In the club: Associational life in colonial South Asia 9780719098116

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STUDIES IN IMPERIALISM

In the club Associational life in colonial South Asia

B e n jami n B . C o h e n

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General Editor: Andrew S. Thompson Founding Editor: John M. MacKenzie

When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded by Professor John M. MacKenzie more than thirty years ago, emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With well over a hundred titles now published, this remains the prime concern of the series. Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the submission of books in these areas. The fascination with imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies in the field. Studies in Imperialism is fully organic in its development, always seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this everexpanding area of scholarship.

In the club

SE L E CT E D T I T L E S AVAI L AB LE I N T HE SER I ES WRITING IMPERIAL HISTORIES Ed. Andrew S. Thompson

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GENTEEL WOMEN Empire and domestic material culture, 1840–1910 Dianne Lawrence EMPIRE CAREERS Working for the Chinese Customs Service, 1854−1949 Catherine Ladds BORDERS AND CONFLICT IN SOUTH ASIA The Radcliffe boundary commission and the partition of Punjab Lucy P. Chester MISSIONARY FAMILIES Race, gender and generation on the spiritual frontier Emily J. Manktelow

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In the club

Associational life in colonial South Asia Benjamin B. Cohen

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © Benjamin B. Cohen 2015 The right of Benjamin B. Cohen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS ALTRINCHAM STREET, MANCHESTER M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN  978 0 7190 9605 1  hardback First published 2015 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

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For Nadja

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CONT E NT S

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List of figures viii Acknowledgments ix Notes on the text xi List of abbreviations xii Introduction

page 1

1 Club rules

25

2 Around the club

47

3 The business of clubbing

76

4 Servants and staff

100

5 Race, class, and the club

122

6 Women and the club

147

7 Postcolonial clubbing

165

Glossary 192 Bibliography 194 Index 207

[ ­vii ]

F IGUR E S

Club openings, 1800–1900 The Mahableshwar Club, 1907 (author’s collection) The Madras Club, c. 1900 (author’s collection) The Bengal Club, 1901 (author’s collection)

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1  2  3  4 

[ ­viii ]

11 58 58 59

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ACK NOWL E DGM EN TS

I have accumulated an embarrassing number of debts in the research and writing of this book. The staffs of several archives and institutions were very helpful. In the UK, thanks to the Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies, the London Metropolitan Archive, and the British Library and Oriental and India Office Library. In India, thanks to the National Archive of India, New Delhi, and the Andhra Pradesh State Archive and Research Institute, Hyderabad. Also, thanks to the American Institute of Indian Studies. At the University of Utah, I am grateful to the Department of History, the College of Humanities, and the staff of the interlibrary loan office. I contacted many clubs looking for archival materials. A few did not answer my correspondence let alone allow me on their hallowed premises. A few more showed me around and then showed me the door. Yet the majority of clubs were exceedingly generous with their materials. Special thanks to the Dehra Dun Club, the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club, the Bangalore Club, the Century Club (Bangalore), the Cosmopolitan Club (Mysore), the Cosmopolitan Club (Chennai), the Ootacamund Club, the Poona Club, the Mahableshwar Club, the Cochin Club, the High Range Club, the Bengal Club, the Calcutta Club, the Tollygunge Club, the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, the Madras Club, the Willingdon Sports Club (Mumbai), the Bombay Gymkhana Club, and the Secunderabad Club. A modified version of Chapter 6 appeared in the journal Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume 30, Number 3, 2009. I am grateful to the editors of the journal and the readers of that article for their comments and suggestions. This work benefitted immensely from presentations given at Washington University in St. Louis, and at the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Conference. I thank members of those audiences for their comments and questions. Many individuals deserve special thanks. In the US, UK, and India, my deepest thanks to Sudhir Arora, H.G. Balagopal, D.J. Banerjea, Vasant Bawa, Deen Chatterjee, Melanie Clews, Krishna Deva, Terre Fisher, Eric Hinderaker, Teresa Iverson, Ravi Khullar, Nandan Kilpadi, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Sneha Lehri, Pradeep Mehendiratta, Smriti Mehra, Purnima Mehta, K.B. Menon, Emily Michalson, George Mookken, S. Muthiah, Indravadan M. Parikh, K. Rajagopal, N. Ramji, Ram Ray, Pratap Reddy, Ramender Reddy, Paul Reeve, H.S. Sadana, Wes Sasaki-Uemura, Cristin McKnight Sethi, Sanjit Sethi, Deep and [ ix ]

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A C KN O W LED G M E N T S

Uma Sethi, R.K. Sharma, P.K. Shivastava, Ranbir Singh, Abraham Tharakan, Janet Theiss, and M. Venkatraman. At the manuscript stage, external readers made invaluable comments on the manuscript, and I thank them all. Also, my deep thanks to the staff at Manchester University Press for guiding this work through the publication process. Kevin Downey kept me laughing at my ‘topical interventions,’ Chandra Mallampalli provided much help in sharpening my arguments, and Scott Levi offered both moral and intellectual support whenever I demanded it of him. To these three, my deepest thanks for years of friendship and intellectual camaraderie. A very special thanks to Errol and Oona Durbach. Whether in the dark shadow of the Wasatch Mountains or on the bright plains of Illinois, or India, my family has always been a constant source of love and support. To Edward, Jeffrey, Peter, Tamara, and Susan, and their families – one big thank you. My mother and father, Roberta and Stephen Cohen, have unfailingly supported me in my research endeavors and so much more. For guiding our greater Cohen family ‘club’ safely through rocky shoals and smooth seas alike, thank you. While writing this book, my immediate family grew by two. To Miles and Finn, the joys of my life, daddy says thank you. My wife has believed in this book from its inception. From the first mention of the idea – me standing in our kitchen idly stirring pasta – to the final reading, she has given me strength, courage, and intellectual support when my own failed or waned dangerously low. My greatest thanks are to her. Of course, any mistakes herein are mine alone.

[x]

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NOT E S ON T HE TEXT

Like many clubs, I have chosen to retain older, more familiar names and spellings of Indian cities; thus Bombay not Mumbai, Bangalore not Bengaluru, Madras not Chennai, etc. In many cases, Britons comprised the majority European club populations. Thus, I use the term Briton to describe club members while recognizing that other Europeans and even Americans were also likely present, but in very small numbers. I use the term India to mean the region of South Asia (including the princely states) during the colonial period. When referring to the postcolonial period, I use the term South Asia and refer, when appropriate, to the individual nation-states that comprise the region today. When relevant, I have provided the establishment date for clubs in parenthesis when they are available and only at their first mention unless context requires otherwise.

[ xi ]

A B B R E V IA T IO N S

London Metropolitan Archive, London National Archive of India, New Delhi Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library, London Public Records Office, London

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LMA NAI OIOC PRO

[ xii ]

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Introduction

On St. Valentine’s Day, 1867, Sir Bartle Frere addressed members of Bombay’s Byculla Club (1833) during a banquet held in his honor. In that year, Frere (1815–84) was concluding his term as governor of Bombay. A graduate of Haileybury, the British school designed to train outbound Indian Civil Service officers, Frere began his long career in India as a writer. He spoke Hindustani, Gujarati, and Marathi – all of which served him well as he advanced, holding positions as resident, member of the viceroy’s Executive Council, and then governor. As the members finished dessert and topped up their wine glasses, the club’s president, Andrew Richard Scoble, introduced Frere.1 In the course of his remarks, Frere commented on the value of the Byculla Club and clubs in general, arguing that ‘in England we are in the habit of doing very scant justice to institutions like the one within whose walls we are assembled. We have got into a habit of talking of them as excrescences on our social organization, but I have frequently thought they take a very important part in preparing Englishmen for that political life which is more or less the lot of every one of us.’ In Frere’s view, clubs had been little recognized for their value as serious social organizations. He continued by noting the values and skills that club participation imparted to its members: We are trained in our clubs to habitual respect for the verdict of the majority. When a question has once been fairly discussed and voted on and decided, there is, for the time at least, an end of it in every well ordered club, and this alone is a habit of no small value in political life. Then again, in every club there is habited respect for the authority of the ruling body chosen by the members themselves as the most fit to govern them. But above all, we are trained in our clubs to have a habitual and liberal regard for the wishes and feelings of the minority, and I cannot help feeling that it is a great deal owing to the feeling thus inculcated and to the habits of mind fostered by this feature of our club management in

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England that we owe some of that feeling to which the Chairman alluded when he spoke of the way in which we habitually treat the natives of this country.2

Clubs, he argued, inculcated in their members an understanding of the democratic system, the justice of rule by the majority while still respecting the rights of the minority. Clubs also taught respect for the ruling authority. In other words, Frere contended that clubs were valuable associations for teaching social and civil practices central to democratic life. Of course, as a white British colonial officer, Frere’s defense was a safe position for him to take; he was the epitome of someone who was entirely clubbable. Sixty-five years later in 1932, at the height of India’s nationalist movement, a less likely proponent made a strikingly similar argument in favor of clubs and their utility. This time it came from feminist and nationalist K. Radhabai Subbarayan (1891–1960). Subbarayan was a founding member of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club (1930), a member of the Women’s India Association (WIA), and the All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC). In addition, the government of India had appointed her to the Second Round Table Conference in 1930–31 in London along with Begam Shah Nawaz to represent India’s women. Subbarayan was relatively well traveled, having met suffragists in England and having attended Somerville College, Oxford.3 She, like Frere, made a similar case for clubs: I do not think it is exaggeration to say that our Club, to some extent at least, provides its members with the training and experience necessary for performing public duties. The various activities of our Club also help its members to cultivate broad vision, tolerance, patience, good-will, and respect for opinions of others, and above all the team spirit – qualities which make good citizens and are a great asset in public life.4

Subbarayan argued that clubs were part of public life and prepared members for performing public and political duties. That a British colonial official and an Indian feminist nationalist both viewed the club as an important social institution suggests that social clubs should not be viewed as ‘excrescences,’ but rather as building blocks of India’s associational life and civil society. Subbarayan and Frere understood that clubs, like churches, societies, political parties, and a range of associational forms, equip their members at the personal level with valuable skills, and contribute to civil society and the making of democracy. The types of clubs that Subbarayan and Frere spoke about are often perceived as being bastions of white privilege, discriminating on the basis of race, class, and gender. However, this categorization paints [2]

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clubs with a coarse brush that misses the more complex nature of these associations. The supposedly impenetrable walls of the clubs as bastions of colonial ‘exceptionalism’ and white privilege were porous to different degrees.5 Indian and British clubs with race-based admission rules boldly violated them when local realities required it; women’s clubs admitted men and men’s clubs admitted women; and poorer citizens of the British Raj, when shut out of class-based clubs, made use of India’s relatively open public sphere and opened clubs of their own. ‘The club’ was thus a much more complex institution than it might seem and is long overdue for a reappraisal.

Club types and networks In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a variety of associational forms emerged across South Asia. Of these, clubs were just one type, and when taken as a whole, they formed a supranetwork of associational life. A club may be broadly defined as an association of individuals sharing some common interests and goals. Its members are admitted by ballot and in this way clubs are different from voluntary associations, where membership is less controlled. In South Asia, the majority of clubs have been social or sporting in nature. They opened in different settings: large urban clubs in colonial centers; hill station clubs; clubs in princely states; and clubs in dusty countryside towns. They often had a dining room, library, reading room, bar, lounge, and a billiards room; some also had rooms for overnight guests and sports facilities. 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. Social clubs in large urban areas constituted the majority of club types in India and so feature heavily in this work. While Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay had large populations that supported several clubs, other clubs in smaller rural outposts sometimes struggled to survive. The Gulbarga Club, located west of the Deccan’s Hyderabad, came in for a scathing attack in the Deccan Budget. Being in a small town, the club faced challenges keeping its membership active. The newspaper charged it with ‘dragging on an existence, which is enough to bring disgrace and discredit even on the unlettered and uncivilized inhabitants of far off Timbuctoo.’ As it hovered ‘between life and death’ – a problem urban clubs rarely faced – its members were chided to begin ‘shaking off their phenomenal lethargy’ and ‘do the needful.’6 In other words, the club served an important social function in Gulbarga and the newspaper expected its members to participate more actively in the club and bring it back to life.7 Sporting clubs were also numerous in South Asia. These were [3]

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f­requently referred to by the term gymkhana, which derives from the Hindi gend-khana (literally ‘ball house,’ referring to European racket courts). While having a sporting focus, these often provided the amenities of a social club as well. Many cities and towns hosted both a social club and gymkhana club. In Bombay, the Byculla Club served as the dominant British social club, but the city also boasted the Bombay Gymkhana Club.8 While most clubs had physical homes, some were itinerant. The pig-sticking clubs that formed in Agra, Delhi, Calcutta, Meerut, and elsewhere met in the field during the hunting season to pursue India’s wild boar, while a few maintained spartan offices for storage purposes.9 Over time, more specialized clubs arose. At Simla, individuals who did not return to Delhi in winter (the off-season) provided a reason to organize the Simla Winter Amusement Club, which maintained an ice rink and organized tobogganing and indoor badminton for its members. With few members and a limited program, the club operated out of the town hall rather than owning a permanent office.10 Yacht clubs were popular in Bombay, and with the arrival of the airplane in India, flying clubs were started in Punjab and elsewhere.11 Britons were fond of entertainment, and drama clubs often operated as adjuncts of larger clubs. In some locations, drama clubs were freestanding, such as India’s oldest, Simla’s Amateur Dramatic Club, dating from 1837. Some transnational organizations had branches or clubs in South Asia: the Freemasons (c. 1390), the Rotary (1905), the Lions Clubs International (1917), as well as the YMCA (1844) and YWCA (1855).12 Seringapatnam in south India was also home to a branch of the Jacobin Club that was in operation from the late eighteenth century.13 Like the clubs examined in this work, these types of organizations had physical homes, offered amenities for members, and made their own contributions both to the members who participated in their activities and to the community beyond. They must be included in the long list of associational forms that have thrived in South Asia, yet they are not examined in what follows. These organizations have their institutional origin and epicenters outside of South Asia. Like a restaurant franchise, individuals chose to open a local branch of one of these organizations in an Indian locale. Thus, they were bound to a larger central authority for some of their structure and purpose. In contrast, the clubs I examine participated in a variety of networks, yet they were not part of a larger organizational franchise. Exceptions to this are the United Service Clubs. The United Service Clubs shared a name rather than a firm institutional structure.14 Their members came from the East India Company and the British military services. United Service Clubs across South Asia partnered with those in Britain. A young [4]

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officer might take a membership in the Junior United Service Club of London, which specifically targeted personnel heading to India.15 He would then be welcomed at a United Service Club in India.16 As the United Service Clubs derived from a connection to the East India Company, I include them here. Thus, from the late eighteenth century, a wide variety of different types of clubs opened across the subcontinent. As clubs catered to more and more specialized audiences, this process often prompted new ones to open to counteract such limitations on membership. In this way, clubs of all sorts contributed to India’s associational life. Associational life also included political organizations; for instance, the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay presidencies each had their own associations to raise concerns regarding issues particular to their region, and from those – borrowing certain structural elements from clubs – arose the Indian National Congress (INC). Within modern South Asian history, the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 is considered a crucial moment. While the INC is usually studied as a political party, it arose within a broader associational milieu. The British Indian Association, the Bombay Association, the East India Association, the Madras Native Association, the Madras Mahajana Sabha, and countless clubs and other associational forms all provided the associational soil from which the INC grew. In fact, the Congress began as a type of club.17 The Congress party’s club-like origins can be seen in its circular issued in March 1885. Just as clubs had done for fifty years before it, the Congress circular lists the attendees, the object of the conference, and the anticipated outcome or benefit. The INC’s listing of members, statement of purpose, and the other associational spadework was undoubtedly influenced by the legal framework under which most clubs also fit, such as those of the Indian Companies Act and the Societies Act. The Congress’s objectives included allowing attendees to become ‘personally known to each other’ and ‘the promotion of personal intimacy and friendship’ among members.18 As we will see, sociability was an important part of club life and purpose.19 Further, the Congress aimed at ‘the eradication, by direct friendly personal intercourse, of all possible race, creed, or provincial prejudices amongst all lovers of our country, and the fuller development and consolidation of those sentiments of national unity that had their origin in their beloved Lord Ripon’s ever memorable reign.’20 Several Congress members were themselves club members; for instance, Subramania Iyer of Madras was a member of Madras’ Cosmopolitan Club (1873); also in attendance speaking on legislative reforms was Sir Henry Cotton, a member of the Bengal Club.21 As we will see, the triumvirate of attendees, objectives, and outcomes from the Congress’s circular of [5]

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1885 shares much in common with club practice, as well as fitting a larger pattern of associational life. Clubs participated in a series of networks that not only linked them to each other, but also embedded them in their localities and more broadly within a form of colonial civil society. A network is a series of related nodes that are linked to one another in some way. Different networks intersected at a given club that can be categorized into three broad groups: social, ideological, and logistical. Clubs allowed individuals to associate with each other and thus form a community of people known to one another who created a social network. Sometimes this network was predetermined and relatively homogeneous: for instance, the Princess of Wales Club in Bhopal was almost entirely for Bhopal’s Muslim women population. At other times, this network introduced individuals to members of different communities, bridging across race, class, gender, or colonizer/colonized lines. Belonging to a club offered individuals an additional or alternative way to belong to a type of community.22 The club community was real in that members could meet each other face-to-face at the club, but it was also imagined: members could never meet face-to-face every member of every affiliated club.23 To facilitate that imagining of belonging to a network of clubs, they provided members with lapel pins, neckties, rulebooks, playing cards, and other paraphernalia that carried with them the club name and crest, thus helping members to ‘feel’ a part of the club, even when they were away from its physical location. The social networks that clubs supported drew individuals together, providing them an outpost for sociability. As Neera Chandhoke describes such social networks, ‘The solitary individual may perchance find a home in and through these networks of belonging in an otherwise impersonal and anonymous social order.’24 Clubs were also part of ideological networks. Clubs and their members maintained certain ideas about who they were and what they believed. At one level, the practices of a club tied it to a shared ideological network. Groups of individuals forming a club would usually copy the rules and bylaws of another club. Still another club would copy these, and so on. Soon, most clubs in South Asia formed a network with largely similar rules and bylaws; implicit in this was a shared belief in the rule of law. At another level, certain explicit practices fostered less appealing networks. Some British clubs did not admit Indians as full members, and when these clubs formed affiliations with each other, they created a network of limited membership. Finally, clubs participated in networks that served their logistical needs. As a physical space, clubs were embedded in the land in which they were located. And as such, to meet basic needs, they participated in a variety of logistics networks: renting buildings; purchasing [6]

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foodstuffs from local Indian suppliers; ordering supplies from Britain, France, Portugal, and the United States; employing dozens or even hundreds of local employees, and so on. Through their purchasing power, clubs accessed logistics networks and provided their members with certain amenities that made the club a desirable place to be. Logistical reasons form some of the earliest justifications for creating a club. The United Service Club of London was established in 1815 for individuals who had served in India or other Asian climes. Lord Lynedoch (1748–1843) explained that officers who were in London for a short time were ‘precluded from belonging to the best established clubs, [and] were necessarily driven into expensive and bad taverns and coffeehouses, without a chance of meeting their friends, or any good society during their stay in town.’25 Colonel Finch, first president of the Bengal Club, directly cites the United Service Club (and by extension its purpose) in the explanation he offers in that club’s prospectus: ‘if such associations have been found beneficial in London, where so many and such various resources offer themselves, they will be infinitely more serviceable in Calcutta, where nothing like a respectable hotel or coffee-house has ever existed.’26 A few years later, the prospectus for the Madras Club laid out similar reasons for its creation.27 These clubs were at the center of social networks for Britons in India, ideological networks for service members, and logistical networks that provided specific amenities – most importantly, offering an alternative to ‘bad taverns.’ These networks thus allowed clubs to link themselves and their members together, but also firmly establish themselves on Indian soil and within Indo-British colonial civil society.

