The Indian Hockey Federation was formed in the year 1925 in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh during the Scindia Gold Cup tournament. But it was not active after that.

After the end of the World War 1, the commander of the British Armed forces in India, Field Marshall Birdwood who was in charge of organizing the retreat of the combined Australian and New Zealand armies after the Gallipoli tragedy proposed a hockey tour to New Zealand in 1926 as a friendship tour. The tour Down Under gave a chance for revival of the Federations and thus began the efforts of consolidating the Indian Hockey Federation as the Indian Army's Hockey team toured New Zealand.

The Indian Hockey Federation gained global affiliation in 1927 and joined the International Hockey Federation (FIH). A national championship between provinces was organized in 1928 at Calcutta to select the Indian team for the Amsterdam Olympics

Thus began the history of Indian Hockey Federation as India entered the Olympics to begin its golden saga. The Army Hockey team's tour to New Zealand was the first tour undertaken by any Indian team representing IHF. And the players were conscious to project a good image and they had excellent skills that thrilled everyone. The tour was a huge success with India winning 18 of the 21 matches and the legendary Dhyan Chand was the cynosure of all the eyes scoring over 100 goals of the 192 Indian accounted for.

Then India bagged a hat-trick of gold medals at the Olympics. They began with Amsterdam in 1928 and followed it up with Los Angeles in 1932 and Berlin in 1936.

For both Los Angeles and Berlin India had problems. For LA Games, India was the only entry as the world was hit by economic depression. Then Indian Hockey

Federation president AM Hayman motivated Japan by organizing Indian team visit to give them practice and persuaded hosts to enter the fray. So hockey just managed to be in the Olympic field and that gave the world to see the magic of Indian hockey.

As such the hockey foundations were laid in the country, thanks to the leadership of stalwarts like Birdwood, Hayman and Jagdish Prasad.

In 1934 after the second Olympic gold, the Indian Hockey Federation inducted two Vice Presidents and a Treasurer. Thus the two member body of President and Secretary got a boost to become a five-member body.

After the Indian Independence in 1947, Naval Tata became the first President of the Indian Hockey Federation of Independent India.

During his tenure, the Indian team achieved another hat-trick of gold medals at the 1948 London Olympics, 1952 Helsinki Games and the Melbourne Olympics. Then Ashwini Kumar took over from Tata and was at the helm of affairs till 1974 to give way to MAM Ramaswamy.

Later, many presidents including I.M. Mahajan, Raja Bhalindra Singh and R.N. Prasad ruled till K.P.S. Gill took over in 1994.

In this period, India could gain only one gold medal at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 under the captaincy of Mr.V.Baskaran.

Under the present regime with Mr. K.P.S. Gill at the helm, assisted by Mr.K.Jothikumaran as Secretary General India started on a long road back developing hockey at all the age-group levels. Indian teams started winning the regional tournaments at Asian level and IHF is drafting ways to revive the past glory.