Dress codes, exclusion, and belonging: How the Indian gymkhana took shape under colonial rule

The Madras Club once removed writer Khushwant Singh for wearing sandals instead of closed-toed shoes. The Calcutta Swimming Club expelled musician Anand Shankar for appearing in traditional Indian attire instead of a shirt and trousers. Bombay’s Willingdon Club asked artist M F Husain to leave when he arrived barefoot. By the 20th century, such incidents were neither unusual nor particularly controversial. To enter a club was to submit to a regime of rules governing dress, conduct, and belonging.

Yet the ease with which clubs could enforce such rules points to a larger story. Clubs were not a familiar feature of South Asian life before British rule. Within little more than a century, however, they had spread across the subcontinent—from presidency cities to provincial towns and from cantonments to hill stations—becoming one of the most common and influential forms of association in colonial public life.

But how did a largely imported institution become so deeply woven into the social life of the subcontinent? What explains its rapid spread and appeal? And where, within this wider world of clubs, did the gymkhana stand?

How colonial is the club?

India has long had a rich tradition of associational life. In In the Club: Associational Life in Colonial South Asia (2015), academic Benjamin B Cohen observes that “India has a separate, vibrant, and long history of forms of associational life”. He notes that from the late Vedic period (c. 600 BCE), new forms of association took root, including various meetings, assemblies, societies, and councils that survive today in forms such as sabhas, samajas, samitis, parishads, vidathas, and later, addas.

Yet the institution of the club that emerged in colonial India was distinctly British. In Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere (2001), historian Mrinalini Sinha describes these spaces as “an oasis of European culture in the colonies, functioning to reproduce the comfort and familiarity of ‘home’ for Europeans living in an alien land”.

Speaking with The Indian Express, Sinha traces the origins of clubs in Britain to an earlier coffee-house culture. “They start out as coffee houses in the 17th and 18th centuries,” she explains. It was only in the early nineteenth century that the term club came to denote a permanent institution with its own premises and clubhouse. “This form developed in Britain and was then quickly reproduced in India, with the Bengal Club (1827) among the earliest examples,” she adds.

A coffee house in 17th century London (Wikipedia)

Even before the Bengal Club was established in 1827, members of the East India Company had founded institutions such as the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (1792) and the Royal Western India Turf Club (1810). As Cohen notes, “From that time until 1857—the year of the Indian uprising—Britons in urban centres followed Calcutta’s lead and opened their own clubs.”

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Access to this colonial “oasis,” however, was tightly controlled by the British. “Their chief objection,” Sinha notes in her article, “was the fact that Indians, if they joined the Club, would consort with the female members of the club, while their own female members were prohibited from coming, because they would be in purdah and could not therefore mix with people unveiled.”

Social vs sporting clubs

After 1857, club culture expanded more visibly across colonial India, including the emergence of Indian-led spaces. Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee, an industrialist, was reportedly not admitted to the Bengal Club and, according to legend, went on to establish a new club where Indians and Britons would have equal access. This became the Calcutta Club (1907). The India Club, established in 1882 under the patronage of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, was another example of a mixed club.

Across South Asia, clubs can thus be broadly classified as social or sporting, though in practice the boundaries were often blurred. Cohen writes, “Three of the earliest and largest social clubs were the Bengal Club (1827) in Calcutta, the Madras Club (1832), and the Byculla Club (1833) in Bombay.”

The Bengal Club in mid-19th century (Wikimedia Commons)

Sporting clubs, or gymkhanas, were also widespread. While primarily focused on sport, they often offered the amenities of a social club as well. Many cities hosted both a social club and a gymkhana. In Bombay, for instance, the Byculla Club functioned as the main British social club, while the city also had the Bombay Gymkhana.

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The rules of both types of clubs were broadly similar, with strict codes of membership, dress, conduct, and etiquette.

The gend-khana

Sporting clubs such as the Calcutta Cricket Club (1792) and the Madras Cricket Club (1832) were largely European in character. According to Ramachandra Guha in A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport (2013), “The wine may have been French, but the only concession to India was the commonly used suffix, gymkhana, which derived from gend-khana, or ball-house.” The first element, gend, means “ball” in Urdu/Hindustani/Khariboli, while the second, khana, is of Persian origin and means “house” or “place.”

Lexicographer and linguist Rauf Parekh suggests another possible origin: a blend of the English gym (from gymnasium) and the Persian khana (“house”), while noting that the etymology of gymkhana remains an intriguing puzzle.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gymkhanas spread widely across the Indian subcontinent. Among them were the Bombay Gymkhana (1875), the Madras Gymkhana (1884), the Karachi Gymkhana (1886), the Rangoon Gymkhana (1912), the Delhi Gymkhana (1913) and the Jamalpur Gymkhana (1927)

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Each institution developed its own distinct history. The Bombay Gymkhana was originally established as a British-only gentlemen’s club. As Guha writes, “In June 1875 they formed the Bombay Gymkhana, which consolidated, into a single institution, separate polo, cricket, football and rifle clubs run for and by whites. With the Governor of Bombay as its patron, and the Chief Justice as its Secretary, the Gymkhana could count on pulling a string or two.”