The span of clubs Clubs in India were colonial transplants and thus some brief prehistory of the club, before it reached Indian shores, is in order. European-style clubs were not the first forms of associational life in India; the subcontinent has its own long history of associational life that also warrants some short explication. Clubs or similar forms of association can be found dating to the time of the Romans. Associational life continued to grow and become refined into Europe’s middle ages with the rise of fraternities and gilds. By the early modern period, types of secular academies had opened in Italy, and it was from these that the French in the seventeenth century took inspiration. France witnessed an associational boom at this time, its own forms of associational life intermingling with those in other parts of Europe such as Germany and the Netherlands. Clubs in Britain, from which clubs in India traced their origins, began to appear in the early seventeenth century. Yet, as Peter [7]

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Clark has argued, British clubs seem to have been less influenced by those in France or the continent, but rather were products of Britain’s own associational life forms such as its gilds and fraternities. By the mid-seventeenth century, coffee houses dotted London’s landscape and new types of coffee house clubs developed. These were demarcated by the lack of a strong or permanent bond between members, and the lack of a permanent club structure within which to meet. This would change throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century as the types of clubs became further refined. First, clubs that formerly met in other businesses’ premises (such as a coffee shop) now pooled their resources and rented or bought their own buildings. Second, a less structured type of club developed that did not have a permanent structure, but was rather based on occasional or periodic meetings for some special event. Seasonal hunting (which became pig sticking in its Indian form), reunions, special holidays, and more all might attract members to join such itinerant and occasional clubs. Both of these latter styles of clubs are found in India. In the early eighteenth century, India-related associations began to form in London. These took their names from locations familiar to those who had worked in India and beyond: the Calcutta Club, the Madras Club, the Bombay Club, the Shikar Club, and the China Club.28 These early London-based clubs were, as the Victorian club observer Ralph Nevill noted, more associations than formal clubs, with a limited breadth of service, hours, and offerings.29 India has a separate, vibrant, and long history of forms of associational life. From the late Vedic period (c. 600 BCE) new forms of association took root. These were various forms of meetings, assemblies, societies, or councils and come down to us today as sabhas, samajas, samitis, parishads, vidathas, and later addas. These forms of association changed over time, while some of the nomenclature has continued to be used to the present. During the Buddhist period of Indian history (c. 500 BCE to 600 CE) another associational form arose, the community of monks known as the sangham. Further, the arrival and establishment of Islam in the subcontinent brought its own forms of associational life, from local madrasas with their regular attendees, to Sufi orders and their congregation at specific shrines, to the limited ‘club’ or association of those closest to a ruler. In addition, up to and through the nineteenth century India had other forms of associational life in coffee houses, bazaars, and locations where people met to listen, converse, and probably to share some sense of community.30 This Indian associational milieu seems to have been limited in breadth, and thus it would be difficult to call these pre-nineteenth-century forms a civil society in the same way we see a kind of civil society emerge in nineteenth-century India. By the late eighteenth and early nine[8]

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teenth century, as Partha Chatterjee has suggested for sociability in Bengal, associational life was not only alive and well, but a marker of South Asia’s early modern period.31 Some of these associational forms equipped members with social and civic skills similar to those inculcated by clubs. Some of these included the Asiatic Society (1784), the Brahmo Samaj (1828), and the Dharma Sabha (1830) all of which originated in Bengal (the latter two opening after the Bengal Club). These types of association, as Carey Watt has argued, were ‘in effect making the Indian nation.’32 One associational form recognized as a kind of precursor and informal parallel to clubs comes from Bengal. The region has long been famous for its nightly discussion groups held in private homes, the adda. As clubs opened in Bengal, they were recognized as being, in some ways, a more formalized extension of the adda. The Dhaka Club (1911) made such a connection explicit, recognizing both the private nature of the club and comparing it with the private ‘closed’ nature of some addas.33 The addas, sabhas, samajas, and other associations all helped foster new communities of individuals who sought to organize themselves around a type of membership or belonging. While forms of associational life were not new in India, when the British established the first European-style club, that particular form of associational life was new, replete with an organized membership, rules, fees, and so on. As C.A. Bayly has argued for Britain’s information order being established on ‘the foundation of its Indian precursors,’ so too we see the Indian foundation for associational life predating British rule, and being built upon with the addition of associational forms like the club.34 At the end of the eighteenth century, members of the East India Company began to open clubs including the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (1792) and the Royal Western India Turf Club (1810).35 Up to this point, Indian associational forms had not yet affiliated with each other, nor had these early British clubs taken on all the trappings of a social club. The year 1827 was vital in the history of associational life and India’s clubland, for in that year the Bengal Club opened. From that time until 1857 – the year of the Indian uprising – Britons in urban centers followed Calcutta’s lead and opened their own clubs.36 Some did not admit Indians as full members but did have varying degrees of Indian participation. At the same time, it is possible that some Indians opened their own clubs. Perhaps they were small affairs nestled in urban centers and have not yet been brought to light in the historical record, or perhaps the idea of a club – in the British and European sense – simply had not yet caught on. As Figure 1 graphically illustrates, the heyday of India’s club growth was in the three decades after 1857. At this time, Britons increasingly [9]

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abstained from mingling in Indian society (the days of the ‘White Mughals’ now being over), and the club provided an ideal escape. Yet for all the forces that pulled Indians and Britons in separate directions after 1857, opposite forces were bringing them together. Some clubs that opened in the years immediately after 1857 served the very purpose of encouraging ‘social intercourse,’ that is, a form of bridging between Indians and Britons. Three decades earlier in 1828, Raja Rammohun Roy, often called the ‘father of modern India,’ predicted that Indians, through ‘constant intercourse with Europeans,’ might one day ‘resist’ those aspects of British rule that did not suit them. Roy foresaw not only the rise of the Indian nationalist movement, but understood the role of Indo-British socializing.37 A liberal strand in both communities sought to avert events like 1857 by cultivating new bonds between them, a task best accomplished, some believed, through a club. Calcutta hosted the Union Club, established in 1859, whose stated purpose was ‘to promote friendly social intercourse between European and Native gentlemen.’38 It has been suggested that Indians and Europeans pursued a sort of separate but equal practice in their social spheres, including clubs, ‘without coming together in the same institutions,’ but clubs like the Union Club and others put such assertions in need of reassessment.39 By 1871, when the government conducted a census, the idea of the club (as well as its cousin, the hotel) had become part of the Indian vernacular. In his 1883 report on the census, W. Chichele Plowden wrote, ‘The words “hotel” and “club” have grown into native language, and the things they mean have come into existence in the last few years.’40 Thus, by the later decades of the nineteenth century, enough clubs had opened in enough locations that the idea of a ‘club’ had entered vernacular languages. Awareness of club culture and its ceremonialism prompted one playful group in Calcutta to form the Unceremonials Club (1888). Members organized the club as an entertainment venue ‘so long as the lease lasts,’ and infused with a spirit of silliness, they distinguished themselves by wearing red caps, red smoking jackets, and red ties.41 After 1857, Indians also began opening their own clubs. These clubs, like their British counterparts, were opened for a variety of reasons. For some, being rebuffed from admission to a British club roused the desire to open an Indian counterpart. Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee, an Indian industrialist, was not admitted to the Bengal Club (so the legend goes) and decided to open a new club where Indians and Britons would have equal access.42 This became the Calcutta Club (1907). Most Indian clubs were not tit-for-tat responses whereby the new club would bar Britons; rather – more liberally – they welcomed both Indian and British members. In the Deccan, officials in the Nizam of Hyderabad’s [ 10 ]

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40  

35   30   25  

Club  Openings  

15   10   5   0  

1800s   1810s   1820s   1830s   1840s   1850s   1860s   1870s   1880s   1890s   1900s  

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1.  Club openings 1800–1900 Table 1. ClubFigure Openings in India and Ceylon, 1800s to 1900s.

1

Based on data from E.C. Austen Leigh, A List of English Clubs in All Parts of the World for 1907 (London: Spottiswoode, 1907), pp. 167–77. Not every club from this source had an establishment date given. 125 of 146 clubs from this list have establishment dates.

government opened their own club, the Nizam’s Club (1884). It catered to the city’s Indian elite and British members alike. Like many Indianrun clubs, the Nizam’s Club served as an alternative and counterpart to the largely British Secunderabad Club (1878). Members of some of India’s religious communities also opened clubs; for instance, the Parsis, Hindus, and Muslims of Bombay all created separate gymkhana clubs for their communities.43 The period from 1900 to 1947 witnessed club growth in new areas. Many women’s clubs opened in these decades. By this time, Indian women were increasingly participating in India’s public and political life, and thus a club became a respectable destination for women moving out of the home and into the public sphere. For instance, the Begum of Bhopal opened the Princess of Wales Club (1909) specifically for the betterment of the women of Bhopal. In the south, women including Radhabai Subbarayan opened clubs like the Ladies’ Recreation Club in Madras (1911), the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club of Ootacamund, and others. By the time of India’s independence in 1947, one directory listed 667 clubs across the subcontinent.44 After 1947, a period of consolidation and stability seems to have occurred. In the first few years after independence, clubs evaluated their viability as well as their membership practices. A few closed while others resolved issues like the admission of Indian members. The final period of India’s club periodization [ 11 ]

Based on data from: E.C. Austen Leigh, A List of English Clubs in All Parts of the World for 1907 (London: pottiswoode & Co., 1907). pp. 167-177. Not every club from this source had an establishment date given.

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might be seen to start in the mid-1990s after the country’s economic liberalization. As the middle class grew in size and affluence, new clubs opened to cater to their needs. These are in gated communities, tech centers, and posh suburbs. They offer their members a modern respite from the rush of daily life, and more importantly, do not have the long membership waiting times found in those older clubs that carried over from pre-independence.

Associational life, civil society, and the public sphere Clubs contributed to India’s colonial associational life, and at the same time brought together individuals who had a shared interest. Robert Putnam has called associational identity consolidation ‘bonding,’ whereby people with similar tastes, interests, or backgrounds bond together in the context of an organization.45 Clubs opened in India to foster such bonding, yet social bonding has a downside. Associations formed around shared interests can harden identities and lead to violence against other groups with different identities. For instance, Ashutosh Varshney has shown the ways in which communities in Hyderabad, having bonded along communal lines, were prone to violence.46 Yet in Lucknow, similar community bonding and communal violence was mitigated by a second process, ‘bridging.’ Bridging is when associations form that intentionally bridge identities or communities. Varshney has shown how in postcolonial India such bridging in certain locales promotes a better ability to handle ‘shocks’ when intercommunity violence erupts.47 Some clubs in India were created to bridge the Indian and British communities and promote social intercourse; others to bridge gender divides, intentionally seeking equal numbers of men and women; and still others not to promote a particular community (bonding), nor to bring together different communities (bridging), but rather to create a new identity based around that of the club itself. Members of Madras’ Cosmopolitan Club were both Indian and British, and joined the club to partake in its social amenities rather than to consolidate an external identity interest. Club membership, in other words, could provide an additional or alternative identity that crossed boundaries, and in the process formed new kinds of subjectivities. When they served as bridge associations, clubs expanded understandings about the differences between communities, the position of minority communities, and the responsibilities of the majority community.48 Putnam has argued for the benefits of such associational life: ‘Voluntary associations and the social networks of civil society … contribute to democracy in two different ways: they have “external” effects on the larger polity, and they have “internal” effects on [ 12 ]

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participants themselves.’49 Associations ‘are places where social and civic skills are learned – “schools for democracy.”’50 As hundreds and perhaps thousands of clubs opened across the subcontinent throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for Indian members, clubs, among other associations, helped instill skills that were transferable to political and public life – the argument made by Subbarayan. For British members, clubs instilled – as Frere suggests – a ‘regard for the wishes and feelings of the minority.’ He referred to the minority in the decision-making process whereby the majority vote would decide matters. This increased sensitivity to the feelings and opinions of the minority he believed useful in the Indian context where, ironically, Indians were the numerical majority but treated as the minority community. Clubs were one part of South Asia’s associational life, and as such they helped demarcate a public sphere and played a role in creating civil society. The public sphere is that realm where associations are largely free to organize and where they may or may not engage with the state (political society) or the home (private society). If a sizeable number of associations exist, then in all likelihood, by their existence, they signify the presence of a public sphere.51 In the nineteenth century, India witnessed the growth of associational life in this realm, of which clubs were one component, and thus a form of colonial public sphere came to exist.52 Central to debates over the public sphere is its relationship to associational life and civil society. Over time, the mix of revolt, revolution, and democracies born anew has generated multiple and contested understandings of what exactly civil society is, or might be. The idea of civil society has intellectual roots that run long and deep.53 In his 1821 Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Georg Hegel (1770–1830) clarified the elements of civil society around which debate has largely continued since that time. Hegel identified the dialectic within civil society between the state and the family – two entities at opposite ends of the associational spectrum. Since Hegel, the ‘family’ has been expanded to include associations, and these serve as counter-points to the state as well as functioning as key players in forging civil society. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) in his Democracy in America (1835) argued that individuals who came together in associations would not only ward off the perils of isolationism and individualism, but that associational life would build a civil society not dependent on the state. As the title of his work suggests, de Tocqueville already recognized a link between a healthy civil society and a vibrant democracy. Karl Marx (1818–83) viewed civil society as a vehicle by which the dominant classes could further their agenda.54 Working from Marxist paradigms, Antonio [ 13 ]

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Gramsci (1891–1937) shifted the debate from one of complicity with power to one of rebellion. For Gramsci, civil society was an agent of resistance against dominant norms.55 The American and German philosophers John Dewey (1859–1952) and Hannah Arendt (1906–75) embraced and further developed Gramsci’s concept of civil society as a locus of resistance. These scholars, and many who followed them, focused on the links between a ‘public sphere’ and democracy. When there is a healthy public sphere, one in which associations and individuals are able to debate, discuss, and challenge each other and the state, then democracy can flourish. Thus, by this stage in its development, the idea of civil society had gained two important components: the public sphere and democracy. The relationships between, and among, civil society, the public sphere, and democracy were further specified in the work of Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929), who argued that individuals democratically construct civil society through the public sphere.56 For South Asia, Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani refer to ‘ideas’ of civil society – plural rather than singular in conception.57 Most scholars of South Asia agree that there are three broad categories of understanding about civil society.58 Civil society is comprised of voluntary associations that occupy a space between the state and the family. These associations are consensual, and membership is not forced. Associational life often spans colonial or national borders and is thus also frequently transnational. For some scholars, between the state and the associational world exists political society.59 Political society has two sides, one of which suggests that it can exert influence on the state, and the other which suggests that political society is non-partisan and thus has no relationship to the state. Second, civil society is also a kind of society. It is a society where, put simply, human interactions are civil. A strong associational life adds to this making of a civilized society, but it is not the only factor involved. Associations, so the logic goes, teach and provide a space for people to learn and practice civilized behavior. Finally, civil society is also a marker of a public sphere, a place where associational life can thrive and positive norms of society can be hammered out. A public sphere is considered necessary for both an associational world and civilized society to exist. If political society occupies the space between the associational world and the state, what then occupies the other side of the triangle between the associational world and home? Here clubs must be situated. Clubs in India, for Indian or British members, have always served as pseudo-homes. These associations were not primarily political in that their purpose, foremost, was social. As social entities, they filled an important space outside of the home, but not in the realm of the state or necessarily political society. Rather, they occupied a middle [ 14 ]

