Power and Prestige at the Gymkhana Club
In India’s capital Delhi, power has traditionally flowed not only through ministries, embassies, and parliament but also through the shaded verandas of the Gymkhana Club.
For generations, the cream-coloured clubhouse on Safdarjung Road has served as a discreet enclave for retired generals, senior bureaucrats, and established business families to conduct negotiations over whisky sodas and kebabs. Even many Delhi residents who have never entered its gates have heard tales of its grandeur.
Now, that world faces an uncertain future.
Government Order to Vacate
Last week, the federal government, which owns the 27.3 acres on which the 113-year-old club stands, issued an order demanding the club vacate the premises by 5 June. The government stated the land is required for "defence infrastructure and other vital public security purposes."
The notice described the area as a "highly sensitive and strategic" zone near the prime minister’s residence and declared the lease terminated with "immediate effect."
Members have challenged this order in court, and the Delhi High Court heard the case on Tuesday.
The federal government informed the court it would not immediately take possession on 5 June and that any eviction would follow due legal notice. The judge indicated the club, its staff, and members could return to court to contest any eviction.
Context of Government Scrutiny
This action against the Gymkhana follows years of scrutiny of elite institutions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and has reignited debates about privilege, heritage, and public space.
It has also sparked an unexpected wave of nostalgia, with some Delhi residents expressing affection for a place they often claimed to disdain.
Membership and Exclusivity
The Gymkhana is expensive to join, but access has traditionally been controlled more by gatekeeping than price. Applicants must be proposed and seconded by members, after which a managing committee approves them. This process has historically favored senior civil servants and defence officers, with fewer places for others.
Critics argue this system sustains inequality, even as it makes the Gymkhana one of Delhi’s most coveted memberships.
Many remember how the club preserved a fragment of Delhi’s elite past through small rituals: liveried waiters at dusk, gin and lime on shaded verandas, retired generals and diplomats lingering under neem trees.
A Delhi-based senior journalist who never held membership told the BBC the club always felt "distant."
"But now I feel like stepping in once. It is one of the few structures in Delhi that has remained untouched while the city outside changed completely,"he said.
Historical Origins and Architecture
Founded in 1913 as the Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club, it emerged alongside the creation of Delhi as the British shifted India’s capital from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Initially operating from the Coronation Grounds in Civil Lines, serving British administrators and military officers, it was allotted its current site on Safdarjung Road in 1928.
The current clubhouse, designed in the 1930s by British architect Robert Tor Russell—who also designed the iconic Connaught Place—reflects early central Delhi architecture, with deep verandahs, high ceilings, and pale façades opening onto trees and lawns.
Inside, time seemed to move differently: tennis whites drying beneath the afternoon sun, bridge rooms carrying faint scents of cigarettes and talcum powder, elderly members reading newspapers beneath slow ceiling fans.
History lingered there in intimate ways.
Club’s Role in Colonial and Post-Colonial Eras
In its early decades, westernised Indian Civil Service officers—among the few Indians admitted into elite colonial circles—reportedly learned ballroom dancing and British social etiquette at the club as they navigated imperial society’s codes.
In 1947, as the British Indian Army was divided between India and the newly created Pakistan, officers from regiments about to be separated gathered at the club for farewell drinks before history placed them on opposite sides of a border.
That image—officers sharing one final evening together—helps explain why the possible closure of the Gymkhana feels so emotional to many in Delhi.
Places like these become repositories of memory, carrying traces of different eras inside them. Historian Narayani Gupta once observed,
"Cities are layered entities. Different generations leave their mark on them,"a sentiment that resonates with the club’s legacy.
Political and Social Significance
During the final years of British rule and early decades after independence, the club remained closely connected to the capital’s political life.
Speaking at the Gymkhana’s centenary celebrations in 2013, then President Pranab Mukherjee recalled that Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin, then Viceroy of India, had met privately there, leading to the Gandhi-Irwin pact.
After 1947, "Imperial" was dropped from the club’s name, but much of the atmosphere remained: dress codes, old carpets, evening drinks, and familiar waiters serving generations of the same families.
Over time, the Gymkhana also became shorthand for a certain kind of inherited privilege in Delhi.
Its notoriously long waiting lists—often spanning decades—became part of city folklore, while critics viewed the club as a symbol of influence shaped by personal networks and family legacy.
A retired Indian Police Service officer told the BBC it took him 18 years to gain membership.
"When I applied, I was fascinated by the idea,"he said.
"By the time I became one, I was totally indifferent and rarely visited it."
Ghazal Tansir, a Delhi-based doctor who first visited the club for her wedding reception in 2019 through a relative’s membership, described it as
"a preserved, undisturbed little nook of memories."
Government Actions and Controversies
This exclusivity increasingly came under scrutiny after Modi’s government took office in 2014, promising to shift power away from Delhi’s long-established English-speaking elite.
Following inspections in 2016 and 2019, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs approached a government tribunal in 2020, alleging financial irregularities and membership rule violations at the club.
Two years later, the tribunal dissolved the club’s elected governing committee and permitted the government to appoint administrators, a move that drew criticism from some members.
The latest eviction order has again divided opinion.
Diverse Opinions on the Club’s Future
Kiran Bedi, former top police officer and once the chief ministerial candidate for Delhi from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called the eviction
"unfortunate and tragic,"describing the Gymkhana as part of the capital’s sporting and institutional heritage.
Historian Swapna Liddle acknowledged the club’s elitist origins but said she would have preferred reform efforts rather than closure.
"Instead of just saying 'let it not exist', you [the government] could have asked how it could be changed and made meaningful for more people,"she said.
Others took a different stance. Journalist Prabhu Chawla criticized clubs like the Gymkhana as exclusionary institutions operating on heavily subsidised public land.
Former diplomat KC Singh, however, noted such clubs historically provided civil servants and military officers affordable recreational spaces despite modest salaries.
BJP spokesperson RP Singh rejected claims of unfair targeting.
"It is a property leased by the government,"he told the BBC.
"Everything has happened according to the rule book and relevant laws."
Emotional Resonance Amidst Urban Change
Beneath legal and political debates lies a deeper emotional response tied to memory and loss in a city constantly evolving.
Delhi has spent decades remaking itself. Almost every resident carries a private atlas of vanished places: Regal Cinema, the old Coffee House, Urdu bookshops in Daryaganj, winter evenings at India Gate before barricades and security cordons reshaped the city.
Yet some places seemed to outlast that churn.
The Gymkhana was one of them. It survived colonial rule, a bloodied partition, the tumult of independence, and Delhi’s transformation into a sprawling megacity.
If the club ultimately loses its home, the capital will still have newer clubs, finer hotels, and louder restaurants.
But many point out it may lose something less visible too: one of the last places where an old version of Delhi still felt alive.
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