He further notes that the Bombay Gymkhana excluded all Indians, as well as whites of uncertain “pedigree,” including petty tradesmen and soldiers. Including wives and children, the club would have numbered no more than 3,000 members. Indians were permitted entry only as sweepers and cooks, and, very occasionally, as cricketers.

Madras Gymkhana Club, 1905 (Wikipedia)

Similarly, the Madras Gymkhana Club began with highly restricted membership, limited to garrison officers, British executives, and a small number of upper-caste Indians. Its early sporting life centred on activities such as polo and pigsticking. Over time, the club broadened its sporting repertoire to include trap shooting, cards, rugby, tennis, and golf, with South Indian princes contributing buildings, billiard tables, and polo ponies. German members were expelled at the outbreak of the First World War, and women were not admitted as “Independent Lady Members” until 1971.

The Jamalpur Gymkhana had a different character altogether, functioning as a residential club and hostel for young apprentice officers of the Indian Railways in Jamalpur, Bihar.

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Karachi Gymkhana Club, 1890 (Wikimedia Commons)

Beyond India, the Rangoon Gymkhana in present-day Myanmar was largely frequented by British officials who used it to play cricket. Following Burmese independence in 1948, however, cricket rapidly declined and gradually became a marginal sport in the country.

The many religious clubs

Meanwhile in the subcontinent, members of several of India’s religious communities also established their own clubs, including the Parsee Gymkhana (1885), Islam Gymkhana (1890), and Hindu Gymkhana (1894).

“Many of the so-called ‘religious’ clubs were not religious in function, but community-specific in membership,” says Sinha in her interview, adding, “The Hindu Gymkhana, for instance, primarily served Hindus, while the Parsi Gymkhana catered mainly to Parsis. These community-based clubs were often sporting in nature, with a primary aim of promoting physical fitness and improving public health within their respective communities.”

The idea for the Parsee Gymkhana was first discussed in the rooms of the Ripon Club (1884), founded by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. It aimed to provide “Parsee gentlemen of respectable position” a space for healthy outdoor recreation. Formally established on 25 February 1885, with Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy as founder president and Jamsetji Tata as chairman, it initially operated from the Oval Maidan before acquiring a permanent ground near Marine Lines in 1887. Facilities for cricket, tennis, and badminton were developed, with equipment imported from England.

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The Islam Gymkhana, located at Marine Drive in Mumbai, was allotted land in 1890 by the then Governor of Bombay, Lord Harris. As Guha notes, “Muslim cricket in Bombay had been pioneered by the Lukmani and Tyabji families. These patrons of cricket were, like their Parsi and Hindu counterparts, Gujarati-speaking merchants with cash to spare. The Tyabjis, a progressive family rich in scholars and judges, helped establish a Muslim cricket club in 1883. By 1890 this was calling itself a ‘Gymkhana’, in line with the European and Parsi institutions of that ilk.”

The Hindu Gymkhana, also located along Marine Drive in Mumbai, originated as the Hindu Cricket Club in 1878 and was formally inaugurated on May 5, 1894, by Governor Lord Harris. Until 1942, membership was restricted to Hindus. During the Second World War, however, when the government occupied the neighbouring Islam Gymkhana and Parsi Gymkhana, the Hindu Gymkhana temporarily opened its membership to Parsis and Muslims as an “emergency measure”.

The changing place of clubs in India

From 1900 to 1947, club life grew to include more women’s clubs. Indian women were becoming more active in public and political life, and clubs gave them an accepted way to take part. “By the time of India’s independence in 1947, one directory listed 667 clubs across the subcontinent,” Cohen notes.

At independence, clubs faced two broad options. One was liquidation: selling their assets and distributing the proceeds among members, thereby ending the institution. The other was continuity—allowing clubs to survive the colonial-to-postcolonial transition while retaining their facilities and social life. Ultimately, each club chose its own path.

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In the post-1991 period of economic liberalisation, scholars note the emergence of a new wave of club culture, including a proliferation of sports and leisure clubs. Yet their relevance is questionable. Sinha contends, “Clubs are becoming less and less relevant… I’m not sure younger people use them much anymore; they seem to prefer newer kinds of spaces that simply didn’t exist when I was growing up. Back then, social life was sharply divided between five-star hotels for the very rich and clubs for others, with very little in between. Now there’s a much wider range of places…”.

Further reading:

In the Club: Associational Life in Colonial South Asia by Benjamin B. Cohen

A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport by Ramachandra Guha

Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere by Mrinalini Sinha