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ground that made them home-like, but not the same as one’s home. Clubs’ existence as home-like entities simultaneously marks them as forms of associational life, as participants in that public sphere (but different from their political cousins), and as engendering a kind of society grounded in civil behavior. Scholarship concerning South Asia has largely focused on civil society in the postcolonial period.60 Scholars have viewed associational life in positive or negative ways, praised or critiqued the public sphere, and debated whether or not a civil society does or does not exist, or is even possible.61 This book reorients our focus to the colonial period when newly arrived British forms of associational life took root in the subcontinent.62 As colonial transplants, clubs map topically new terrain in the exploration of civil society. While clubs are recognized as part of colonial and postcolonial associational life, and thus as contributors to the making of civil society, this work engages with clubs in their internal composition and activity, while at the same time situating them in a larger theoretical realm whereby their contribution to civil society can be better seen.63 Thus, I take seriously both Bartle Frere’s and Radhabai Subbarayan’s claim that clubs are not ‘excrescences’ in colonial life, but important tools in shaping India’s political and public life. Finally, this work suggests a new hybrid understanding of civil society whereby associational life is inextricably linked to the public sphere and the making of a kind of society. Central to my argument is that clubs are located between the voluntary associational world and the home. Clubs themselves have recognized their contributions to civil society. In 2006, the Bengal Club celebrated its 179th birthday. Updating its history, the club released an edited volume that detailed various aspects of its past. Writing in the ‘Introduction,’ Malabika Sarkar notes how the club not only contributed to civil society, but is civil society itself: ‘Through various moments of crisis – the introduction of Indian members, allowing women into the public rooms of the Club, financial crisis leading to a shrinkage of space, admitting women as full members – the role of the Club as civil society has endured.’64 While the presence of clubs demarcates a public sphere, they also help to shape public and private space.65 Space means the physical areas that comprised the typical club: the lawn and garden, sitting and dining rooms, bedrooms, libraries, bars, and so on. As clubs were private institutions, they also demarcated public space beyond their gates, that is, roads, other buildings, parks, and so forth.66 Even if the space beyond the club was not clearly defined and understood as either public or private, certainly individuals and the surrounding community recognized that the club itself was private. [ 15 ]

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History of clubs, history in clubs A history of one club or clubs in general has been the conventional approach to this point, but it fails to reveal the powerful dynamic of history in clubs.67 A history of clubs recounts examples of specific clubs viewed in isolation. This type of history is important in that it lets us peer inside these institutions and see what they looked like, who participated in them, and what they were doing. However, in addition to being a history of clubs, this work is also a history in clubs. A history in clubs explores the interstices of these associations and illuminates the ways in which clubs participated in the networks described above, and have reflected a great many different types of overlapping histories. Legal, spatial, economic, circulatory, race, class, and gender histories all unfold in the chapters that follow, each bringing with them their own histories that overlap and intermingle in the club. Scholarship, however, has not necessarily moved beyond the narrow historical method of viewing histories of the club. Writing about clubs in Britain, scholarship began with antiquarian-style histories of individual clubs, and in this way, writings about clubs in India followed similar early patterns.68 Scholarship on clubs and societies from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries includes those who view clubs as part of a growing associational world.69 Such work built on studies of clubs and associations that examined their compositions and contributions, while further scholarship has located clubs in the greater urban British milieu.70 Subsequent work on clubs in the nineteenth century may be loosely arranged in a few groups, beginning with scholars who argue that clubs were centers of drink and entertainment, and little more.71 A different view of clubs is that they were places to which members escaped for a variety of purposes, while an alternative perspective suggests the ways in which clubs replicated the domestic sphere.72 Scholarship regarding clubs in India is much less developed. To paraphrase William Dalrymple: for every book on forms of India’s associational life, there are a hundred for those of other countries, and for every article or mention of India’s clubs, there are – for instance – shelves for those of Britain and London.73 For India, scholars have viewed clubs as components of Indo-British social life. They have identified the central role that clubs played in this and their need for further study.74 Writing about colonial associational patterns, Anthony King has shown how most urban and rural centers formed around a military and civil component. The club was central to the latter. After the colonial house or bungalow, King writes, ‘next in importance is the “club” which, especially in a small community, is the main centre for social intercourse [ 16 ]

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for all community members.’75 Yet such claims warrant careful scrutiny, as some rural clubs, like the Gulbarga Club, struggled to maintain their role as a center for socializing. Mrinalini Sinha has argued that the European club ‘was a unique institution of colonial civil society’ that occupied ‘an intermediate zone between both metropolitan and indigenous public spheres.’76 In what follows, I wish to extend some of these ideas about civil society and the public sphere by more fully exploring the multiple, complex, and sometimes contradictory roles that clubs played in colonial and postcolonial India. Other scholars have focused more on the divisions that club culture promoted; for instance, Maria Mishra has argued that ‘social distinctions’ were most strictly enforced in sporting and then social clubs.77 For Robin Jones, clubs were little more than islands of racial exclusion. Jones has argued that ‘The majority of clubs in metropolitan centres of India were bastions of racial segregation.’78 While such portrayals of ‘exclusive’ clubs might be true in a few cases, I will show that the spirit and reality of the clubs was somewhat different. From a list of ‘English Clubs’ spanning the British Empire, for India and Sri Lanka only 4 percent self-identified as ‘European only.’79 I hope to complicate and refine such views by demonstrating that club culture was far more nuanced than has been assumed. Outside academic writing, clubs have fared somewhat better. Purshottam Bhageria and Pavan Malhotra have lovingly crafted a coffee-table book on the elite clubs of India. In photographs, anecdotes, and prose they provide a layman’s tour of many clubs. Further, many clubs have themselves either written their own histories or asked someone to do it for them. S. Muthiah’s work on the Madras Club is a fine example of this, and others have done versions of the same thing. Older clubs celebrated their fiftieth and hundredth anniversaries before the British left India, and those accounts serve both as histories of the club itself and also as forms of colonial historical writing.80 A history in clubs also challenges some of the long-held markers of South Asian chronology. Clubs largely transcend the nationalist period, partition, and independence, and thus provide us with a story of continuity rather than rupture. Thus, ‘Modern India’ often includes the better part of the subcontinent up to August 1947. After that, the other nation-states of South Asia are often cast aside, only to be mentioned when India became involved with them militarily. Furthermore, 1947 has become a disciplinary divide in much of the academy whereby everything before this moment is the domain of the historian, and everything after, that of the social scientist.81 As Krishna Kumar notes, ‘for Indian children history itself comes to an end with Partition and Independence.’82 This practice misses those histories that [ 17 ]

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span 1947 from modern India as the subcontinent, to modern India the nation-state. Further, geographically, club networks transcend modern national boundaries, thus forcing us to reconsider or re-map our image of the subcontinent from one with national boundaries to one redrawn along alternative patterns of association. Clubs challenge the primacy both of 1947 as a moment of rupture, and of the nation-state as the definitive way to define modern histories. In other words, the longevity of clubs and their networks force us to look anew at South Asia’s chronologies and geographies. The history in clubs also entails rethinking the locations of archival materials. For India, a wealth of material exists beyond official archival repositories, awaiting the curious and challenging the primacy of established archives.83 Records preserved in clubs allow us to view colonial and postcolonial India through new lenses. Historical scholarship is often linked to archives and what records they contain. However, these records themselves raise their own problems. Individuals or organizations directed what information was to be collected and archived, hidden, or destroyed.84 Furthermore, repositories often contain the ‘official record’ of a government, but may have little to say about the unofficial or social activities of either government officials or those they governed. For instance, the Raj was largely unconcerned with the wives of its officials, so their roles and perspectives are difficult to get at in official records. Clubs, on the other hand, often provided women a place to express themselves and preserved records of their voices.85 Club records thus represent a valuable source of material beyond official records, revealing how both Indians and Britons spent some of their social or unofficial time.86 If the British East India Company and government of India records capture the business of the Raj during regular working hours, club records offer us a sample of what occurred from the close of business to the wee hours of the morning, when the last drunken member stumbled home. However, the history of clubs in India must be reconstructed from an uneven archival record. I examine the records of those clubs that are preserved in archives or were generously shared with me by the clubs themselves. This sample includes clubs from the major regions of India, from urban centers and smaller towns, and from different political milieus, such as British presidencies or the princely states. However, I make no claim to comprehensiveness – there were and are simply too many clubs to possibly account for. Tracing the history in clubs has its limitations. No master organization or list exists that cataloged all of the clubs in South Asia. Thus, while it is possible to provide some basic statistical information about the chronologies and types of clubs, the data remains representative but [ 18 ]

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not comprehensive. Even today, no organizational body links together every club across the subcontinent. Throughout this work I refer to a club or the club, suggesting that there existed a fixed entity called ‘the club.’ However, no such fixed entity existed. While clubs shared much in common, each one was also unique in its membership, location, history, and purpose. Thus there is a tension here: on the one hand this is a work about clubs in South Asia, suggesting a fixed entity; and on the other hand, there was no single mold for a club, no single overarching authority or organizational structure for all clubs, and no supreme leader. A degree of insularity could justify a study of just one club in one place, and indeed this has been done. Yet my arguments lie in the ways in which clubs were connected and enmeshed in a variety of networks that force us to rethink the image of the club, and see them as contributing to a greater associational world.

Organization of chapters This book proceeds thematically with the exception of Chapter 7. Chapter 1 shows the ways in which individuals ascertained the need for a club and immediately adopted articles of association, rules, and bylaws. Adherence to these framing documents equipped members with valuable social and civic skills. Next, they procured a physical home. Chapter 2 shows how club space was multilayered and hybrid, serving imperial needs as well as domestic ones. Clubs also served as nodes in their urban and rural locales, as well as within a global network of destinations for imperial travelers. This immediately brought profits and debts, and so the business aspect of clubbing began. Chapter 3 tells us something about the colonial business world and the legislation that evolved to regulate such a world. At the same time, clubs developed their own monetary systems and currencies for internal use, while serving as linchpins between local domestic needs and consumption and a global marketplace of goods. Clubs acted as both purveyors and providers for their members and local communities. As a business in a service industry, no club could operate without servants and staff. Chapter 4 shows how clubs had clear hierarchies for managing members as well as servants. Most servants and some staff were Indian, and the club provided a kind of home for them. Britons also participated in club employment networks, moving along a middle-class white-collar network from club to club as secretary or steward. The issue of admission along race and gender lines was a constant point of discussion, as elaborated in Chapter 5. Over time, many clubs adopted mixed-race membership guidelines and promoted social intercourse. Clubs also formed along class lines. Thus, they [ 19 ]

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were heavily involved in promoting cross-race and class socialization. Colonial society allowed for ever-more specific clubs to form, catering to different groups, including women, as Chapter 6 demonstrates. Women’s clubs evolved to become centers of social service for their communities, the empire, and the nascent Indian nation. Finally, in Chapter 7, I observe clubs in their postcolonial formations. A few exclusive clubs were at the center of high-level discussions between the new independent Indian government and the British government. By the 1980s, clubs had entered into a period of Raj nostalgia, in which they played off their onetime exclusivity for the benefit of a now ­middle-class Indian audience. All across South Asia, from small hill stations to bustling urban centers, one finds a wide variety of clubs. Many of these clubs date from the early nineteenth century and once catered to Indian and British clienteles, yet while ubiquitous, they have largely escaped scholarly attention. Today, new clubs compete with their older counterparts, attempting to attract South Asia’s growing middle class. These clubs, old and new, are forms of associational life and add to South Asia’s civil society. This society was already developing in the nineteenth century when clubs began to open across the subcontinent. That old clubs continue to thrive and new clubs open all the time suggests that club life, associational life, and civil society in South Asia are deeply intertwined. The ways in which this process has unfolded is at the heart of what follows.

Notes  1 Scoble (1835–1916) held positions including advocate of the High Court of Bombay, sheriff of Bombay, and legal member of the viceroy’s Council. During the time of Frere’s visit to the Byculla Club, Scoble was serving in his capacity as advocate.  2 Samuel T. Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916. A History (Bombay: Bennett, Coleman & Co., 1916), pp. 63–4. A slightly different version of this same speech appears in Balkrishna Nilaji Pitale, The Speeches and Addresses of Sir H.B.E. Frere, G.C.S.I, K.C.B., D.C.L. (Bombay: Ganpat Krishnaji’s Press, 1870), pp. 467–74.  3 Anupama Roy, Gendered Citizenship: Historical and Conceptual Explorations (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2005), p. 138, n. 35.  4 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1931–32 (Madras: Hoe & Co. at the ‘Premier’ Press, 1932), p. 28.  5 Partha Chatterjee, The Black Hole of Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), pp. 225–6.  6 The Deccan Budget, 13 July 1894.  7 An informal search shows one ‘Gulbarga Club’ still in existence.  8 Raymond K. Renford, The Non-Official British in India to 1920 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 55.  9 Roland Hunt and John Harrison, The District Officer in India 1930–1947 (London: Scolar Press, 1980), p. 132. 10 Rules of the Simla Winter Amusement Club for the Season 1911–12 (Simla: Station Press, 1912).

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I ntroduction 11 Bye-Laws of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club (2001). This yacht club dates from 1846. Punjab Flying Club Souvenir Programme of the Opening Ceremony by H.E. the Governor (Lahore, 1929). 12 The Freemasons had a lodge in Madras as early as 1765. See IOR Mss Eur C261, OIOC. 13 IOR Mss Eur D99, OIOC. See also Chatterjee, The Black Hole of Empire, p. 109. 14 Perhaps what remains to be done is to limit the geographical scope of one’s study to a particular city, and within that city examine the complete panoply of clubs and associational forms. 15 Rules and Regulations of the Junior United Service Club; and List of Members (London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1856). 16 IOR Mss. Eur. F206/428, OIOC. 17 Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 4. On the associational world that predated the Congress meeting of 1885, see Amvika Charan Mazumdar, The Indian National Congress and the Growth of Indian Nationalism (Delhi: Daya Publishing, 1985 [1915]), pp. 4–8. 18 A. Moin Zaidi and Shaheda Zaidi, eds., The Encyclopedia of Indian National Congress Volume One: 1885–1890 The Founding Fathers (New Delhi: S. Chand, 1976), p. 46. 19 Ibid., p. 39. 20 Ibid., p. 46. 21 The Cosmopolitan Club Platinum Jubilee Souvenir 1873–1954 (Madras: Hoe & Co. Premier Press, 1954), p. 24; Zaidi and Shaheda Zaidi, eds., The Encyclopedia of Indian National Congress Volume One, p. 44; Bengal Club. Rules and Regulations with List of Members (Calcutta, 1898), p. 58; and Mazumdar, The Indian National Congress, p. 54. 22 My argument here thus echoes that of Robin Jones, Interiors of Empire: Objects, Space and Identity within the Indian Subcontinent, c. 1800–1947 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 175. 23 In this way a club member might ‘imagine’ his or her club community, both at the local club, but also within the network of affiliated clubs. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991). 24 Neera Chandhoke, The Conceits of Civil Society (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 41. 25 Louis C. Jackson, History of the United Service Club (London: Committee of the United Service Club, 1937), p. 2. 26 H.R. Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club (1827–1927) (Calcutta: The Bengal Club, 1927), p. 12. It should be noted that Habermas notes the coffee house as the birth of the public sphere. 27 ‘Prospectus for the Establishment of a Madras Club,’ East India Magazine, July 1832,’ p. 91. In Evan Cotton, IOR Mss Eur F 82/48 C, OIOC. 28 On the Shikar Club, see Callum McKenzie, ‘The British Big-Game Hunting Tradition, Masculinity and Fraternalism with Particular Reference to “The Shikar Club,”’ The Sports Historian 1(20) (2000). 29 Ralph Nevill, London Clubs (London: Chatto & Windus, 1911), p. 212. 30 Scholarship on pre-colonial civil society or associational life remains largely underdeveloped. For an exception to this, see Farhat Hasan, ‘Forms of Civility and Publicness in Pre-British India,’ in Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship, ed. Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld (New Delhi: Sage, 2005). 31 Chatterjee, The Black Hole of Empire, p. 128. 32 Carey Anthony Watt, Serving the Nation: Cultures of Service, Association, and Citizenship in Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 7, his emphasis. See also Jim C. Masselos, Towards Nationalism: Group Affiliations and the Politics of Public Associations in Nineteenth Century Western India (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1974). 33 On the adda, see Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp.

