The Flying Sikh of our Nation! The story of Legendary Milkha Singh

Article by Puja Mahanta, Pragyamita Saha, The North-Eastern Chronicle

Visuals by: Rahul Haloi

Milkha Singh, a five-time Asian champion, also known as the Flying Sikh of India, was a track-and-field athlete who became the first Indian male to reach the final of an Olympic athletics event, won four Asian gold medals, and finished fourth in the 400m final at the 1960 Rome Olympics. So today, let’s know the story of our legendary Milkha Singh

He won five golds in international athletic championships and was awarded the Helms World Trophy in 1959 for winning 77 of his 80 international races. He also won India’s first Commonwealth gold in 1958. He was born in a Sikh Rathore family on November 20, 1929, at Govindpura Pakistan.

Milkha’s new journey

Deprived with the memories of killings and violence during the partition of India, Singh began his journey visualising himself as an orphaned and displaced who witnessed his parents and seven siblings murdered during the Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

As his father fell, his last words were “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag“, exhorting his son to run for his life. The boy first ran to save his life, and then to win medals for the nation. Engaged in insignificant crimes to survive in the refugee camps of Delhi, he also went to jail for those and failed three attempts at joining the Army.

Who could have imagined that a man like that would get the title of ‘The Flying Sikh‘? But Milkha Singh earned it and earned it with pride and showed how to be bigger and better than one’s circumstances.

Also read: A Chair to be established after Milkha Singh’s name in Sports University, Patiala: Punjab CM

During the partition of India, Singh moved to India from Pakistan in 1947. He started his life by working in a roadside restaurant, taking petty crimes, and doing odd jobs for survival before discovering his athletic abilities and joining the Indian army.

It was in the army that Singh realized his abilities as a sprinter. After winning the national trials in the 200-metre and 400-metre sprints, he was eliminated during the preliminary heats for those events at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.

Milkha was introduced to sports while serving in the Indian Army where he took a compulsory cross country run which opened the door of special training in athletics for him in 1951. The coach tells Milkha that his shoes will be his good friends in the future. The advice is very much valid for everyone.

Singh won both the 200-metre and 400-metre races at the 1958 Asian Games and later that year he won the 400-metre gold at the Commonwealth Games, which made him India’s first athletics to win gold in history of the Games. He narrowly lost the bronze medal in the 400 metres at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome and missed out on a third place in a photo finish.

Singh was awarded the Padma Shri (one of India’s highest civilian honours) in 1959. After his retirement, he served as the director of sports in Punjab. Singh’s autobiography, The Race of My Life (co-written with his daughter Sonia Sanwalka), was published in 2013.

Singh kept possession of his 400-metre gold at the 1962 Asian Games and also took another gold as part of India’s 4 × 400-metre relay team. He made a final Olympic appearance at the 1964 Tokyo Games as part of the national 4 × 400 teams that failed to advance past preliminary heats.

Milkha Singh was once persuaded by late former PM Jawaharlal Nehru to keep his partition memory aside and to race against Abdul Khaliq who was also known as the fastest man in Asia (1960) which lead the way to acquire the nickname of ‘The Flying Sikh’. The race for which Singh was best known as he secured fourth place and finished it in 400 meters in the 1960 final Olympic games.

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is a movie based on the biography of Milkha Singh and is the sixth highest-grossing 2013 Bollywood film worldwide and became the 21st film to gross ₹1 billion (US$14 million).

Also read: Makhan Singh: Olympian who once took down legendary ‘Flying Singh’

This movie was acclaimed to be the most popular film at the National film award where Singh sold the movie rights for just Rupee 1.

On June 18, 2021, Milkha Singh went for a heavenly abode at the age of 91 in Chandigarh’s PGIMER hospital after battling COVID-19 for a month. He died less than a week after losing his wife Nirmal Kaur, a former national volleyball captain.

Also read: Legendary Sprinter Milkha Singh passes away at 91 due to COVID-19

The nation mourned the end of the flourishing era as it honours nonagenarian sprint icon, Milkha Singh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to him by calling him a “colossal sportsperson”.
Milkha Singh, you will be missed.