. 

It is rumored that Milkha Singh won 77 out of his 80 races, but these claims are bogus. The number of races in which he participated and the number of races in which he emerged victorious is unverified. At the 1964 National Games in Calcutta, Singh lost a 400m race to Makhan Singh. He did not finish first in any of his games in the 1960 Rome Olympics or the preliminary races at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Due to his phenomenal performances, Milkha Singh remained the greatest Indian Olympian for decades. His sprint and speed have been immortalized in his various records and medals. 

Later Life 

Due to his successes in the 1958 Asian Games, Milkha Singh got promotion from the rank of a sepoy to Junior Commissioned Officer in the army. In 1960, under the persuasion of Partap Singh Kairon (the then Chief Minister of Punjab), Milkha Singh left the army and joined the Department of Sports, Punjab, as the Deputy Director. As the Deputy Director of sports, he worked to develop sports infrastructure in Punjab and set up training programs for young people. He retired from this post in 1998. Milkha Singh was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award, for his sporting achievements. He refused to accept the Arjuna Award from the Government of India, saying that it was intended for young sports players of the country and not him. 

He elieved that the Arjuna Award was awarded to people with little to no active sports involvement. It stands testimony to the humble and down to earth nature of Milkha Singh. He said, “I have been clubbed with sportspersons who are nowhere near the level | had achieved”, and that the Arjuna Award had lost its prestige. During a speech in a college in Goa, he said, "The awards nowadays are distributed like ‘prasad! in a temple. Why should one be honored when he or she has not achieved the benchmark for the award? | rejected the Arjuna | was offered after | received the Padma Shri. It was like being offered an SSC [secondary school] certificate after securing a Master's degree". Milkha Singh was a man of great stature, and all his medals were donated to the nation. Initially, they were displayed at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi but were later transferred to a sports stadium in Patiala, Punjab. In the sports stadium, a pair of running shoes he wore in the Rome Olympics in 1960 is also displayed. In 2012, Milkha Singh donated the pair of Adidas shoes he had worn in the 400m race of the 1960 Olympics to sell in a charity auction. The auction was organized by the actor Rahul Bose. In 2008, the journalist Rohit Brijnath described Milkha Singh as “the finest athlete India has ever produced”. 

Media and Popular Culture 

Milkha Singh co wrote his autobiography, The Race of My Life, with his daughter Sonia Sanwalka, The book was published in 2013 and was a huge success, It gained immense popularity and inspired the Bollywood movie Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, released in 2013, which is a biographical film of Milkha Singh's life. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra directed the film. Farhan Akhtar played the lead role alongside Divya Dutta and Sonam Kapoor, both of whom played main characters. The movie gained tons of popularity in India and won multiple awards, such as the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment at the National Film Awards and five awards at the International Indian Film Academy Awards in 2014. 

The film made over Rs. 2.1 billion in the box office. The title of the film comes from a line in Milkha Singh’s autobiography. Milkha Singh sold the movie rights for just one rupee. Despite this, he inserted a clause stating that a percentage of the movie profits to be donated to the Milkha Singh Charitable Trust. Milkha Singh established the Trust in 2003 to help poor and needy sportspersons across the nation to achieve their dreams. It stands testimony to the mindful and kind nature of Milkha Singh. In his autobiography, “The Race of My Life” (2013), Singh described seeing his father being killed. “As he fell, Father screamed ‘Bhaag, Milkha, bhaag’”’ — “Run, Milkha, run,” he wrote. “With my father's warning running through my head, | fled for my life.” 

In September 2017, a wax statue of Milkha Singh, created by the sculptors at Madame Tussauds in London, was unveiled at Chandigarh, Punjab. The wax statue depicts Milkha Singh in a running stance during his glorious run at the 1958 Commonwealth Games. Currently, the wax statue is on display at Madame Tussauds museum in New Delhi, India. 

Personal Life 

Milkha Singh got married to Nirmal Saini, the former captain of the Indian women’s volleyball team. They first met in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1955 and later got married in 1962. Nirmal Saini later took on the last name, Kaur. Since she belonged to a Hindu household, her family initially opposed her union with Milkha Singh, a Sikh. But eventually, they relented. Singh has four children - three daughters and a son. His daughters are Aleeza Grover, Dr. Mona Singh, and Sania Sanwalkha. His son is Jeev Milkha Singh, a professional golfer. He was the first Indian to join the European Tour in 1998. Milkha Singh also has several grandchildren. In 1999, Milkha Singh and his wife, Nirmal Saini, adopted the seven-year-old son of Havildar Bikram Singh, who had died in the Battle of Tiger Hill. Milkha Singh resided in Chandigarh, Punjab. Despite his accolades and accomplishments, he lived a simple and humble life. Records and Honors Milkha Singh won the gold medal in the 200 meters racing category in the 1958 Asian Games held in Tokyo, Japan. He also won the gold medal in 400 meters racing category in those Games. In the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Cardiff, Wales, he won the gold medal in 440 yards race. In the 1962 Asian Games held in Jakarta, Indonesia, he won the gold medal in the 400 meters and 4X400 meter relay races. In the Cuttack National Games, which took place in 1958, Milkha Singh won the gold medal in both the 200 meters and 400 meters races. He won the silver medal in the 1964 Calcutta National Games in the 400 meters racing category. Milkha Singh was awarded the rank of an Honorary Captain following his success as an athlete. 

The Indian Government awarded Milkha Singh with the Padma Shri in 1959. On 24 May 2021, Milkha Singh was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at Fortis Hospital in Mohali, Punjab, due to COVID-19 induced pneumonia. For a while, his condition was said to be stable. But he ended up dying on 18 June 2021 at 11:30 pm in Chandigarh, Punjab, at the age of 91. A few days before his death, on 13 June 2021, his wife, Nirmal Saini, had also died due to COVID-19. Milkha Singh was laid on his funeral pyre with a framed photo of his wife in his hands. Milkha Singh was cremated with state honors. The state of Punjab observed a day of mourning on his death. His death is described as an insurmountable loss to the sports community of India. 

Conclusion 

This summary covers various aspects of Milkha Singh's life. You get to know the story of the man who started with nothing and gained everything with hard work and determination. You read about his humble beginnings and his life as a refugee. You read about how hard Milkha Singh worked to change his life. You also get to know how he acquired the nicknamethe Flying Sikh! 

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