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I N TH E C LU B 180–213; Enayetullah Khan, ‘Handsome is That Handsome Does,’ in A Celebration to Remember 90 Years of Dhaka Club (Dhaka: Dhaka Club, 2001). 34 C.A. Bayly, Empire and Information (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 179. 35 Sujoy Gupta, Seventeen Ninety Two (Kolkata: Calcutta Cricket & Football Club, 2002). 36 The uprising of 1857 is alternatively called the Indian Mutiny, a rebellion, or India’s first war of independence. 37 Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti Burman, eds., The English Works of Rammohun Roy (Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1945–58), Part 4, p. 103. 38 Prospectus. List of Members, Etc., of The Union Club, Calcutta (Calcutta: P.M. Cranenburgh, Military Orphan Press, 1859), p. 3. 39 Chatterjee, The Black Hole of Empire, p. 292. 40 W. Chichele Plowden, Report on the Census of British India taken on the 17th February 1881 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1883), p. 392. 41 The Unceremonials Club (Calcutta: Art Press, 1928), pp. 1–2. 42 Rudrangshu Mukherjee, One Hundred Years of Calcutta Club, vol. I (Kolkata: Calcutta Club, 2007), p. 23. 43 In his work on cricket in India, Arjun Appadurai has shown how the Parsis of Bombay formed a club community by organizing themselves around faith. Yet at the same time, Parsis served as a ‘bridge’ community between Indians and Britons in the realm of cricket. Arjun Appadurai, ‘Playing with Modernity,’ in Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in Contemporary India, ed. Carol A. Breckenridge (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 26, 31. The Parsi gymkhana seems to date from at least 1877. 44 Thackery’s Indian Directory 1947–48 (Calcutta: Thacker’s Press & Directories, 1948), pp. 22–38. 45 Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 22. 46 Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 171–200. 47 Ibid., p. 9. 48 Putnam, Bowling Alone, p. 338. 49 Ibid. This argument has also been made in a case study of five democratic nations. ‘The individual who belongs to an organization, compared with one who does not, is more likely to feel competent to influence government.’ Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture, 3rd ed. (New Bury Park: Sage, 1989), p. 254. 50 Putnam, Bowling Alone, p. 338. Further, scholars have now moved past knee-jerk reactions to clubs and other ‘exclusive’ associations, and recognize their value in fostering democracy. See Ute Frevert, ‘Civil Society and Citizenship in Western Democracies: Historical Developments and Recent Challenges,’ in Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship, ed. Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld (New Delhi: Sage, 2005), especially p. 67. For colonial America, scholars like David Shields have argued the ways in which ‘private society,’ including clubs, was a space in which the ‘project of civility’ was hammered out. David S. Shields, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. xiii. 51 Scholars of South Asia have made valuable contributions to work on the concept of the ‘public.’ See Sandria Freitag, ‘Introduction,’ South Asia 14(1) (1991) [special issue on the public in South Asia]; Douglas Haynes, Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); and the progenitor of much of this discourse, Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991). 52 As Mrinalini Sinha has argued, they helped forge their own ‘distinctive colonial public sphere.’ Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India,’ The Journal of British Studies 40(4) (2001), p. 493. 53 Introductions to the ideas and history of this concept can be found, for example,

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I ntroduction in Michael Edwards, Civil Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004); James Martin, ‘Space and the Politics of Civil Society,’ in Globality, Democracy and Civil Society, ed. Terrell Carver and Jens Bartelson (London: Routledge, 2011); Michael Walzer, ‘The Concept of Civil Society,’ in Toward Global Civil Society, ed. Michael Walzer (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1995); and G. Shabbir Cheema, ‘Civil Society Engagement and Democratic Governance: An Introduction,’ in Engaging Civil Society: Emerging Trends in Democratic Governance, ed. G. Shabbir Cheema and Vesselin Popovski (New York: United Nations University Press, 2010). 54 Karl Marx, Selected Essays, trans. H.J. Stenning (London: Leonard Parsons, 1926). In particular, see his essay, ‘On the Jewish Question.’ 55 Joseph Buttigieg, ‘Gramsci on Civil Society,’ boundary 2 22(3) (1995). 56 Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. 57 Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani, ‘Introduction: Ideas of Civil Society,’ in Civil Society: History and Possibilities, ed. Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 1–8. 58 N. Jayaram, ‘Civil Society: An Introduction to the Discourse,’ in On Civil Society Issues and Perspectives, ed. N. Jayaram (New Delhi: Sage, 2005); Edwards, Civil Society. 59 Partha Chatterjee, ‘On Civil and Political Society in Postcolonial Democracies,’ in Civil Society: History and Possibilities, ed. Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Aditya Nigam, ‘Civil Society and its “Underground”: Explorations in the Notion of “Political Society”,’ in Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship, ed. Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld (New Delhi: Sage, 2005), especially pp. 252–3. 60 Examples include Chandhoke, The Conceits of Civil Society; Carolyn Elliott, ‘Civil Society and Democracy,’ in Civil Society and Democracy: A Reader, ed. Carolyn Elliott (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003); Anita M. Weiss and S. Zulfiqar Gilani, eds., Power and Civil Society in Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001); Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld, eds., Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship (New Delhi: Sage, 2005). 61 Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, ‘Civil Society and the Realm of Freedom,’ Economic and Political Weekly 35(20) (2000). 62 Some scholars have used civil society as a lens to look into India’s past; for example, see Hasan, ‘Forms of Civility’; Sudhir Chandra, ‘Subjects’ Citizenship Dream: Notes on the Nineteenth Century,’ in Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship, ed. Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld (New Delhi: Sage, 2005). 63 A shorter account of this can be found in Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere.’ 64 Malabika Sarkar, ed., The Bengal Club in History (Kolkata: The Bengal Club, 2006). 65 Elliott, ‘Civil Society and Democracy,’ pp. 7–8. Scholars writing about the colonial period also mention clubs, but have failed to investigate them more fully. See Chandra, ‘Subjects’ Citizenship Dream,’ p. 111; Neeladri Bhattacharya, ‘Notes Towards a Conception of the Colonial Public,’ in Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship, ed. Rajeev Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld (New Delhi: Sage, 2005), p. 131. 66 On the making of public and private space, see, for example, Robert E. Frykenberg, ‘On Roads and Riots in Tinnevelly: Radical Change and Ideology in Madras Presidency During the 19th Century,’ South Asia 4(2) (1981). 67 The idea of history of or in a given locale has most recently been used in Michael Pearson, The Indian Ocean (New York: Routledge, 2003), ‘Introduction’ and Chapter 8. 68 Denys Forrest, The Oriental Life Story of a West End Club (London: B.T. Batsford, 1968). 69 Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies 1580–1800. The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000). 70 Robert J. Allen, The Clubs of Augustan London (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933); Robert J. Morris, ‘Voluntary Societies and British Urban

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I N TH E C LU B Elites, 1780–1850: An Analysis,’ The Historical Journal 26(1) (1983); Morris, ‘Clubs, Societies, and Associations,’ in The Cambridge Social History of Britain, ed. F.M.L. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: Commercialization of Eighteenth Century England (New York: HarperCollins, 1984). 71 Mike Huggins, ‘More Sinful Pleasures? Leisure, Respectability and the Male Middle Class in Victorian England,’ Journal of Social History 33(3) (2000). 72 Venetia Murray, High Society in the Regency Period: 1788–1830 (London: Penguin, 1998); Amy Milne-Smith, ‘A Flight to Domesticity? Making a Home in the Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, 1880–1914,’ Journal of British Studies 45(4) (2006). 73 William Dalrymple, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India (London: HarperCollins, 2002), p. xxxviii, note. 74 On Indo-British social life, see Dennis Kincaid, British Social Life in India 1608– 1937 (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1938); Percival Spear, The Nabobs (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). A more recent example is Carol Breckenridge, ed., Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in a South Asian World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 75 Anthony D. King, Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), p. 55. 76 Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere,’ pp. 491–2. Sinha is among the scholarly pioneers recognizing the value of clubs in the study of colonial India. 77 Maria Misra, Business, Race and Politics in British India, c. 1850–1960 (Oxford: Historical Monographs, 1999), p. 40. Mishra, like Sinha, limits her discussion of clubs to those in Calcutta. 78 Jones, Interiors of Empire, p. 178. 79 E.C. Austen Leigh, A List of English Clubs in All Parts of the World for 1907 (London: Spottiswoode & Co., 1907), pp. 167–77. 80 Purshottam Bhageria and Pavan Malhotra, Elite Clubs of India (New Delhi: Bhageria Foundation, 2005); S. Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs (Chennai: The Madras Club, 2002); Sarkar, The Bengal Club in History; M. Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World (Bangalore: Bangalore Club, 1993); Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club; H.D. Love, Short Historical Notice of the Madras Club (Madras and Bangalore: Higginbotham and Co., 1902); Percy Macqueen, The Madras Club. 1832–1934 (Madras: The Madras Publishing House, 1934); Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916. 81 Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 1. Guha, India after Gandhi, pp. 11–14. 82 Krishna Kumar, What is Worth Teaching?, 3rd ed. (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2004), p. 109. 83 Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 4. 84 One example might be the Mackenzie Collection. For a discussion of its history, see Nicholas Dirks, ‘Colonial Histories and Native Informants: Biography of an Archive,’ in Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, ed. Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993). 85 Mary A. Procida, Married to Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 4. 86 Some clubs that closed in 1947 fortuitously gave their records to the National Archive of India, where they have sat unmolested for the past seven decades.

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Club rules

The rule of law within clubs was critical to their smooth operation from day to day, and made them important components in a larger associational world and emerging civil society. As Ute Frevert notes, ‘civil societies depended utterly on the rule of law.’1 As associations, clubs were built around a strong internal structure in the form of memorandums of association, rules, and bylaws. Indeed, one meaning of the word ‘association’ points to the foundational document that brings such a group into formal existence. Adopting, adapting, and approving such documents was among the earliest actions taken by individuals wanting to create a club. Founding members used templates for their rules taken from successful clubs in London or elsewhere. Rules and bylaws both helped to create and then regulated every aspect of club life, and so I consider them along those two trajectories. India presented early colonial officials with a bewildering array of difference and diversity that resulted in a patchwork of laws and acts. By contrast, club rules and bylaws were remarkably similar. That similarity derives from the importation of club models from Britain to India, and then their reproduction across India. Their reproduction, and the subsequent similarity of club organizations, made possible a network of associational life across much of the subcontinent. Indeed, similar rules and bylaws assured a member visiting a club in a different town or city that he or she would feel a familiarity within the club and its operation. In other words, members could move across a relatively smooth and consistent network within the subcontinent, in London, and at other imperial sites. Such a network helps us redraw boundaries and ‘decenters’ empire.2 It allows us to conceive of empire not in a metropole-to-colony direction, but rather suggests that a club member could join the club network at any point; London – usually the heart of empire – was therefore just another location in the club network that did not in fact hold a more important place. At the same time, as the [ 25 ]

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adage goes, rules were meant to be broken, or at least negotiated. Club rules and bylaws were regularly violated by members and often their mandates came to be contested, thus triggering their rewriting. This chapter argues that rules and bylaws, necessary for democratic institutions and civil society, seemingly established clear control over a wide range of club participants, spaces, and activities, but were frequently negotiated to accommodate local realities.

The limits of membership Club rules and bylaws began as short, simple documents. Bylaws dealt with the overarching administration of the club (elections, fees, etc.), while rules addressed more mundane issues. After a member was elected, he or she would receive a copy of these documents, small pamphlets stitched or stapled together, sometimes with hand-glued amendments – reflecting a change to the rules and bylaws – added in. Often the rules and bylaws contained reproductions of earlier club documents, such as its registration under the Indian Companies Act, a topic that will be explored later.3 Over time, these small pamphlets grew in size to become almost book length, with dozens of pages of rules, bylaws, amendments, and other details of a club’s inner workings. This occurred as clubs became larger and more complex associations. For clubs that drew their inspiration as well as their templates from London-based models, it is hardly surprising that the rules and bylaws were printed in English. Yet even as clubs continued to open across the subcontinent, some with Indian and British memberships and some with Indian-only memberships, from all of the records available it appears that club rules and bylaws remained consistently printed in English.4 The use of a common language from club to club insured that members who traveled along the network of affiliated clubs would be able to understand any rules and bylaws they encountered that were different from those of their home club. Thus, for Indians and Britons alike, the shared use of the English language for club rules and bylaws helped cement and smooth the network of clubs that crisscrossed South Asia and beyond. Clubs had six key categories in their rules and bylaws: identity, membership, finances, voting, governance, facilities, and miscellaneous. The opening bylaws addressed the club and its identity. This section was a declaration of existence that named the club and sometimes recorded the number of original members, as well as its overall purpose. Next, terms of membership for the club were established. Here we sometimes find a defining statement of racial exclusivity. Clubs were at their heart businesses, and so needed clear regulations [ 26 ]

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for the functioning of their economy.5 Member dues, fees, and expenditures were covered in this section. While most clubs were not democratic in the sense that anyone could join, having become a member an individual could participate in voting for club management. Thus, this section dealt with elections and voting regulations. Elected members created a governing committee, and the bylaws dealt with the limits of its power and the terms of governance. Finally, the bylaws established the nature of the club property – a bar, dining room, reading room, or some such arrangement, as well as miscellaneous rules needed for ordering the club to address various problems. In particular, this final category stipulated what belonged to the club and therefore could not be removed. It also included rules that did not neatly fit elsewhere; the latter shine light on some of the more unusual problems clubs faced. A club began when a group of individuals held a meeting, usually advertised in local newspapers, to discuss the need for a club. One individual would be chosen or would volunteer to serve as secretary. Individuals attending the meeting would also nominate and elect a president, while the secretary would record the names of those present, who were usually listed as ‘founding members.’ Either at the initial gathering or later, those present would vote to enact a set of rules. This was usually a modified copy of another club’s rules. In the early nineteenth century, the growth of print technology allowed clubs to easily copy each other’s rules and bylaws, thereby creating a network of similar legal frameworks. L.J. Shadwell, an experienced late ­nineteenth-century club man, advised the secretary of a new club that ‘his first step was to write to several well-established clubs and ask them for a copy of their “memorandum and articles of association” as well as of their bye-laws, and having got them, he proceeded to select such paragraphs and articles as, with various modifications, were suitable to local conditions.’6 Not only was information spread through an increasingly popular print culture, but this ease of transfer also introduced a degree of uniformity in club rules. When members of the Bengal Club met in Calcutta in the winter of 1826–27, they used as their guide rules from the Oriental Club of London, which in turn took its lead from the United Service Club of London that had been established a decade earlier. The adopting and adapting of each other’s rules, then, suggests that clubs were relatively conservative institutions – not in the political sense, although such clubs certainly existed; rather, the majority of clubs chose not to create radically new or different notions of rules and laws. These rules and bylaws were modular, borrowed from one location and adapted in another. The United Service Club has a special role in this process as it served as a progenitor for many clubs in both Britain [ 27 ]

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and India. Army officers formed the club in the spring of 1815. Officers of the East India Company were barred, however, until 1857. Therefore, to accommodate its personnel, the company formed the East India United Service Club in 1847, which soon became a rival of the Oriental Club.7 In his work on laws relating to clubs, John Wertheimer writes, ‘The history of modern Clubs, if we except the so-called Clubs (which were political meeting-houses and nothing more) of the last century, dates from the founding of the United Service Club in 1815.’8 Not only is the United Service Club recognized as the first modern club, but Wertheimer also notes that many other clubs copied its rules and bylaws, which explains the broad similarities among far-flung establishments, whether the Oriental Club in London or the Bengal Club in Calcutta. He continues, ‘Most clubs have been content to copy the rules of the United Service Club, and these are not always so complete and precise as they might be.’9 In India, founding members of the Bengal Club looked to the Oriental Club for a template of articles and association, rules, and bylaws. In other words, the rules and bylaws used by the Bengal Club, like those of the Oriental Club, were the grandchildren of the United Service Club. The Oriental Club served as a key node in the imperial club network of the early nineteenth century. It catered to men who had served in India but had subsequently retired to Britain. Retirees played an important role, not only in the early days of contact between Britain and India but into the postcolonial period as well.10 Club articles, rules, and bylaws flowed between India and Britain, and within India they also traveled largely on the backs of individuals who moved between metropole and colony. Indianized Britons (the ‘nabobs’) were returning to London at the height of that city’s club craze. Other organizations with links to India such as the Calcutta Club and Madras Club of London were, as Baillie has argued, associations rather than clubs proper, since they did not entail the ‘luxurious homes’ the latter were known for.11 Led by Sir John Malcolm, a group of men sought a place and community where they could meet and socialize with fellow India or East India men and enjoy some of the customs they had acquired abroad (e.g., hookah smoking, pajama wearing). Malcolm (1764–1833) had a long career in India where he served in Madras, Mysore, and Hyderabad among other places, and worked closely with such men as Cornwallis, Wellesley, and Minto.12 Malcolm and his peers circulated a petition for the creation of an Oriental Club in London.13 In a twist, Britons living in India and missing home formed a new club that imported the rules of the Oriental Club, which had itself been created by Britons in London who missed India. Thus, even the first modern British club was, in a sense, Indian in origin. [ 28 ]

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Early sections of the bylaws gave a name to a new club and defined its purpose. Thus, the opening bylaw of the Bengal Club stipulates, ‘A Club to be established in Calcutta, and called the Bengal Club, the same to consist of 500 members.’14 The Bengal Club, like others, chose to limit membership because it was unable or unwilling to provide for more than a fixed number of members; it is also possible that by limiting the number of members, the club’s prestige and exclusivity could be heightened. Further, club organizers recognized that to provide a certain level and quality of amenities, they needed to limit the overall membership. Elsewhere in India early clubs in Bombay and Madras were aware of each other’s practice of setting fees and membership guidelines, indicating an awareness of the emerging club network that was taking shape. The founding document of the Byculla Club of Bombay notes that European society in Bombay numbered around 1,300, and speculates that some 700 of that total might join a club. ‘This number (if the rate of donation is fixed agreeably to the Madras rate, viz., 70 Rupees) would at once give a capital of 49,000 Rupees and a monthly subscription of 700 Rupees.’15 Establishing a membership base ensured a sufficient amount of capital to meet the goals of the club. At the Madras Club, the number of members was not restricted. Its bylaws from 1832 state, ‘The Madras Club shall consist of an unlimited number of members.’16 Over time, those clubs with a limited membership either removed such limitations, or greatly expanded the possible number of members in order to boost revenue; for instance, by 1908 the Bengal Club had doubled its membership limit from 500 to 1,000.17 Other clubs had more detailed descriptions of their purpose. A second major club in Madras was the Cosmopolitan Club, established in 1873. In addition to the club’s physical and social comforts, it was ultimately a means by which Britons might gain ‘insight into Indian Society.’ Thus in a post-uprising world in which relations between Indians and Britons were growing increasingly strained, the Cosmopolitan Club offered a bulwark against such trends. As a bridge between communities, it offered a space for social intercourse between Indian and European Gentlemen in Madras, providing a good reading room and a really good library, affording opportunities for occasional lectures, discussions, readings and kindred objects, supplying a place where gentlemen residing in mofussil [the countryside], visiting Madras, might meet their friends, make appointments, and such like and providing means for introducing European visitors to Madras to the principal residents and thereby affording some insight into Indian Society.18

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The club was a venue where one might meet with members who were part of the Madras elite such as Sir T. Muthuswami Iyer (1832–95), the first Indian promoted to the High Court bench; Mir Humayun Jah Bahadur, a descendent of Tipu Sultan and an Indian nationalist; and Raja S. Ramaswami Mudaliar (1840–1911), a Madras Congress Party leader. Similarly, across the Palk Strait, written not long thereafter in a tone familiar from the Cosmopolitan Club, the Preamble to the Rules of the Colombo Club (1890) states, ‘The Colombo Club is established for the promotion of social intercourse amongst gentlemen residing in Ceylon, and shall not be limited in the number of its Members.’19 The club did not specify if those ‘gentlemen’ included local Sri Lankans or only members of the European community.20 Thus, in these clubs at least, the club itself was a site where issues surrounding purpose, membership, and race were negotiated. The next club bylaw typically concerned the issue of race and class in regards to membership. Here we sometimes find explicit rules regarding whether Indians could or could not become club members, or if only a certain individual Indian or group of Indians were to be admitted. We also find clear indications of social exclusivity within the British and European communities. British clubs discriminated against fellow Britons, Indian clubs did the same against fellow Indians, and both types of clubs at times discriminated against each other. These nuances of race and class in club admission are explored more fully later. As already stated above, clubs made a chronological distinction among members based on when they joined. The Bengal Club, for example, designated a select group of individuals as ‘original members.’ These men had been present at the club’s inception, or joined within one year of that time. ‘Gentlemen arriving in India, on or before the first of March 1828 (if eligible) have the option of becoming original Members of the Club.’21 Being an original member conferred certain privileges: as long as one was eligible, membership was granted without being balloted, and one’s name would be listed (for posterity) as an original member. Another type of member was the occasional or honorary one. These were individuals of high merit, but who might not permanently reside in the core area around the club, or might have a position that limited their contact with the club. The transient nature of colonial life in India required this accommodation. For instance, the personal staff of the governor-general were eligible for this membership. No occasional or honorary member enjoyed the power to vote. As the name implies, this type of membership conferred a limited association with the club, and as we shall see, British clubs also gave it to local Indians. The largest category was regular membership. Here again, however, two categories emerge: those individuals eligible for membership [ 30 ]

