It’s the saddest day in the life of Delhi Gymkhana, says AS Dulat

Gymkhana Club veteran Amarjit Singh Dulat is a much-pained man today. The goings-on in the Club, notably the appointment of yet another administrator after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) took over the 108-year-old institution last month, is a day he never thought he would witness.

"It is a very sad chapter in the life of this distinguished institution. This Club can hold its own against any other in the world. For the government to intervene in a private club, is unimaginable," says Dulat, a former chief of RAW from 1999-2000, who has spent quality time here along with the crème da la crème of the Indian bureaucracy, retired former Generals and other leading lights of the government and the civil society.

Last month, the Delhi Gymkhana Club invited suspension of its whole board/governing council. This followed a day after the Club sent a notice to the members to clear their dues totalling Rs 1.2 crore.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs handed over the administration of the club to MM Juneja, who has now been replaced by VK Yadav from the Ministry of Railways. The appointment of an official administrator was the first in the history of the Club.

Membership of the Delhi Gymkhana, more than, perhaps, any other Club in the country, has come to determine a person’s standing in the status-conscious capital. It is a certain guarantee that the highest honour in the national durbar has been conferred on an individual. The sprawling lawns, classy lounging bars, the stately restaurants, top-class sporting facilities and its resident cottages – all within a stone’s throw of the Prime Minister’s residence, with which it also shares a boundary wall – puts it in a league of its own, ranking even today, among the most British of British institutions, and Delhi has several. Memberships for the chosen ones could take as long as three-decades-and-half, on average.

A Fading Institution

Beyond the imperial facade and the old-world Victorian charm, however, lurks a malaise that suggests institutional decay – vicious infighting for membership, gross mismanagement and one that is particular to the national capital, jockeying for power.

"These slip-ups have been happening for a long time. It hasn’t happened overnight," Dulat rues, mournfully to Moneycontrol.

But it is not as if the government has intervened suo moto; after all, some members have asked it to intercede. "You have said it. I didn’t want to speak these words," says Dulat, who says he does not believe in pointing fingers at anyone.

Also Read: How Delhi Gymkhana got caught in nasty duel with government

Dulat was a former president of Delhi Gymkhana between 2005-2007 and one whose words reflect the deep agony of an individual who passionately loves the Club.

While disagreements in the management of the Delhi Gymkhana is hardly a state secret, things reached a pass in April last year when the central government moved a petition seeking a change of management there and appoint its 15 nominees as administrators to run the affairs of the 27.3-acre Club.

The petition was filed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), seeking action under Sections 241 and 242 of the Companies Act, which allows a member of a company or the government to seek relief if the affairs of the entity are being run in a manner 'prejudicial to public interest' or is 'oppressive', among other things. The government had used the same provisions of the Companies Act to get the NCLT approval to supersede the board of IL&FS in October 2018.

Incredibly, the central government cited 'parivarvad' or nepotism, financial irregularities, misuse of allocated land and issues related to membership, as the primary reasons for it to acquire the Club.

So, what is the best way out of a bad situation? Dulat believes that "the best way is to cooperate with the new administrator and give him all the help he wants. After all, he is a government nominee and will soon appreciate how the system works."

At the heart of the problem lies the issue of the Club’s prestigious memberships. For over a century, the Delhi Gymkhana has followed a thumb rule: 40 percent of the membership went to civil servants, 40 percent to the defence services and 20 percent to 'others'. The presidentship changed hands every two years between the civilian and army members. It was an arrangement that worked well.

Now, suddenly in the last few years, membership in the 'others' category, which also includes businessmen, has gone up. Oldtimers say values, once cherished, have given way to money power. That has led to some members petitioning the government, calling out for it to intervene - and that is what has happened.

A Situation That Could Have Been Avoided

What Dulat cannot fathom is before petitioning the government, why couldn’t some members have approached ministers in the ruling dispensation, who are Gymkhana members themselves? "It defeats me to think why some ministers in the current government, who are members of the Club, were not approached to sort matters out, instead of rushing to the government? That would have been the logical thing to do," he says.

He is equally baffled that the government offer to nominate two members to the Delhi Gymkhana Board was found unacceptable to the current dispensation. "Many clubs, including the Delhi Golf Club, has two government nominees in charge. What is wrong with that," he regrets, a trifle distressed that potentially, a good proposal had been nipped in the bud.

However, now that the water has breached a new high, Dulat hopes "this period too will pass, as all bad things go." Let us give our best to the new administrator, he points out. Perhaps more than anyone else, this Kashmir expert knows what he is saying.