Let me state at the outset that I’m not a member of the Gymkhana Club. Even if I wanted, I cannot afford it. Even if I could, it would take me a couple of reincarnations to be let into that hallowed colonial building, which has the most beautiful dance floor best suited to waltz, not Bharatanatyam or Garba. Nor does it have any relevance to the economic crisis we are going through. Of late, the powers-that-be have exhibited a dedicated impatience with anything associated with refinement, exclusivity or old-world charm, which is swiftly reduced to a property dispute. The ideological conversation has ceased to be about continuity or achievement, and has instead become an argument over acreage and access. This is true of the Gymkhana Club, the Jaipur Polo Grounds, and India’s historic racecourses. To critics of a particular hue, these are just playgrounds of privilege occupying valuable urban land. Such judgments, however fashionable now, miss the deeper significance of these places. The Delhi Gymkhana was indeed a sign of imperial hauteur. Yet Independent India did not bulldoze it, or nationalise it into irrelevance. Instead of converting it into a temple of grievance, we assumed stewardship of it.
That distinction matters.
In March, the Central government issued a 15-day eviction notice to the historic Jaipur Polo Ground authorities. Fortunately, the Delhi High Court intervened, and stayed the eviction. Ironically, polo, a sport mistakenly associated with British aristocracy, is linked to the Indian subcontinent. The British may have popularised the game, but free India has recovered it as its own. Some of its finest polo players are from the Indian Army, whose cavalry traditions preserve and strengthen the sport. The Jaipur Polo Grounds are not merely sporting venues, but thriving reminders of our military heritage, horsemanship and a sporting culture that predates modern politics. The same can be said of racing. Long before racecourses were built by the colonial administration, horses occupied a place of honour in Indian tradition. They thunder through the Vedas, the epics and the chronicles of kingdoms from Rajasthan to the Deccan. Cavalry power decided the destiny of dynasties. Breeding stables and statecraft strategy went hand in hand. Equestrian culture did not come to India from across the seas; it was already a cultural phenomenon in the ethos of our subcontinent. The current, escalating tendency to imagine every inherited post-colonial institution through the lens of social and cultural revenge is absurd. The attempt to reduce the Gymkhana Club, polo grounds, and racecourses to mere “elite real estate” reflects a politics of resentment rather than a politics of confidence. A secure society does not declare war against every reminder of a past order. A mature response to such a complex history is neither worship nor vandalism. It is the smooth transition of stewardship. India’s greatest moments aren’t results of cultural spite. They have emerged from absorption, adaptation, and then renewal. We took the English language and converted it into an instrument of post-colonial success; we even donate Indian words to the Oxford English dictionary. We entered institutions once reserved for the whites and became their leading lights. Indians now direct multinational corporations, shape scientific research, teach in the world’s leading universities, and drive tech revolutions. The old colonial assumption of Western superiority is being loudly undermined by decades of Indian accomplishment. Seen in that light, the Gymkhana Club occupies a place in contemporary history far larger than its elitist reputation suggests. Whether the Pokhran blasts or liberalisation, India did not inherit the shell of a dead empire. Instead it acquired the pride to own it unapologetically and created an empire of its own with the effort of titans like Vallabhbhai Patel.
Confusing inheritance with endorsement is ridiculous. The British haven’t torn down Norman churches or Anglo-Saxon castles. Germany hasn’t razed Soviet edifices. America, a former British colony, has preserved Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and the Independence Hall in Philadelphia. What all will we demolish to suit India’s cultural silhouette of the future? The French architecture of Pondicherry and Chandannagore? The Dutch fort of Kannur? The Portuguese homes in Goa? The colonial villas where India’s political elite in Lutyens’ Delhi live? Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is not a civilisation perpetually settling scores with the past. It is meant to describe a nation expansive enough to absorb contradictions without becoming hostage to them in a fit of cultural insecurity. To view the former British clubs of Delhi and Bombay, polo grounds and racecourses, only through the arithmetic of land values therefore signifies historical myopia. They are reminders that a nation can emerge from subjugation without becoming captive to resentment. India’s civilisational ethos has rarely been rooted in vindictiveness. It owns a philosophy expansive enough to accommodate diversity, excellence, tradition, and modernity simultaneously. There is a vital difference between ownership and possession.