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without being put to a vote, and those who needed to be elected. Thus, though Frere argued that clubs served as a training ground for democracy, club democracy was not perfect, and some clubs admitted special members with no vote at all. At the Madras Club, certain individuals could become members simply by applying to the secretary. These included government officials, judges, and ‘gentlemen belonging to this presidency.’22 For these, the vetting process was unnecessary. In short, anyone above a certain level of social status and possessing a sufficient degree of respectability in the community was spared the balloting process. The second and larger group might become members by ballot, and in some cases only if they came from a certain background. The Bengal Club was explicit in its requirements and is thus worth citing in full. The following categories of resident were eligible for membership: Civil servants of five years service. Officers of His Majesty’s and Honourable Company’s Military Service, Captains of five years service. Officers of the Medical Department of five years service. Captains of the Honourable Company’s Marine and regular service. The Bench, Bar, and Clergy, on their arrival in the Country. One hundred (of the 500) Members above mentioned, to be eligible from among residents in Calcutta, not in His Majesty’s or the Honourable Company’s services.23

The Bengal Club not only restricted its members to certain occupations, it also sought individuals who were senior in their field. Time in service was linked with financial security and thus with a certain class position. In addition, if strictly followed, the limits on membership would exclude members of the business community. Perhaps for members of the Bengal Club, those from the business community smacked of being tradesmen – at this time, a group that were lumped together with the working class. However, several members of the club’s early roster included prominent local businessmen who ‘presided over the destinies of mercantile houses now forgotten.’24 While some men of business were members of the club, this early favoritism for members of the crown or the Company would soon give rise to rival clubs, such as the Calcutta Club and the Tollygunge Club, that catered more to men from the mercantile community.25 Individuals could also attend a club if they were already members of another affiliated club. Many clubs maintained special relationships whereby being a member at one automatically conferred membership benefits at the other. In the 1890s, the Club of Western India (1865) had such a relationship with the Sind Club (1871). The rules for the Club of Western India state, ‘Members of the Sind Club shall, on intimating their wish by letter to the Honorary Secretary, be admitted Honorary [ 31 ]

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Members without Ballot.’26 This allowed members to use the facilities at an affiliated club. The interwar years of the twentieth century prompted changes in the rules and bylaws of clubs such that they began to include new forms of membership. From the rules of the Poona (Pune) Club, we see multiple types of membership indicative of the changes that were taking place across the subcontinent. This process began with a temporary membership granted to members’ children who were studying in Britain, but had come to India for a holiday. As sea travel made short visits to India increasingly easy, these sons and daughters of the Raj found themselves welcomed into club life, if only for the duration of their vacation. As travel between India and Britain became even easier over time, this mobility created and then reinforced a transnational identity among many Britons of being separate from and yet very much a part of India, often centered around club life.27 The second type of new member was the ‘distinguished visitor.’ If the managing committee unanimously approved a motion, they could grant an individual distinguished membership status for a period of ten days without paying any subscription or fees. Consideration of such a motion was posted in advance on the club notice board. This type of membership, whether at Pune or elsewhere, was conferred on Indians of significant rank – a political figure, a prince, or a member of the business community. This practice began in the nineteenth century and reflected the growing practice of admitting Indians into elite clubs. The Poona Club granted this final type of special membership to officers arriving in the city or at Khadki (Kirkee). Khadki, north of Pune, was home to a large military base and cantonment. In 1817, long before the Poona Club opened its doors, the East India Company battled the last Maratha peshwa (prime minister), Baji Rao, at Khadki, where he was defeated. Officers serving at Khadki and Pune were linked through proximity and came to enjoy use of the Poona Club’s offerings. The wars had made offering temporary membership to military officers an obvious choice, but in fact clubs had always shown special consideration to members of the armed forces. The rules of the Poona Club explicitly state that ‘Officers of Units newly arriving in Poona and Kirkee will be invited to make full use of the Club for a period of two weeks after arrival in the station…’28 Thus, far from being a static identity, club memberships changed over time to accommodate local needs and to reflect local realities.

The cost of membership Clubs set out clear rules in their bylaws regarding their financial structures. Once accepted as a member, each individual was responsible for [ 32 ]

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paying a one-time subscription fee, and thereafter an annual membership fee. These were adjusted for members depending on the type of membership they held, which in turn was determined by their status, location, and residency. Since some clubs operated on the edge of fiscal ruin or in debt (often for years), failure to pay fees was a perennial problem faced by club secretaries and committees. Not surprisingly, the bylaws contained strict measures should a member not pay. The amount of the one-time subscription fee varied, depending on the club, its location, and when an individual joined. Early subscriptions were Rs. 250 at the Bengal Club, and Rs. 175 at the Madras Club. To put this in perspective, twenty years after those clubs opened, an assistant magistrate in the East India Company’s employ earned about Rs. 350 per month, while a magistrate earned about Rs. 550 per month.29 In other words, the subscription at the Bengal Club cost a magistrate roughly 3 per cent of his annual income. The annual membership fee could also vary from club to club, or depending on the type of membership held. For much of the nineteenth century, for regular members this amount was a manageable 1–3 Rupees. Clubs sought to keep the annual membership fee as low as possible to attract and retain members. But as we shall see, low annual fees, combined with the difficulty of collecting late payments, kept some clubs in or close to penury. Geography played an important part in determining fees. For a member who resided in the immediate vicinity of the club, dues would be greater than for those living in the mufassal (countryside). Such residency calculations were made from fixed points and measured outwards. Some clubs used the club building itself as the starting point from which a distance was measured, while others used equally important markers. In the earliest rules and bylaws of the Bengal Club, a 100-mile radius of the city of Calcutta was the determining distance for fees. Over time, the distinction became more precise. By 1908, a mufassal member was someone who resided outside a twentymile radius from Government House, Calcutta.30 Because the city of Calcutta had grown, the club sought a specific point from which the distance could be measured. Locating the center of the club’s sphere at Government House de-centered the club and reflects the strong link between club membership, drawn largely from among government officials, and the government itself. At the Poona Club, on the other hand, the club premises were specifically mentioned and located at the center of expanding membership spheres. ‘The expression “Poona” when used in these By-laws, means an area within a radius of twenty miles from the Club House, which is situated at No. 6 Bund Garden Road, Poona,’ an address the club still calls home.31 Other clubs had more specific rules regarding residency and proximity to the club. For [ 33 ]

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instance, the Palamcottah Club (1921) had an 8 Rupees subscription fee if one lived within five miles of the club, but a 2 Rupees fee if one lived beyond five miles, provided that the member did not use the club more than twice per month.32 Over time, clubs established increasingly complex ways to control and categorize members and assess fees in their attempt to keep membership attractive. Fees were assessed according to the duration of a member’s time in the primary zone around the club. Individuals who resided permanently in this zone paid the highest fees. Those who did not reside in the primary zone, or the attached mufassal zone, paid a substantially lower fee since their use of the club was sporadic. Members who spent time in Europe were exempted from paying during the time of their absence. Honorary and occasional members paid only the one-time subscription amount and nothing more. Underlying this fee schedule was the enduring problem of members’ debt. Rules regarding financial infractions were unequivocal. The strict procedures for dealing with defaulters began with members being notified that their payment was late. If after a certain grace period had elapsed they had still not paid, their names would be posted in the club. According to the rules of the Ootacamund Club (1841) in 1856, ‘failing payment by the end of the succeeding month the names of such members will be posted in the Reading room, and should they not have paid by the end of the third month, their names will be erased.’33 One point is consistent across time and space: the name of the defaulter was displayed in a location accessible to the full membership of the club. In other words, within the private domain of the club, the individual’s name was posted in a public place. The Malabar Club (1863) stated that the defaulter’s name should be posted in the ‘public room.’34 If a club did not have a clearly designated public room or other shared public space, the rules remained clear as to the nature of the posting. From the Kandy Club (1876) in 1890: ‘if such Member or Honorary Member shall fail to pay such subscription within thirty days after the due date, his name shall be placed in some conspicuous place in the Club.’35 This clearly was an effort to shame the defaulter into settling the debt. If payment was still not forthcoming, membership would be revoked. At some clubs, the secretary would notify other clubs with whom there was an affiliation that an individual’s name had been ‘posted.’ The Palamcottah Club followed such a practice. ‘Such notice [of late payment] shall be retained on the Board until the debit is liquidated and the fact that the Member’s name has been posted shall be communicated to the Honorary Secretaries of affiliated Clubs.’36 The shame of being in debt to the club was thus transmitted across a network of clubs where members far afield would come to [ 34 ]

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know of it. Debt jeopardized the respectability that came with club membership.

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Perils of the vote Voting and a form of club democracy occupied a critical place in the bylaws, as this process was fundamental to the governance and health of a club. Voting was the process by which members decided a nominee’s fate, the process Frere believed in so strongly. Nomination was also a form of internal regulation: members only nominated other individuals they thought would make respectable club members, a process invested with a degree of nepotism. The nomination began with a member of the club proposing another individual for membership; that nomination had to be seconded by yet another member for the nomination to advance. The proposer and seconder wrote their names in a ballot book, along with the name of the candidate. While this was the process specified at the Bengal Club’s founding, the Madras Club added one further step to its procedure: ‘His name [the nominee’s], accompanied by a statement mentioning in what capacity he is eligible together with that of the proposer and two seconders, shall then be exposed in a conspicuous part of the Club House for a period of at least 15 days.’37 Thus, prospective members at the Madras Club were required to present their credentials and have them displayed for the whole club to view. Two decades later, an important change occurred in the Madras Club’s procedures: the club restricted who could nominate a new member. A member had to have belonged to the club for at least one year before they could nominate another potential member.38 Other clubs followed suit, adding their own restrictions. The Hill Club of Nuwara Eliya (1884) in Ceylon placed an age restriction on new members coming up for a vote. Its 1891 rules state, ‘No candidate shall be balloted for until he has attained the age of seventeen years.’39 By early in the next century, the Bengal Club had also modified its procedures. A candidate still had to have two people nominate him, but, following the practice at Madras, he also had to submit a letter to the club secretary that included his rank, profession, business, and any previous nominations to the club.40 After a person had been nominated and his name posted in a public place for ten days to two weeks, the vote took place. Integral to the voting procedure was the use of blackballs. The term, now used in the sense of ‘to exclude,’ originally described the actual balls of wood, ivory, or some other substance placed in ballot boxes or urns to signify an anonymous vote against a candidate. A vote in favor of a nominee was cast by placing a white ball in a container. During the balloting [ 35 ]

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a club servant – entrusted with the critical mechanics of the voting process – was on hand and exclusively responsible for handing one ball to each member. An individual would write his name on a list accompanying the ballot box or urn, get a ball from the servant, and cast a vote. The servant was responsible for seeing that no member voted twice at the same table.41 While balloting in the 1820s to mid-century was relatively straightforward, over time the actual voting process became increasingly regulated and complex. The Madras Club rules of 1852 spell out – in precise detail – the physical arrangements of the voting boxes. ‘That the ballot be conducted by means of one white ball only. That six small tables be provided, and not more than one balloting box be placed on each – the tables being placed a convenient distance from each other.’42 This physical layout insured an orderly and judicious balloting procedure. By the first decade of the twentieth century, other clubs took the process further. At the Bengal Club as elsewhere, fraud was always a possibility. To ensure that no extra votes were cast, the club’s guidelines read, ‘There must be a separate name on the balloting paper for each ball found in the box. If there be a less number of names than balls, the ballot shall be void. An excess of names over balls shall not vitiate the ballot if the requisite majority are found in the box.’43 Such balloting precautions were necessary because of the nature of the vote itself, the use of balls to mark a vote for or against a proposed member. Voting was inherently political, and nominees were sometimes caught either in the politics of their own candidacy, or in the politics of club members themselves. Writing about his stay at the Himalaya Club (1841) in Mussoorie, John Lang (1817–64), a lawyer and novelist from Australia, recounts how a few members of the club were upset at the hosting of a formal ball, ‘And in their disgust, they blackball two candidates for admission who are to be balloted for on the 10th instant.’44 Members who had supported the ball had proposed those candidates. But even blackballed candidates could be re-proposed for membership after a specified period had passed. At the Madras Club, some nonmilitary and service members were blackballed in 1858. Shortly thereafter, Sir John Campbell and some associates were also blackballed in a retaliatory move. Eventually calmer heads prevailed, and a compromise was reached whereby members of both groups were put up for a vote.45 Club rules and bylaws also addressed the ways in which a member could lose or resign a membership. A member might relinquish membership for a variety of reasons. Transfers within India, retirement, or going home were all reasons to resign; this was usually accomplished by submitting a letter to the secretary, and might be accompanied by a special dinner hosted by friends at the club. However, there were [ 36 ]

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also less pleasant reasons for leaving. Civil behavior beyond club walls was considered important within clubs themselves. An individual’s misconduct was transmitted through the various social and political networks in which the clubs participated and had deep ramifications for members inside the club. For instance, Indians and Britons periodically found themselves in personal financial trouble. Gambling, poor investments, or other private decisions and problems could lead to dire financial situations. Embarrassed, ashamed, and eager to put the crisis behind them, club members slipped from the rosters. If unable to pay their bills, members might voluntarily resign or more embarrassingly be expelled. Gross misconduct, usually within the club but sometimes outside it, also might warrant expulsion. As alcohol flowed liberally within clubs, it is not surprising that many individuals found themselves reprimanded, sanctioned, or expelled for misconduct brought on by drunkenness. The Bangalore Club (1868) minutes record the following from 20 January 1898: ‘At the suggestion of one of the Committee it was resolved that in future gentlemen should not be allowed to sit on the Bar.’46 Repeated infractions of a rule could lead to expulsion. In May of that year, at the peak of the hot season, the committee took further disciplinary actions against one Lieutenant Broome regarding behavior at the bar. The committee notes state: ‘Resolved that Mr. Broome’s apology be accepted on this occasion. Mr. Broome is however informed that this being the second offence of the sort, very serious notice will be taken of any future wilful breach of the Rules on his part. The Committee also considered that tearing the leaf out of the Complaint Book is highly reprehensible and should be apologized for, a new book will be ordered and the cost charged to Mr. Broome.’ Two days later the minutes record the outcome of Broome’s misbehavior. ‘Read letter from Lieut. Broome R.A. to the Committee apologizing for tearing a leaf out of the Complaint Book also another letter to the Secretary resigning Membership of the Club but asking to be allowed to continue a [sic] Racquet Court Member.’47 Belligerence like Broome’s was not only brought on by liquor; it also seems to have grown worse during the hot season. Hot weather, like the monsoon rains, kept members inside the clubs and seems to have promoted no small amount of drinking and general acrimony between individuals. As Rudyard Kipling remarked of the behavior of Sind Club members in Karachi during the summer, ‘At the Club, sudden causeless hates flared up between friends and died down like straw fires; old grievances were recalled and brooded over aloud; the complaint-book bristled with accusations and inventions. All of which came to nothing when the first Rains fell … life picked up in the blessed cool.’48 Here, [ 37 ]

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violations of the rules and bylaws appear to have taken on a seasonal rhythm provided by nature. The final reason for expulsion or at least suspension from a club was dismissal from government service. In many locations, British officialdom (both civil and military) and local clubs were deeply intertwined. One’s position in government was often the basis of club membership. This applied to individuals who wanted to join a club, and those who were already members. The Bengal Club rules and bylaws stipulate that ‘No person who has been dismissed from the King’s or Company’s service can become a Member of the Club unless reinstated.’49 The Madras Club rules also make this explicit, in nearly the same language: ‘No person dismissed from His Majesty’s or the Honorable Company’s Services can be elected, or remain a member of the Club unless re-instated.’50 However, the seemingly easy and natural relationship between government and armed services on one hand and the clubs on the other sometimes created friction. Members of the services who were temporarily posted to a club town would frequently be given temporary memberships. However, this system of favor was sometimes taken for granted. On 26 August 1941, the committee of the Dehra Dun Club (1879) complained to the local ranking officer that ‘Gentlemen are making use of the Club although not members of it. The Secretary is therefore authorised to write to the Brigadier and request that a Notice should be issued to new arrivals of Units pointing out that the Club may not be used by any Officer before being Elected.’51 For most club members, their membership was granted through an electoral process, and while not perfect, nominations and voting – outlined and regulated by the rules and bylaws – ushered thousands of individuals into membership.

