Mumbai: As the largest-ever Indian contingent left the country for Paris to participate in the upcoming 2024 Paralympic Games starting on August 28, all of the participants will be dreaming of winning the biggest prize in their respective sports discipline — a gold medal.
The contingent is expected to break the record for India’s best-ever medal haul in Paris 2024 with Paralympic Committee of India President Devendra Jhajharia, himself a two-time gold medallist in javelin throw at the Games, predicting the country to bag more than 25 medals. India is hoping to improve on the 19 medals won in the 2020 Games in Tokyo, which included five gold.
While members of the 84-strong contingent gunning for gold medals at the Games, many of them may not be aware of the person who launched these billion dreams — India’s first gold medallist at the Paralympic Games.
Murlikant Rajaram Petkar made history in the 1972 Paralympic Games in Heidelberg, Germany when he won a gold medal in the Men’s 50m Freestyle 3 competition, twice improving on the World Record on his way to a golden triumph. In the final, he clocked 37.331 seconds and set a new World Record after breaking the previous record in his first race in Heidelberg.
A soldier of the craftsman rank in the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) of the Indian army, Petkar suffered debilitating injuries when the army camp he was staying at in Srinagar came under aerial attack during the 1965 war with Pakistan.
Petkar, who was 28 when he won the historic gold medal, took to the swimming pool in times when disabled people did not get much support from the government and society. He was advised to participate in sports to speed up his rehabilitation after suffering the injury.
He had to surmount many hurdles to participate in the Paralympic Games of 1972, and one of those who extended him monetary help was former India cricket captain Vijay Merchant, who was at that time heading an NGO for disabled people and arranged for Petkar’s ticket to Germany.
Petkar’s story is one of the resilience and hardship of a boy from rural Maharashtra who set pulses racing with his masterful achievements in the swimming pool and gained tremendous adulation in the immediate aftermath of his Paralympic Games triumph.
However, his achievement as the first Indian to win an individual gold medal in either the Olympics or Paralympic Games was forgotten by people for decades and was not even part of the toughest of general knowledge quiz contests. He did not even get an Arjuna Award for his achievements. The fact that India did not win another gold at the Paralympic Games till 2004 when Jhakharia won in Athens too did not bring out his story into the limelight.
But Murlikant Petkar emerged in our conscience once again in 2012 when the Paralympic Games in London were televised in India and people were mesmerised watching HN Girisha winning a silver medal in the Men’s High Jump F42. At that time even the PCI administration had no idea about Petkar’s achievement.
The legendary swimmer finally got due recognition from the government when he was awarded the Padma Shri in 2018.
Born on November 1, 1944, at Peth Islampur in Sangli district of Maharashtra, Petkar’s life was progressing on an upward trajectory as he was emerging as a boxer of repute in the Services and bagged a silver medal in the International Services Sports Meet at Tokyo, Japan in 1964.
On returning to his home base in Secunderabad, he was given a short vacation and a trip to Jammu and Kashmir as a reward for bringing laurels to his Army Unit. The visit to Kashmir was arranged by his Unit Commandant and his stay was scheduled at the army camps in Srinagar.
It was during this vacation that Petkar’s life took a drastic turn. Not a frontline soldier, Petkar was caught in a war between India and Pakistan and the camp in Srinagar where he was staying came under enemy attack.
“I was out for tea in the afternoon when a siren was blown to indicate an aerial attack. I tried to rush back to my room but firing had already started,” recollects Petkar, who received multiple bullet injuries and was also run over by an army vehicle in the chaos.
Rendered paraplegic for life, the young army soldier did not wallow in grief for long and launched a second innings that took him to greater heights than he could probably have achieved as a boxer. Within three years of his injury, Petkar represented India in the 1968 Paralympic Games in table tennis and reached the second round in men’s singles.
Petkar moved to INHS Asvini, the Navy hospital in Mumbai (then Bombay) for rehabilitation and was asked by the physiotherapist there to take up swimming as part of the programme.
That changed his life once again as the upper body strength that he had gained as a boxer helped him in swimming and Petkar soon became the best in his class in the world, eventually winning the gold medal in the 1972 Paralympic Games.
“I was always confident of my abilities and gave my best in the first race itself and set a world record. The final was quite tough. Normally I am not bothered about the lane I swim and set the world record from the first lane. But for the final, I wanted the middle lanes (3rd or 4th) and I got the third. I thought it was a good omen and gave it my best shot,” says Petkar of his competition in 1972.
While the gold in the 1972 Games was his crowning glory, Petkar won a lot of other medals for India.
In a career spanning two decades, Petkar won medals at the Stoke Mandeville International Paraplegic Meet held in England where he consistently outdid his records and won the General Championship Cup for five consecutive years (1969-73); the 3rd Commonwealth Paraplegic Games held at Edinburgh, Scotland, where he bagged gold in 50m freestyle swimming, silver in javelin throw and bronze in shot put and the International FESPIC Games in Hong Kong in 1982 where he created another world record in 50m swimming.
However, he would always regret the fact that he could not participate in another Paralympic Games and win more medals for India.
After his retirement, he set up a swimming pool for disabled people in Pune and ran it successfully for many years. Currently, the 79-year-old Petkar is spending his retired life in Pune where his son Arjun is posted.
And every time an Indian contingent leaves for para-sports events, Murlikant Petkar is one of the many extending his wishes to the participants, telling them to win laurels for the country and tread the path that he paved decades ago in Germany — a path towards Paralympic gold medal.
