Delhi Gymkhana and the power of myths

Delhi's chatterati, who always need something more than just fried peanuts with their gin and tonic, are abuzz these days with the latest canapes: the Modi government's hostile takeover of Gymkhana Club. It's not a done deal yet, but rest assured that our higher judiciary, with judgments like Ram Mandir, SIR, Umar Khalid, Aravallis, Hindenburg/SEBI, Pegasus, etc. under its belt, will finally approve non-passive euthanasia for  this last watering hole for the drones of south Delhi.

No one, of course, believes the reason cited by the government itself for the action, viz, that the 27 acres is needed for security/ defence purposes: this is the default position of the government for all decisions which push the boundaries of legality and/ or good sense.

Hence, there is much feverish speculation about the real motives for this surgical strike: the club's administrative and financial mess, non-payment of dues to the government, turning the entire area into a semi-militarised zone so that a Bangladesh, Nepal or 6 January type of incident never happens, fear of the Cockroach Janta Party, a real-estate operation which will ultimately benefit the Melody-loving leader's cronies. 

But all this assumes that this government acts rationally, which past decisions do not bear out. I have, therefore, a different take which matches the leopard's spots, as it were.

The BJP is a party which is founded on, and survives on, myths — past, present and future. It originates from the myths of ancient India — our epics, 'akhand Bharat', the existence of plastic surgery, aeroplanes, nuclear missiles thousands of years ago, etc.

In the present, it rules on the strength of other myths — Vishwaguru, fastest growing economy in the world, leader of the Global South, wolf warrior diplomacy, 'ghar mein ghus ke maarenge', developed country by 2047, net zero emissions by 2075, and so on.

None of these myths are based on facts or have a rational basis, but constant reiteration has converted them into legal fiction and kept the BJP in power for more than a decade.

Gymkhana Club is a victim of two such myths — Lutyen's Delhi/ Khan Market gang (which work actively against the BJP), and colonial legacy (which diminishes our own glorious culture). Both are fake, or at least selectively applied to suit the government's narrative.

The BJP believes that the privileged residents of Lutyen's Delhi are inimical to the party and conspire against it, and that Gymkhana Club is its hub. Wrong. There is no such thing as Lutyen's Delhi and the Khan Market gang became the Khanna Market gang in 2014.

The 2800 hectares known as Lutyen's Delhi is occupied by politicians, mostly of saffron hue, who subsist on subsidies many times that enjoyed by the members of Gymkhana: serving bureaucrats who cannot even take a toilet break without written approval from their political masters; and industrialists fully house-trained by the ED, CBI and Income Tax. They are the BJP!

The retired bureaucrats and defense forces officers who haunt the Gymkhana bar also did a 'ghar wapasi' years ago. I am a member of various groups of retired officers, and can confidently state that the vast majority of my brethren — 75-80 per cent — support the BJP ideology, 10-15 per cent may not, but will not open their mouths for fear of jeopardising their pensions. The rest are so soaked in gin-and-tonic they can't press their own doorbell, let alone an EVM button. Those who possess the courage and conviction to criticise the government are few and far between, and getting fewer with each successive election.

Lutyen's Delhi (and the Gymkhana) are, therefore, de facto BJP territory, as both Sanjay Jha and Vir Sanghvi have also pointed out, and the BJP knows it. So why take over the club? Pause that question for the nonce, dear reader, we shall come to it later.

The 'colonial mindset' myth is used as an alibi for this government's failures, to divert attention from them, and find a convenient whipping boy to rally the troops, or voters. Gymkhana is the whipping boy this time, to burnish the BJP's non-existent credentials as the champion of the poor, and to divert voters' attention away from the goodies being gifted daily to crony oligarchs.

How can this bunch of effete elites and their colonial-era club (so goes the specious argument built on a false myth) be allowed to grab valuable government land and live a subsidised life when 800 million have to be fed on doles? Such a narrative, refined by Mr Amit Malviya, contains all the ingredients of the colonial myth — alibi, distraction and scapegoat. That it is patently false (like the Khan Market gang myth) is beside the point — myths appeal to us precisely because they provide an escape from reality.

Gymkhana Club is a victim of these two myths. But it is just the beginning: this narrative, perhaps a counter to the Cockroach movement, will be rolled out across the country — the Maharashtra government has already served notices to 16 prominent clubs in Mumbai.

For what an authoritarian or fascist government needs at all times is an 'enemy' to rally the nation behind it. Voltaire had said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him". Replace 'God' with 'enemy' and you have the reason why colonial-era clubs are the new enemy, and why 6,000 members of Gymkhana will now have to find another watering hole in this urban jungle. Never underestimate the power of myth-making.

Am I sad? I don't really know. I was not a member of Gymkhana — my application was rejected after a waiting period of 10 years without assigning any reason. But I shall miss its nonpareil mutton cutlets — they don't make them like that anywhere in India. They probably were a colonial hand-down, but then not all legacies are bad, are they?

Views are personal. More of the writer's works here

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer and author of Holy Cows and Loose Cannons — the Duffer Zone Chronicles and other works. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com