Managing the club Rules and bylaws also addressed the composition and powers of a club’s governing body, the managing committee. The committees that governed most clubs had two key positions and a variety of nominal ones. The key positions were those of president and secretary. The president was responsible for the overall direction of the club, and on a daily basis performed certain ceremonial duties such as proposing the toast when high officials dined at the club. He or she (women presidents were found in women’s clubs) presided over the meetings and helped steer the club in new directions or kept it on a steady track. The other critical officer, the secretary, shouldered the brunt of the club’s administrative work. The secretary maintained accounts, monitored the complaint [ 38 ]

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book, compiled and maintained the committee minutes, and dealt with any number of issues concerning members of the club and those visiting from affiliated clubs. The other positions that rounded out the committee varied by club. The Bengal Club originally had two vicepresidents and twelve members-at-large, along with the president and secretary. Interestingly, only three committee members were required to form a quorum – hardly a majority – even though by 1908 the committee had shrunk to include only a president, vice-president, and seven members.52 At the other end of the administrative spectrum, the Madras Club had no officers other than its president, supported by a committee of ‘an unlimited number of the Members.’53 Regardless of a committee’s precise composition, club bylaws vested its members with certain powers. Regular meetings were held once or twice per month, depending on the club’s size, to discuss club business, confirm previous minutes, and handle financial matters. For instance, the Club of Western India, which later became the Poona Club, held twice-monthly ordinary meetings and biannual general meetings.54 Either the timing of regular meetings was specified in the rules and bylaws so that members would know when they would take place, or a schedule was posted in advance in a conspicuous place Extraordinary meetings, as the name implies, were held for some special purpose and were not part of the regular schedule of meetings. An extraordinary meeting would be called to discuss matters with major repercussions within the club and thus required an invitation to the entire membership, who would be expected to attend, discuss, and vote on the matter. This might include items such as the admission of Indians to the club, the admission of women to the club, taking on debentures to raise capital, or dissolution of the club for financial reasons. One extraordinary meeting that generated a considerable degree of rancor was that held at the Madras Club in 1835 to discuss changing the club’s membership to accommodate women and children. Married members wanted the club to provide quarters where their families could stay, while a cohort of older bachelors feared the admission of women and their children, who would be ‘mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.’55 The vote failed. The final type of meeting called by the committee was the general annual meeting. This was open to all members of the club and was a time to celebrate accomplishments, ratify new rules or bylaws, and chart the club’s direction for the coming year. The rules and bylaws spelled out the limits of a managing committee’s power. Beyond holding meetings, the committee’s jurisdiction included the club’s financial matters. At monthly meetings, the secretary would report on the state of finances, and the committee made [ 39 ]

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any adjustments or sanctions for spending. The committee might sanction funds to purchase new furniture, equipment, or provide some monetary compensation to a club employee for a special reason. At the Madras Club the bylaws provided that the committee ‘shall be vested the power of adopting any measures relative to its Funds, that may appear most conducive to the benefit of the Club; but no outlay on a large scale shall take place without the sanction of a General Meeting of the Committee.’56 Thus, some checks and balances were imposed on the committee’s expenditures. In some ways mirroring the larger colonial government’s process of controlling its subjects through ever-increasing laws, a further duty of the managing committee was to discipline members who violated club rules. Initially, no specific violations were printed; instead, responding to local situations, the language of the bylaws focused on the means of resolving issues to preserve the harmony of the club. A representative example comes from the Malabar Club. If a member’s behavior was ‘injurious to the character of the Club, or of any circumstance not hereinafter specially provided for occurring, likely to disturb the order and harmony of the Club, or in case of any willful infraction of the rules of the Club, or the Bye-laws of the committee’ then the managing committee would intercede.57 The committee had the power to suspend a member or remove him or her altogether with the blessing of a general meeting of club subscribers. While the committee was largely responsible for establishing the rules that guided the behavior of club members, and periodically took punitive action against members who caused disturbances, at other times committee members were at odds with each other, which could lead to dramatic outcomes. That club members could turn against each other and the club reflected the complex and diverse range of individuals who participated in club circles. One such case occurred at the Bangalore Club when the president, vice-president, and committee all resigned. At issue was the renovation of the club’s two tennis courts and the construction of two additional courts. Some committee members felt that the additional courts required a revision of the bylaws, and this would require approval by two-thirds of the club’s general membership. Other committee members felt that existing rules governing both the committee and the tennis courts were sufficient and the project should go forward. Clearly, the rules and bylaws were ambiguous enough to allow multiple and conflicting interpretations. Colonel Hindley, then president of the Bangalore Club, resigned and carried with him the resignation of the vice-president and other members of the committee. This action would normally trigger a special election to replace committee personnel. However, one committee member had been absent [ 40 ]

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from the meeting and thus was not technically bound by the others’ resignation. That man, one H.H. Sparks, after speaking with other committee members, opted not to resign. He concluded his letter to the general body, ‘Although there has been a difference of opinion lately among the members of the Club … I can assure the members on behalf of the Committee that it is our earnest desire to promote the welfare of the Club in every way & to meet the wishes of the members as far as it is possible with due consideration to its finances & good management.’58 Some members of the original committee carried on while others accepted new positions until an election could be held. Club bylaws thus created the role of the managing committee and defined its sphere of power; at the same time, they provided limits to that power with an eye to safeguarding the club as a whole.

‘House rules’ Club rules and bylaws sought to control and order members down to the most minute aspects of club life, as exemplified by the last category of bylaws that concerned the facilities of the club itself, or house rules. Initially, this was a small section, since the clubs themselves were small, simple, and easily managed. However, as clubs grew over time, both physically and in membership, the sections addressing club facilities grew larger and more comprehensive. In addition, a variety of miscellaneous rules were added. These rules laid out the club’s hours of operation and also the rooms or buildings a club used or owned. No doubt, these basic guidelines were intended for new members who would be expected to consult the rules to better understand when and what was available to them. Most clubs opened in the early morning, at 6 or 7 a.m., and stayed open to midnight or later, seven days a week. They offered members at least three meals, plus ample time to make use of the bar. The Bengal Club’s rules are exemplary of other clubs in the early nineteenth century: ‘The Club House will comprise a Coffee Room and Dining Rooms. A Reading Room. A Billiard Room and Card Rooms. Also sleeping apartments for Members arriving at the Presidency, the number etc. to be determined by the Committee.’59 House rules also addressed the problem of theft. As clubs pooled money from members, they subscribed to newspapers as well as other reading material – books, magazines, and journals. Since these items were sometimes difficult and expensive to obtain, access to them constituted an important reason for joining a club. Removing these items from the premises was considered a serious offence and punishable by expulsion. The Madras Club’s rule 12 provides that ‘No Member shall take away from the Club on any pretence whatever any Newspaper, [ 41 ]

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Pamphlet, Book, or other article, the property of the Institution, under the penalty of expulsion.’60 House rules further addressed behavior related to lodging, dining, and drinking. Members who felt their wine was spoiled or their supper inedible could consult the rules and find that their complaints should be filed with the club secretary. At the same time, the committee was bound to post and maintain the prices for meals, drinks, and lodging so that members were aware of their costs. Some common menu items included dinner, sherry (sold by the bottle only), claret (also sold by the bottle), cigars and cigarettes, coffee, bread, tea, toast, and sandwiches. Clubs were centers for games and sports, and house rules outlined what games were available; the rules of the Kandy Club in 1890 listed the following: whist, ecarte, cribbage, euchre, piquet, billiards, pyramids, and pool.61 By the twentieth century, such miscellaneous rules had grown in number and breadth. When the Bengal Club was established, its house rules had eleven subheadings that concerned hours of operation, rates, animals, etc. The 1908 edition contained 68 subheadings.62 The most numerous (and humorous) of house rules concerned items that do not neatly fall under other categories. These offer a glimpse of members’ behavior, a snapshot of moments when Indians and Britons were not carrying out or being subjected to imperial aims. They show individuals as they went about the more mundane tasks of everyday life. Still, within club confines, rules existed to regulate even these minutiae – and if they did not exist, they were to be written. The Ootacamund Club must have faced certain difficulties with members and their animals. Rule 12 states that members were not to bring horses, ponies, or cattle to graze on the club lawn. No dogs were allowed inside the club, an unfortunate rule for the canine companion of a lonely tea planter who made the long trip to Ooty. Tailors or tradesmen who accompanied members and performed different services for them were not allowed on the verandahs. If such visitors to the club were noisy, this too was regulated. From the rules of the Club of Western India, we can glean some indication of what kinds of noise were not permitted. ‘No Member shall, by singing, whistling, playing on a musical instrument, studying with moonshees [munshis], or by other voluntary noises, annoy his neighbors.’63 If one preferred the itinerant lifestyle offered by sleeping in tents, fine, but this also was forbidden on the club’s premises.64 These rules also suggest another possibility. Sleeping in tents, studying with munshis, and other practices might have been perceived as the behavior of one who was ‘going native.’ Thus, to keep British officials behaving in the ‘correct’ or civil manner, at least when making use of the club, such rules were critical. While rules and bylaws ordered club space and provided the frame[ 42 ]

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work by which a club operated, they inevitably chaffed against some members’ sense of propriety. Thus, most clubs kept a complaint book, usually in the front lobby of the club, where members could voice their concerns.65 Few complaint books have survived, but we know that they were often the site of contestations as well as humorous reportage. As noted earlier, Lieutenant Broome tore out a page of one such book, which his club found ‘highly reprehensible.’ The Cosmopolitan Club rules stipulated that its complaint book was not to be used inappropriately. Under Clause 1, Section 13 we see: the Complaint Book is kept only to enter any complaint or suggestions which a member wishes to make regarding any branch of the management or the economy of the Club and not for other purposes and that all other complaints which a member may wish to make against other members of the Club should be sent in writing to the Honorary Secretary who will place them before the Committee for their disposal.66

The complaint book was to be used for matters concerning the management or economy of the club, but not for personal vendettas. For Indians and Britons alike, such personal matters were not to be recorded in the somewhat public forum of the complaint book. A breach of this public– private divide constituted a serious infraction not only of club etiquette but larger norms of nineteenth-century behavior as well. As forms of associational life, clubs, as Frere reminded the Byculla Club, served the valuable purpose of teaching skills and instilling civil practices applicable far beyond club walls. Outlining these mechanisms and values were a club’s memorandum of association, rules, and bylaws, which provided the framework for club operations and thus needed to be clear. Shadwell reminded the prospective club secretary to make certain that the club’s rules and bylaws were unambiguous: ‘If your “memorandum and articles of association” are not drawn up on broad lines and provide for such contingencies as I have referred to … it will entail very considerable trouble when you want to alter them.’67 Over time these foundational documents would accommodate local realities brought about by colonial society: munshis on the verandah, a soldier’s inebriation, cattle on the lawn, petty feuds between members of the Raj played out in club politics, and much more. Clubs and other forms of associational life, let alone democratic institutions and civil society, depend on rules to undergird them; yet, as we have seen, those rules – necessary on the one hand, but able to be challenged and changed on the other – were often negotiated and even contested. Giving a physical home to such realities, clubs contained a variety of spaces and places where disputes and other club activities occurred, and it is to those physical spaces we now turn. [ 43 ]

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Notes  1 Frevert, ‘Civil Society and Citizenship,’ p. 70.  2 Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy, ‘Introduction,’ in Decentering Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World, ed. Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2006).  3 The first of these acts was the Joint Stock Companies Act, No. XLIII, passed on 27 December 1850. Subsequently other legislation appeared that governed different types of associations, such as the Societies Registration Act of 1860. Commentary and analysis of the former can be found in P.S. Sangal, ‘Ultra Vires and Companies: The Indian Experience,’ The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 12(3) (1963); R.S. Rungta, ‘Indian Company Law Problems in 1850,’ The American Journal of Legal History 6(3) (1962). Some discussion of the laws governing clubs in the twentieth century can be found in K. Venkoba Rao, The Law Relating to Places of Entertainment & Amusement (Madras: Central Art Press, 1938), pp. 355–79.  4 It is entirely possible that some small, localized clubs may have printed their rules and bylaws in the vernacular. However, in my research I found no mention of this. Further, by their use of a local language, these clubs would have sought to step off the network of affiliated clubs that others participated in.  5 The economic benefits for clubs and their members have yielded their own ‘theory of clubs,’ which explains reasons to participate in ‘cooperative membership’ organizations and associations. In short, the theory suggests that individuals will pay into an organization if they will receive some benefit in return. Individual members of a club pay membership fees that when pooled allow the club to purchase goods and services for those members at a price lower than what might otherwise be available. See James M. Buchanan, ‘An Economic Theory of Clubs,’ Economica 32(125) (1965).  6 L.J. Shadwell, Notes on the Internal Economy of Chummery, Home, Mess and Club (Bombay: Thacker & Co., 1904), p. 163.  7 Alexander F. Baillie, The Oriental Club and Hanover Square (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901), p. 104.  8 A.W. Chaster, Wertheimer’s Law Relating to Clubs, 3rd ed. (London: Stevens and Haynes, 1903), preface. Baillie notes that the Guards’ Club actually predated the United Service Club by two years. Both were in existence when the Oriental Club opened. Baillie, The Oriental Club, p. 42.  9 Chaster, Wertheimer’s Law Relating to Clubs, Preface. 10 Elizabeth Buettner, Empire Families (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 13. 11 Baillie, The Oriental Club, p. 43. 12 In the mid-nineteenth century, as clubs were opening in India, the Oriental Club considered a proposed merger with the East India United Service Club, also in London. Both clubs had strong ties with India, yet were unable to find common ground to form a merger over issues of membership. Oriental Club to East India United Service Club, 13 November 1854, LMA/4452/03/01/002, London Metropolitan Archive. Three histories of the Oriental Club exist: Hugh Riches, A History of the Oriental Club (London: Oriental Club, 2000); Forrest, The Oriental Life Story; and Baillie, The Oriental Club. 13 Forrest, The Oriental Life Story, pp. 21–7. 14 H.R. Panckridge and R.I. Macalpine, The Bengal Club (Calcutta: The Statesman Press, 1970), Appendix C, p. 61. 15 ‘Prospectus for the Establishment of a Club at Bombay’ (1832), in Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 20. 16 Macqueen, The Madras Club, Appendix A, p. 29. 17 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club, Limited, with ByeLaws and List of Members (Calcutta: The Bengal Club, 1908), p. 5. 18 The Cosmopolitan Club Platinum Jubilee Souvenir, p. 21. 19 Rules of the Colombo Club. December, 1890 (Colombo: Times of Ceylon Steam Press, 1890), p. 1.

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C lub rules 20 The First Fifty Years (Bombay: Times of India Press, 1964), p. 5. 21 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 61. 22 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, Appendix 1, p. 316. 23 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 61. These included Alexander, Bracken, Bryce, Calder, Fergusson, Gordon, Larruleta, Melville, Palmer, Patrick, Roberts, and Young. 24 Ibid., p. 9. See also Chapter 5. 25 Sir Owain Jenkins, ‘Club Life in Calcutta,’ Indo-British Review 19(2) (1991). 26 Rules of the Club of Western India, Poona, with a List of Members (Byculla: Bombay Education Society’s Press, 1891), p. 10. 27 Buettner, Empire Families, pp. 2–3. 28 By-Laws and Regulations For Games of the Poona Club Limited 1933, 2nd reprint, with Amendments up to 1st November 1939 (Poona: Israelite Press, 1939), pp. 5–9. 29 David Gilmour, The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), pp. 84–5. 30 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club (1908), p. 12. 31 By-Laws and Regulations For Games of the Poona Club, front page. 32 Rules and Bye-Laws of the Palamcottah Club: Revised up to 11th August, 1932 (Tinnevelly: Hilal Press, 1932), p. 4. 33 Rules of the Ootacamund Club. 1856 (Bangalore: Columbian Press, 1856), p. 7. 34 Rules of the Malabar Club. 1866 (Cochin: Western Star Office, 1867), p. 7. 35 Rules of the Kandy Club. 1890 (Colombo: Times of Ceylon Steam Press, 1890), p. 3, my emphasis. 36 Rules and Bye-Laws of the Palamcottah Club, p. 6. The Palamcottah Club was affiliated with clubs at Kotagiri, Tuticorn, Quilon, Tanjore, Madura, Munnar, Trivandrum, and Coimbatore. 37 Macqueen, The Madras Club, Appendix A, p. 31. 38 Rules of the Madras Club (Madras: Military Male Orphan Asylum Press, 1852), p. 5. 39 Rules of the Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya. 1891 (Colombo: Times of Ceylon Steam Press, 1891), p. 3. 40 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club (1908), p. 8. 41 Rules of the Madras Club, p. 6. 42 Ibid., p. 5. 43 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club (1908), p. 9. 44 John Lang, Wanderings in India: And Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan (London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1859), p. 22. 45 The Friend of India, 17 June 1858, p. 558. 46 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 4, my emphasis. 47 Ibid., pp. 5–7. 48 Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself for My Friends Known and Unknown (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1937), p. 70. 49 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 62. 50 Macqueen, The Madras Club, Appendix A, p. 31. 51 Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 26 August 1941, Dehra Dun Club Records. 52 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 63. 53 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, Appendix 1, p. 316. 54 Rules of the Club of Western India, Poona, p. 11. By the interwar years, the Poona Club, like many others, needed to subdivide its committee to handle a variety of tasks and duties. From the 1939 rules and bylaws we learn that the committee had three sub-committees: finance, housing, and balloting. By-Laws and Regulations For Games of the Poona Club, p. 22. 55 The newspaper account of this extraordinary meeting suggests that the motion to admit women and children passed by a vote of 24 to 21, but the club did not admit women and children until much later in its history. The Asiatic Journal, 1 November 1835. This story originally ran in the Madras Gazette. The quote is from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. 56 Macqueen, The Madras Club, Appendix A. p. 34.

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I N TH E C LU B 57 Rules of the Malabar Club, p. 5. 58 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, pp. 57–9. 59 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 64. 60 Macqueen, The Madras Club, Appendix A, p. 36. 61 Rules of the Kandy Club, p. 17. 62 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club (1908), pp. 5–34. 63 Rules of the Club of Western India, Poona, p. 21. 64 Rules of the Ootacamund Club. 1856, p. 6. 65 The complaint book is today still a common feature in many of India’s public spaces. One may access a complaint book on a train, bus, in a museum, and elsewhere. 66 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 20 April 1895, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 67 Shadwell, Notes on the Internal Economy of Chummery, p. 166.

