Calcutta, Aug. 29 :    Calcutta, Aug. 29:  Indian hockey superstar Dhanraj Pillay's attitude has acquired a diplomatic hue. He can now sidestep uncomfortable questions with as much ease as he can move through rival defences. Today, in the city, he put it clearly: 'There exists no difference between me and the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF). 'We have qualified for the World Cup, and that should be our only aim now,' he told mediapersons after attending a function organised by the West Bengal Hockey Umpires' Association here to commemorate the 96th birth anniversary of hockey wizard Dhyanchand. Controversy and Pillay are not strangers. The player has been involved in matters that had Sydney Olympic Games coach K.K. Baskaran commenting adversely (without mentioning names), and that had IHF president K.P.S. Gill insist that no player, however great (naming Pillay), is larger than the federation. 'He is right,' said Pillay, 'nobody is greater than the federation.' Sounded too un-Pillay-like, so to say. Pillay has always been against the IHF's constant - and often arbitrary -chopping and changing of coaches and players. In a sort of dictatorial manner, the IHF president has thrown out players, penalised them and then brought them back. Ditto, for coaches. Gill's dominance is such that today even Pillay refuses to be drawn into any further battles, though he does say: 'I was against such constant changes since I had started playing hockey.' Today he made it clear that he was happy Cedric D'Souza was back as coach. 'He is a modern-minded coach, and with the few months left for the World Cup we should be able to put up a good show at the World Cup,' he said. On D'Souza's comment that it was enough just to be able to qualify, and that's all he was looking forward to, Pillay avoided the issue of the players' morale in this and said it was okay and it was fine that the team made it, in whatever manner. Pillay's positive attitude towards the coach should go a long way in bringing back cohesion into the team. The relationship between him (and many in the team) and Baskaran was strained. He sidestepped a query as to whether the differences had already become glaring before the match versus Poland (in Sydney) through which India even lost a chance to go to the Champions Trophy. Pillay, incidentally, was a mere passenger in that match. On his recent trouble with the IHF when he refused to attend a training camp in Jammu because of a Lakshar-e-Toiba threat, Pillay said he was absolutely justified. 'I said you hold camp anywhere else, in Bhopal, in Patiala or any other place, I had no problem,' he said. 'But if there is a life threat nagging you at the back of your head, you just cannot play.' He felt that India have a fair chance in the ensuing World Cup and that he was looking forward to leading the country yet again. He said he was totally fit now, his injury having healed. 'Fraud, corruption in federation' Star defender of India's 1975 World Cup (Kuala Lumpur) winning squad and former MP Aslam Sher Khan, who was also present at the function here, said the IHF was today 'full of fraud and corruption.' Never known to mince his words, Khan - son of hockey international Ahmed Sher Khan who played under Dhyanchand's captaincy in the 1936 gold-winning campaign at the Berlin Olympics - said: 'When the international body (FIH) was bribed by multinationals who wanted to sell their Astroturf surfaces, we stood mutely, no protesting. Now that the world is playing on synthetic surfaces, a poor country like ours has surely missed the bus.' He said that the federation has been full of 'people who were far removed from hockey.' There was M.A.M. Ramasamy, who bought the IHF off for Rs 15-20 lakh, and shared the glory and glamour, but where was hockey? Even now, the dictatorship that goes on at the federation offices is to be seen to be believed.' When asked why people like him who has raised his voice as a politician in Bhopal, did not come forward to challenge the present office bearers and take up the mantle, he said he lacked the financial muscle. 'No presidential post in any major sporting body in the country today is held by anybody who has played the game at any level,' he said, adding Milkha Singh did right by refusing the Arjuna Award. 'Somebody has to protest the corruption-raj.' At the function the organisation felicitated the stalwarts of hockey and football, and also, Entally Academy, on being adjudged the best school. Pillay also inaugurated a blood donation camp and was even the first donor there. Samar to leave India Trade and commerce has long been shown the way out of this so-called 'communist' outback of West Bengal. Now the luminaries follow. Ex-international hockey goalkeeper Samar Mukherjee will migrate to the US (New Jersey) on September 8, taking his family with him. 'Maybe I'll try to put in some hockey camps here, but I have to leave because I want by children to have a good life,' he said. 'I run a business here that is fast running out of steam because of the downtrend. I have to resuscitate it. My elder son is in Chicago on a tennis scholarship, but my younger son likes cricket. That's a dead game, hardly even a sport.' Mukherjee feels there is little by way of opportunity left in this country 'and especially this state' for anybody wanting to make it big. He will feel a trifle bad about it all, though, he says aside.