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C HAP T E R T WO

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Around the club

Clubs consisted of multiple spaces, each with its own designated use, and at the same time they were locations where civility and civil behavior were expected and enforced. These spaces took on overlapping and sometimes conflicting meanings. As members made use of club spaces, they imbued them with a variety of meanings underpinned by different ideologies.1 At one end, there was imperial authority, and members used their clubs at moments of crisis (during the 1857 uprising, for example) as well as to celebrate and fortify their positions vis-á-vis the empire and its interests. In the middle of the spectrum, club spaces were identified with community service; particular areas of the club were dedicated to serving the needs of the local Indian or British communities. At the other end of the spectrum, clubs served as an enclaved, home-like place that provided members with amenities in a familiar setting.2 This spectrum of meanings was not rigidly assigned. Specific places might take on different meanings depending on the moment; for instance, the club dining room normally offered members a meal, but at certain times it was a stage where club members received and celebrated imperial officials. At the same time, club spaces extended beyond the physical structure of the club itself. Clubs existed in, and interacted with, their local environs, and thus were important nodes within colonial society and space. Location in a particular town or city held specific associations for members. A club’s proximity to government offices or its location on a smart avenue played a role in its workings. Second, beyond the local environment, a club’s space extended to that of other affiliated clubs and their amenities. A member of one affiliate could easily imagine that he or she and other affiliate members read the same newspaper, sipped the same scotch, and played the same billiards games. Finally, clubs and their multiple spaces became well-known destinations for imperial travelers. Thus, club facilities were not only composite in [ 47 ]

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function but also imbued with multiple geographical and social meanings that were anything but fixed. This chapter examines the club along a spectrum beginning with the club as an imperial enclave, then as a local haven, and at the other end of the spectrum, as a home away from home. It then widens its scope to locate clubs within their local environs, as nodes within a network of affiliations, and finally as global destinations for imperial travelers.

The imperial enclave Enmeshed in colonial society, at times clubs served their members’ imperial needs. Such was the case during the uprising of 1857, although clubs were relatively marginal in the grander scheme of unfolding events. The principal reason for this was that in those areas affected by the uprising few if any clubs had opened. Up to 1857 most of India’s club life was centered in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, and it was only after 1857 that a wave of clubs began to open in India’s hinterland. Those that had the potential to be caught up in the storm included the Himalaya Club at Mussoorie (1841), the Cawnpore Club (1844), and the Shahjahanpore Club (1854). Of these three, fragmentary evidence is available concerning the Himalaya Club, explored below. After 1857, dozens and perhaps hundreds of clubs opened across India. Some emerged at sites where the uprising had occurred; for instance, new clubs opened at Agra, Meerut, and Lucknow in the 1860s. Thus, while the events of the uprising might not have shaken those clubs in existence in 1857, the creation of new clubs as safe havens after 1857 – many in important cities – helped spread club culture across the subcontinent. Club histories are relatively silent on their role in the events of 1857. In his history of Calcutta’s Bengal Club, H.R. Panckridge speculates: ‘There is unfortunately no reference in the Club records to the incidents of those critical times but it is permissible to surmise that on Panic Sunday [14 June 1857] the resident members had reason to congratulate themselves on the proximity of Fort William.’3 Resident members probably did not register concern since a military detachment was already at the club. As early as April of that year, as rumors of an uprising swirled through the British community in Calcutta, a Major Davis requested members of the Volunteer Guards to stand watch at the club.4 At the time, the club was located at 33 Chowringhee Road. From the club to Fort William was a scant kilometer, down Chowringhee Road and across Kidderpore Road. The Bengal Club came to have one other connection with the events of 1857. Up to that time, members of the Indian Civil Service spent two years receiving training at Haileybury. When [ 48 ]

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the I.C.S. was opened to competition, those at Haileybury who comprised the last class formed themselves into ‘The Last Term Club.’ The group thus organized around being part of a historic moment further reinforced by their shared educational training. The club, of course, had a cup – from which many libations were c­ onsumed – and that cup, through a long journey, came to rest at the Bengal Club.5 Another club not far from the fort, the Royal Calcutta Turf Club – where horse racing had been carrying on from the late eighteenth century – all but ceased activities from 1857 until about 1860. The shortage of horses combined with military officials being called to service at the time contributed to this decline. After this hiatus, racing resumed with new fervor.6 The available records of the Madras Club, which arguably stood furthest from the events taking place and was least affected by the uprising, only note ‘Honorary Secretary appointed’ for that momentous year.7 The scene in Bombay was somewhat different. While no violence was perpetrated against clubs in the city, its citizens and club members provided support to the Company troops by entertaining those that arrived in India in connection with the uprising. As the gateway to India, Bombay had to handle regiments arriving from distant locations, and many British residents of Bombay felt the troops should be properly welcomed. The Byculla Club led the British community in this effort. In August 1857, the 33rd Regiment arrived in the city from Mauritius. This regiment had a long history, having fought in the American War of Independence, the Battle of Seringapatnam, and the Crimean War before finally coming to Bombay. On their arrival, the British community initially gave them no welcome, a point taken up by the Bombay Times. ‘Bombay is greatly wanting in public spirit, that it does not notice the presence of H.M.’s 33rd Regiment by some public banquet or entertainment.’ The scolding continued, ‘We cry shame upon our local gentry, who had no sympathy for the brave warriors of Britain, and did not hold out to them the right hand of fellowship.’8 Thus, the lack of social activity made available between Britons residing in Bombay and British soldiers was viewed as a lack of fellowship, or a kind of social bonding. Shamed into action, the local gentry of both the Byculla and the Indian Navy clubs invited the officers of the 33rd to dinners before the regiment proceeded to the field.9 In this case, the context of the club could best provide ‘fellowship.’ When news of the uprising reached residents in Mussoorie, the hill station north of Delhi, British women gathered in the safe confines of the Himalaya Club for an evening.10 This club catered to members of the armed services and established merchants, though it denied membership to (mere) traders within the community. Mussoorie was spared [ 49 ]

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from violence, and by the next day the British community had returned to its normal, if now more guarded, routine.11 The 1857 uprising influenced clubs in different ways, and just how it affected club communities was largely determined by location. Stepping back, the larger effect of 1857 was to produce a rise in associational life in the decades that followed. Clubs and other forms of associational life flourished as communities of individuals – some shaken by the uprising – bonded and bridged together. Shifting from events around clubs to events in clubs, we find that clubs functioned as imperial enclaves when they played host to visiting colonial officials and British nobility. These visits were major events in the life of a club. The dining room, ballroom, bar, and other areas became lavishly decorated spaces in which celebrities of the empire could be adequately entertained. The Byculla Club and the Madras Club, among others, hosted the visit of the Prince of Wales to India in 1875. Hosting the prince and the subsequent dinner and ball cost members of the Madras Club Rs. 25,500; when divided among the 288 subscribers, the event cost each the handsome sum of Rs. 88.12 The Madras Club itself boasted an imposing edifice replete with stately columns and magnificent staircases, all part of the bunting and bravado that the larger clubs took pains to present. Again, when the Prince and Princess of Wales visited India in 1905, the Byculla Club hosted a special dinner and ball. The royal couple danced with leading members of the club and Bombay society before a brief respite. Then, to the tune of ‘The Roast Beef of Old England,’ servants brought in dinner, which was followed by more dancing. One common practice was for dignitaries to use clubs as a venue in which to make either their first or last speech on Indian soil; this bestowed special status on any club lucky enough to host such events. In Karachi, the Sind Club hosted governors-general and viceroys alike. The club honored James Ferguson, governor-general of Bombay, on 10 November 1884; he was followed by a who’s who of Indian imperial history: Lords Curzon, Minto, Hardinge, Chelmsford, Irwin, and Linlithgow – all viceroys of India. The following description suggests that club events mirrored to some degree the Indian practices of durbar and darshan – the guest of honor is set in a special place (durbar) to meet with local patrons brought before him for an audience (darshan) and brief exchanges. Those dinners in the earlier days were very formal and stately affairs. The Chabootra adjoining the Dining Room Verandah was suitably furnished and specially set apart for the guest of honour and after the dinner and the usual two speeches by the President and Viceroy, he was enthroned there; senior Members of the Club being led up to him one by one for

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a few minutes of conversation. The remainder of the Members had the privilege of viewing these interviews and the distinguished guest from a distance.13

In this case, in particular, the Indian practices of durbar and darshan appear to have been mimicked in that the guest is ‘enthroned’ (like Indian royalty), supplicants are ‘led up to him’ (as an Indian minister would do for his king), and are allowed the ‘privilege of viewing’ (the same experience temple visitors receive through darshan). In this way, British-dominated clubs mirrored an aspect of Indian culture within which they were located. Colonial officials arriving in or departing from Bombay (the ‘gateway’ to India) often made speeches at the Byculla Club. According to the club historian, none of these dinners was more famous than that given for Lord Curzon on 16 November 1905, two days before he left India for the last time.14 The speech that Curzon delivered, beginning with a response to the toast offered by club president Leslie Crawford, is remarkable for its rhetoric and encapsulation of Curzon’s duties as viceroy and his relationship with the club. ‘Three times has the Byculla Club honoured me with an invitation to dinner,’ Curzon began. ‘I have esteemed this triple compliment most highly.’ He continued by recognizing the honor he was bestowing on the club by giving his last speech there. Clubs in Calcutta and Madras had also invited him to speak, ‘But I felt that, having accepted your invitation, I owed a duty to you, and that I should only become a nuisance if I allowed myself either the luxury or the regret of too many farewells. ‘ Curzon carried on, outlining the various duties of a viceroy, which included ‘the agreeable finale of being entertained at complimentary banquets.’ He concluded, at some length, with a summary of his administration’s various successes and ended by saying, ‘Let India be my judge.’15 His visit to the club, speechifying, and ‘complimentary banquets’ were thus part of what Curzon felt was his due as viceroy. Curzon and the members of the Byculla Club considered club space to be an important imperial space linked with the power of the ruling authority. Though less grandiose than a visit from the viceroy, clubs held special dinners for members when one retired or was leaving India. Initially these events were somber, male affairs, but eventually they came to include Indian guests and British women. The Bengal Club issued special invitations replete with photographs and pre-printed menus to members when club presidents Prinsep and Overend departed (in 1902 and 1909, respectively).16 As imperial enclaves, club décor also came to reflect the role that clubs played. The walls of the club served as a canvas on which to [ 51 ]

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c­ elebrate the club’s connection to the imperial world. The front hall where visitors and members entered would often be hung with portraits of the king and queen of England. At the Sind Club, when the Prince and Princess of Wales, as well as George VI and Elizabeth, were not able to accept the club’s invitation to visit, the club requested and received their signed photographs, and hung them on the wall.17 In some cases, the club’s enclave was itself a manifestation of imperial fortification. At the interracial Cosmopolitan Club of Madras, the club’s ­committee – comprised of Indians and Britons – voted shortly after Queen Victoria’s death to rename their front hall ‘Victoria Memorial Hall,’ and placed a bust of the late queen in the room.18 As clubs in India matured, and the empire wore on, club décor often took on the sheen of faded imperial glory. Such was the case at the Galle Club in Sri Lanka when Ruth Bagnall, the wife of a rubber planter, visited. ‘It had an air of past and faded glory … The furniture was comfortable looking but rather weary, a selection of cane lounging chairs with sagging seats and some old armchairs with faded loose covers; the impression was one of relaxed comfort without luxury. The walls were adorned with a few pictures of the Royal Family.’19 Clubs across South Asia played a role as imperial nodes when hosting officials, celebrating royalty, or simply reminding members through décor of their positions and identity as rulers. Clubs were gateways for officials moving in or out of the colonial realm, and as such, their spaces were a kind of buttress helping to shore up imperial power.

A local haven Situated between the imperial and domestic realms was the role of the club as a local space. As such, the physical space of the club served the community and was at the center of a variety of networks in different ways. To begin, the front hall typically served as a gathering place for members, staff, visitors, and servants. The décor tended toward an eclectic mix of domestic club objects and imperial reminders. Couches, club chairs, coffee tables, lamps, and fans outfitted the room. The walls were mounted with sundry stuffed animal heads presented by longdead members, lists of members who had served in war, portraits of the king and queen (later replaced by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru), and other bric-a-brac of colonial life. On the china, coasters, stationery, and elsewhere, clubs displayed their crests. British officials created family crests for India’s princes, and the clubs did the same for themselves, choosing symbolic elements (guns, animals, books, a rising sun, etc.) to represent them. A central feature of the front hall, and a source of local news and information for members, was the club bul[ 52 ]

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letin board. The front hall and its attendant bulletin board were central in an informal informational exchange.20 This bulletin board served as a hub in the wheel of club activities. Members as well as the managing committee posted items for sale, items desired for purchase, advertisements for upcoming events, and other ephemera. A sample comes from the Jhansi Club (1887) in late December 1933. The club was awash in holiday celebrations, and the bulletin board informed members of events leading up to the new year, including a children’s Christmas party, an ‘electrophone dance,’ and a ‘pagal’ [crazy] gymkhana.21 Leaving the bustle of the front hall behind we turn to the club library. Individuals serving in India could generally not afford or sustain private library collections; thus, the club library was an extension of one’s reading from home and served to reinforce personal identities.22 It was also a gathering point of information about the larger world. The library catered to the member community and so navigated between a variety of different needs. Some libraries stocked only the latest works of fiction while others demanded books on history, politics, and the imperial world. Newspaper collections offered members local, national, and imperial news, as well as news from Britain itself. The library was also a consumer, dealing with booksellers located in larger cities and abroad. Starting a library for a new club presented a considerable challenge, since new clubs tended to be low on funds yet wanted to attract and satisfy members. This task generally fell to the club secretary, to whom one-time club manager L.J. Shadwell offered the following advice: The library presents the great difficulty to the initiated in a newly formed club … The very large majority of library subscribers in India read only novels, and all want the latest books … This being so, I believe, the ordinary library would do well to place itself in the hand of some big firm of booksellers at Bombay, Madras, or Calcutta, as the case may be, and tell them to send weekly or monthly so many new novels. You would naturally cancel the order if the books sent were not satisfactory, but it is to the bookseller’s advantage to see that the books sent are of the latest and most talked-about kind, as he naturally wishes to secure a continuance of your order.23

Thus, the choice of reading materials in part followed what was ‘most talked-about,’ creating a network of taste. From distribution points in urban centers, news and fiction flowed into the hinterland. Libraries stocked a variety of newspapers as well as popular novels. The former were adjusted based on members’ comments and suggestions. In 1894, the Cosmopolitan Club of Madras included among its subscriptions that of the Hindi Amritha Bazaar Patrica as well as the Indian Madras Standard and the Times of India.24 All but the local Indian newspapers would arrive at a club at least two or three weeks late. The selections [ 53 ]

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reflect an interest in what might be expected – news from home and the broader imperial world – but also reveal that local Indian papers, some in local Indian languages, were also a part of club members’ reading choices. Club dining rooms, bars, and other facilities normally served community needs, but at times expanded to accommodate special local events such as a club ball. The club ball was a central social event within the British and European community. It took place in designated ballrooms if the club was large enough or in makeshift spaces if it was not. Not only were balls occasions when imperial officials danced with the leading ladies of the community, but they were also events where regular male members and invited female guests might undertake a bit of courtship. The Byculla Club was well known for its balls, which began in the 1840s. They usually included dancing, a lavish dinner, and more dancing until the early hours of the morning. Organized by the managing committees and carefully orchestrated by the secretary, club balls drew on the full range of facilities and supplies a club might possess. Generally magnificent affairs, they did not go unnoticed by local newspapers, always eager for salacious news. From the Bombay Times in 1850: ‘We really do not well know what would become of the community without the Club, which takes the lead in all our gaieties, and whose own arrangements are always conducted on such a scale of magnificence, and with such admirable elegance and order, that nothing can well be brought to rival them.’25 The newspaper clearly recognized the role of the Byculla Club as a center of local socializing. Of particular importance to the Bombay social calendar was the Byculla Club’s annual Race Ball. The event had little to do with racing (though the club maintained a racecourse) and was much more about socializing and splendor. With the avenue leading to the club bejeweled in lights, guests entered into the main hall which was awash in decorations; a band played and servants took orders for drinks. In addition to dancing and dining, balls were an opportunity for the sexes to socialize. Young women found them an opportunity to show off the latest European fashions while hoping to find a suitable mate, and at the same time the balls gave young men a chance to meet a prospective partner. This socializing took place in the quieter corners of the club, away from the prying eyes of matronly chaperones, but not beyond the antennae of the local press. ‘[F]rom the very serious manner in which sundry young ladies were observed picking their fans to pieces on these occasions and the very anxious uneasy appearance of their attendant swains, there seems to have been a determined effort on the latter to reduce still further the singularly small number of spinsters [ 54 ]

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present.’26 Clubs and their fancy balls allowed the larger purposes of networking and matchmaking to go on simultaneously. Games and sports also had their designated spaces within the club. These and the amenities they offered were, again, more than individuals could enjoy in their own homes. The billiards room provides an example. Billiards could be played by several people at once, providing a social moment for friends; it could be played against the club’s own marker – an individual employed by the club to play against single members; or it could be played alone. Further, members could play billiards all year long, even during the monsoon season or the scorching summer months. Thus, providing a room for billiards was a high priority for many clubs. So important was having a billiards table at the Coimbatore Club in 1878 that a motion was put forth to mortgage the entire club to raise funds to buy one. While the motion was carried unanimously, wiser fiscal minds carried the day and nothing was actually done about mortgaging the club. By 1886, the club had finally managed to raise funds through debentures (a kind of loan) to build a billiard room, and buy a table.27 The billiard table at Jabalpur, combined with the ingenuity of members, led to the creation of a new game, snooker. The game appears to have first been invented and played in the club at Jabalpur in 1875, though members of the Ootacamund Club refined its rules.28 From there, it was exported back to Britain from where it went on to become popular worldwide. Like almost every other aspect of a club, the billiard room eventually found its way into the complaint book. At the Madras Club, one member complained, ‘The Red Ball is getting very pale. Suggested that it be sent to the Hills,’ the prescription for sickly Britons in India.29 Many clubs also had a small general store on their grounds. This store sold goods from ‘home’ not usually available in the local bazaar – tinned meats, puddings, beer, etc. – offered to members at reasonable rates. Whether a local citizen or a visitor from a distant mufassal post, an individual could purchase valuable goods at the club, which for Britons served as reminders of home and reinforced the club’s position as a local haven for its members.

Home away from home Clubs provided members with spaces and amenities that extended the individual’s domestic space. Rooms dedicated to libraries and billiards made available what members and visitors would not generally have kept in their own residence, while bulletin boards, literature, and newspaper collections helped tie the local community together and kept it [ 55 ]

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informed about the larger imperial world. Clubs reproduced home, or more precisely, ‘reproduced the institutions of “Home” as transformed by the colonial community.’30 This ‘home’ reproduced one’s domicile, including a variety of home-like amenities, and it reproduced and represented a form of one’s homeland. Britons serving in imperial outposts found themselves part of a small minority community. These circumstances led to associations and bonding that reinforced what has been called an ‘imperial diaspora.’31 When the Byculla Club in Bombay first opened, the Bombay Gazette celebrated by stating that ‘our countrymen, curtailed in their power and shortened in their means, no longer bahadurise in solitary grandeur.’32 In other words, the club offered men a space where they could be bahadurs in each other’s company and an opportunity for social bonding. In the club, members found a familiar institution, food, drink, amusements, and a familiar routine, in contrast to the seemingly messy and chaotic business of empire building in India. As David Cannadine has suggested, Britons attempted to ‘replicate the layered, ordered, hierarchical society they believed they had left behind at home.’33 One Briton stated that the club ‘to a great extent replaces the home.’34 At the same time, clubs also served as a location for escape from home, most often for husbands seeking time and space away from their wives and families. Nevill describes the club in London as an escape from everyday worries: ‘The original conception of a London club was a retreat to which West End men might betake themselves, certain that the troubles and worries of the outside world would not follow into a building which they regarded as a temple of dignified seclusion and repose.’35 In India, some individuals felt that a club was among the only places where the rulers did not mix with the ruled, and thus represented a form of escaping the ‘white man’s burden.’ The club was a place where Britons could be themselves; thus where a British-only policy existed, it was not to denigrate their Indian colleagues, but was rather to allow Britons to relax beyond the eyes of their Indian subjects. Yet even this was somewhat of a fantasy as Indian employees staffed all clubs. As one club member recounted, ‘We spent our time watching our step and watching what we said – and there was a certain relief to go amongst people of our own race and let our hair down.’36 In other words, keeping up appearances and enforcing imperial aims was a difficult business, and the club served as a location in which Britons could escape the need from enacting it at all times. Britons also joined clubs to escape other non-Indians. In south India, George Dunbar’s father joined the local club to escape ‘puritanical American missionaries.’37 Britons at times thus set themselves apart from other Anglo communities, as well as from Indians. [ 56 ]

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While almost all clubs played a role as home, their architectural variety depended more on urban–rural distinctions. Grand urban clubs and simpler rural clubs reflected their surroundings. Both types maintained a lawn and some bit of garden for members to enjoy. A photograph of the Mahableshwar Club shows its modest architecture, simply adorned with a touch of lattice and arches (figure 2). A member of the Gwalior Club describes a scene representative of many rural clubs: The Club is a featureless white bungalow, standing in a small garden in the midst of a particularly dusty and brown piece of waste land. It is about dusk when we arrive, tennis is just over and all the little boys who pick up balls are engaged in taking down the blue cloth backgrounds and end-nets. A few people are already there, sitting at one end of the tennis court. There is a large circle of black wooden chairs with cane seats. In the middle are three little tables with the three weeks old English Illustrated papers; on a table behind stands a buzzing table fan.38

Compared to this, clubs in urban locations possessed impressive and often eclectic architecture to welcome the member or guest, or intimidate those who did not belong. Generally set back from the main road and accessed by a long driveway, often manned by a guard posted at the entrance, the club beckoned. As Jan Morris and Simon Winchester felicitously describe it, ‘Come In! it cried to suitable sorts of Briton; Keep Out! it hissed to everyone else.’39 Since the cities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were centers of imperial power, it is not surprising that their clubs tended to have more impressive architecture than their rural cousins. These clubs exuded power, playing host to kings, queens, viceroys, and maharajas alike. The Madras Club and the Bengal Club were gated, guarded, and an imposing illustration of imperial architecture (figures 3 and 4). Yet even the large clubs brought a sense of home to their structures and grounds, while at the same time expanding out to the larger world. The Tollygunge Club of Calcutta maintained a garden with nearly 200 varieties of flora. This collection contained trees from North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe, and from across India. Ever interested in classifying and displaying knowledge of the empire’s natural world, members of the club produced a book detailing the varieties in its collection.40 As home-like spaces, particular rooms were set up to serve the basic needs of members, and there the club strove to offer domestic comforts. The dining room and its menu, and the bar and its spirits both replicated and expanded their domestic equivalents. As noted earlier, one of the major reasons for starting and later joining a club was to have a place where Britons could take meals for a reasonable rate. As Frank Conlon has shown for Bombay, the prospects for dining out in [ 57 ]

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Figure 2.  The Mahableshwar Club, 1907

Figure 3.  The Madras Club, c. 1900

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Figure 4.  The Bengal Club, 1901

colonial India were limited, and thus a visit to the club for meals was the preferred means of eating.41 Food being central to culture, the clubs did their best to provide British cuisine (roast beef, puddings, etc.) when they could; but an examination of club menus shows how clubs accommodated and absorbed local Indian food cultures. As discussed in Chapter 1, matters concerning the club menu were addressed in the house rules. Alongside continental fare are very Indian dishes and dining terminology, from mulligatawny soup to tiffin (lunch or a light meal). One such menu from the Ootacamund Club in 1851 gives a sense of what comprised breakfast, tiffin, and dinner.42 Breakfast, served from 9 to 11 a.m., consisted of tea or coffee, bread and butter, cold meat, and a choice of mutton chop, beefsteak, ham, sausage, or eggs. Soup, available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., ranged from rabbit to mulligatawny, and was served with bread. Tiffin, served either hot or cold from 1 to 3 p.m., included bread, vegetables, and corned beef or ham sandwiches. Finally, dinner was served from 7 p.m. onwards, and like at other clubs included a joint, curry, and side dishes, as well as dessert consisting of various tarts.43 At the Madras Club, dinner generally consisted of a soup, a seafood item, ‘joint of the hour,’ curry, bread, and cheese.44 Food brought particularly witty comments in the complaint [ 59 ]

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book. At the Madras Club, the cheese served prompted one member to quip, ‘The Stilton set before me this evening was as hard as a brick-bat, and one peon proved to me he had seen it for seven months. I had also a faint recognition of the cheese myself at some former occasion.’45 The Stilton and the beefsteak, the corned beef and the tarts were at once reminders of home, and at the same time show the ways in which the British attempted to replicate home; but such replications were always adjusted to accommodate local realities. Indian and British cultural commingling was taken one step further at the Calcutta Tent Club. In March 1889, in honor of the club president’s retirement, a special banquet was held at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. What emerges from the menu card is a mix of French continental cuisine combined with local Indian fare, described in French and Hindi: Potages. Orege perlé à la Millett. Consommé bon vieux chasseur. Poisson. Filets à la Tent Club. Releves. Selle de mouton à la Archie Hills. Filets de boeuf. Soor ka ran aur bahut Simpkin Shrab. Entrees. Escalopes de foie gras à la Alston. Filets de bécassines a la achacha jheel. Soor ka bacha à la premiere pointe. Pintades à la phir ao. Entremets. Asperges glacées. Pouding de semoule à la thik band-o-bast. Mousse en Brass-pot. Releve. Ceufs aux derniers adieux.46

Combined descriptions of dishes with references to local hunting sites and popular club members produced a hybrid and humorous menu that reflected the culinary diversity found within many clubs. Grand meals and grand bouts of drinking often prompted uncivil behavior at club dinners. Such incivility was carefully proscribed by the rules. The Calcutta Tent Club had such a rule, and it appears to have been violated during at least one club dinner. In November 1870, the club secretary, Landale, put forward a motion in the club book (kept at a small rented office which members could occasionally visit) that a dinner be held to discuss the upcoming season. The sixteen members of the club registered their responses, which ranged from the critical to the comical: ‘I vote for dinner!!’ ‘I don’t see the necessity for a meeting.’ ‘No need for either dinner or meeting.’ ‘I vote against such a bad dinner as last year.’ ‘I think we had a capital dinner last year. Vote for another.’47 The comments were in response both to Landale’s proposal, but also to one another – a kind of nineteenth-century blog carried out in pen and paper. The dinner took place on 23 December, but not without incident. During the meal, one Colonel James made unseemly remarks about the food, which went against club rules. Public complaints violated the etiquette of the club and should have been logged in the more private space of the complaint book. Landale wrote, ‘I beg [ 60 ]

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to remind members that in terms of Rules No. 7 & 11, this book should be used for making complaints & suggestions, and that the mess table is not the place for such.’ Outraged by this breach, Landale threatened to resign if civility was not restored. ‘Referring to the remarks made by Col. James during dinner on the 23[rd] which were probably heard by every one at table, I beg to say that if members permit in future so flagrant a breach of the rules under which I act as Honr. Sect. I shall resign the office.’48 In response to Landale’s outrage, members added the following comments. ‘Heard no remarks. Think that the dinner camp on 23rd was disgracefully served.’ ‘Col. James undoubtedly infringed Rule 7.’ The final comment suggested that James, for whatever it was he had said, should be fined, in the spirit of the time, one bottle of champagne. Thus, club rules regarding behavior (as well as those concerning race and membership) were constantly being negotiated within the club (often challenged or undermined through the use of humor), and far from being settled. By the late nineteenth century, the once common Indian fare was rapidly disappearing from plates found in imperial centers. This – to some extent – reflects the larger alienation that developed between Indian and British communities during the ‘high noon’ of the Raj. In his advice manual and cookbook, ‘Wyvern’ (A.R. Kenney-Herbert) states, ‘Our dinners of to-day would indeed astonish our Anglo-Indian forefathers … Quality has superseded quantity, and the peppery curries and spicy oriental compositions of the olden time have been gradually banished from our dinner tables.’49 As the new century dawned, the Madras Club became better known for continental ‘butler cuisine’ than for its curries.50 The club had transitioned from Indian cuisine to more continental fare, but still inspired members to register their concerns in the complaint book. One member lamented about the inedible teatime fare: ‘I request that the Secretary eat only one of the “Fancy Biscuits.” He’ll never eat another.’51 The club was thus unable to fully reproduce Britain or satisfy British tastes through serving food items from home. Once sated, members could make ample use of the club bar. As one club history stated, ‘the centre of gravity … has always been the bar.’52 The bar was arguably the club’s most important space; it was both the physical center and the heart of the social networks that intersected with the club. Of members, Leonard Woolf writes, ‘Even if we were not all gentlemen, we all had to behave, sober or drunk, as if we were, although when some of us were drunk – and drunkenness was not i­ nfrequent – it often seemed to me a very curious form of gentlemanliness.’53 For Woolf at least, the club prompted an uneasy tension. Clubs needed members and often admitted individuals who might not be considered ­‘gentlemen.’ [ 61 ]

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At the same time, loitering at the bar or ordering from the dinner tables, members got drunk; yet being drunk – especially in front of ‘respectable’ Indians let alone Indian servants who were always present – was not in the spirit of setting an example. Thus, the emergence of the ‘drunken gentleman,’ who might not have been a gentleman in British eyes, but needed to maintain that pretense in Indian eyes. Drinking and the socializing that drinking entailed bonded together members and visitors alike. George Orwell’s Burmese Days clearly states the importance of a bar and spirits at clubs in a comment by the novel’s protagonist, Mr. Flory: ‘Of course drink is what keeps the machine going. We should all go mad and kill one another in a week it weren’t for that. There’s a subject for one of your uplift essayists, doctor. Booze as the cement of empire.’54 The bar was thus a site within the club where individuals, lubricated by spirits, were able to forge a temporary sense of community. This community often spanned class lines, and over drinks such distinctions became increasingly irrelevant, or, if over too many drinks, became the stuff of raised tempers and even a resort to fisticuffs. Heavy use of the club bar often ended in drunkenness, and while fixed clubs frowned upon inebriation and the accompanying misbehavior, such misbehavior made for great merriment in itinerant clubs, especially the hunting clubs. In these groups, men – free from their wives and work – seemed to have consumed more alcohol and embraced the drunkenness that followed, all while in pursuit of the wily Indian boar. The Meerut Tent Club was formed in 1866, and from its first annual hunt we learn the following about consumption and behavior: ‘Fifteen true men and good assembled devoted to the slaughter of the wily Boar and to the consumption of a 32 gallon cask of beer in two days. The Boars died but the beer survived, at least a portion of it: notwithstanding intrepid assaults morning noon and night.’55 That amounted to over two gallons of beer per man! This consumption naturally resulted in erratic behavior, even for the intrepid men of Meerut. The following account comes from the second day of the club’s hunt. Speeches and healths were drunk, songs were sung and there was a fresher air as of ‘wines’ and suppers in the old country. It was first proposed to found an everlasting Tent Club and agreed nemine contradicente. Mr. Forbes’ [founder and first President of the club] health was then drunk about 10 times, and as he rose for the 10th time to return thanks he was observed to hurl his glass through the tent door. This proceeding appeared quite natural at the time, but strange as it may appear, the next day no one could explain it. It was not that he had enough: for the glass was immediately brought back and refilled: nor that he wished to throw away that particular potation for the glass was empty. It remains therefore recorded as a feat of imposing but mysterous [sic] oratory.56

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Perhaps in response to more outrageous behavior than pig sticking, two years later the club no longer provided wine and beer for its members, requiring each member to bring his own drink for the hunt. Returning to less itinerant grounds, the spaces inside a club carried with them implicit and explicit rules of conduct. Frequently, members seized on violations of these rules as a chance to reaffirm class (military as well as economic), gender, and race distinctions. Members contested club space as a way of sorting out and maintaining civility and social order. While a broader discussion of race, class, and gender occurs later, here I want to specifically examine the relationship between club space and the ideologies that informed these issues. Two vignettes from the clubs of Bangalore and Madras shed light on the way officials used behavior in a particular space within the club to achieve a specific end. In the spring of 1883, a confrontation took place at the Madras Club. On 6 May of that year, after dinner and drink, a young lieutenant of the Worcestershire Regiment named Pym and a companion found themselves in the club’s reading room. This space had explicit rules of conduct; foremost among them was behavior that did not disturb other members. In some clubs, any talking at all was forbidden in the reading room. When they occurred, violations of this etiquette allowed power relations between members to play out. Pym was a guest of the club, having been nominated for membership but not yet elected. Upon entering the room, he or his guest shouted ‘Boy!’ and ‘Light!’ thus disturbing the peace of the other members. Then Pym and his companion proceeded to the adjoining verandah where they began singing and whistling.57 This apparently went on for some time and ‘effectually prevented reading.’58 The club vice-president, Whiteside, disturbed by their behavior, sent Pym a verbal message through a club servant requesting that he stop. Pym and his friend, after making inquiries into who had sent the message, departed. There followed a lengthy spat between Whiteside and Robert Stewart, the member who had proposed Pym for membership.59 Whiteside initiated the matter by writing to Stewart, recounting the events of the evening and asking for a guarantee that such things would not happen again. Pym, having heard of the trouble he had caused, also wrote to Stewart admitting his actions, apologizing, and seeking a way to make amends with Whiteside and the others.60 In the end, having felt snubbed, Whiteside resigned from the club over the matter, Stewart carried on, and Pym disappeared from the records. Pym’s transgression was neither his presence at the club nor even his having over-imbibed, but rather his inappropriate behavior in the reading room. Pym’s behavior entangled Stewart and Whiteside, who appear to have had other disagreements which this event allowed them to air openly. The matter carried such [ 63 ]

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weight that the letters and accusations were privately printed in a small pamphlet that was circulated within the club and presumably within Madras social circles. Pamphlet printing in the late nineteenth century was a common vehicle for muckraking, and the membership of the Madras Club were clearly not immune to such recourses. Drunkenness further exacerbated contentious behavior in specific club spaces. In July 1917, the dining room of the Bangalore Club was the stage for one such event. On the evening of the 8th, one Major Probyn, ‘obviously under the influence of liquor,’ spoke loudly and rudely to Mr. Marples and Major Plummer, both of whom were sitting in the dancing hall. The hall had understood codes of conduct that Probyn violated. After quietly confronting Probyn and receiving only abuse in return, Marples charged him with drunkenness. ‘He defied me to prove that he was drunk, & told me that it was I who was drunk and he would put me under arrest.’ Probyn, who had been warned on other occasions, was suspended but given the chance to appear before the committee to explain himself. He did so, then resigned from the club, thus ending the matter.61 Disturbing noise from Lieutenant Pym and drunken rudeness by Major Probyn violated club rules and etiquette as determined by certain spaces. These were moments when others asserted their rank (class, military, or otherwise) over the offenders, and used the club rules as a means to mete out punishment. The club, in other words, enabled some members to enforce a kind of respectability that would separate club members from the general populace. Difficulties with guests such as Pym were sometimes avoided by designating a separate visitors’ room. This liminal space – neither outside the club nor fully within its rooms – allowed members to bring visitors to the club where they could be temporarily entertained. In some clubs, the front hall doubled as a visitors’ room, while others maintained separate and discrete spaces. Visitors might include women, non-members who were eligible for membership, salespeople or other businessmen, or locals – Indian or otherwise – who were not normally allowed to become members or who were not yet members. As Indians increasingly worked and socialized with Europeans, pressure grew for clubs to create areas where Indians could be entertained. From 1934, the complaint book of the Coimbatore Club advocated a space for such meetings. ‘We never invite Indians to visit us at the club, but it is impossible to avoid them altogether because of professional reasons and therefore, a room should be provided for such contingencies.’62 The realities of professional relationships between Indians and Britons forced this and other changes in club policy. Clubs also transformed their spaces by granting women access. Yet this access was not without its limits. The Sind Club, for instance, [ 64 ]

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confined women to areas considered appropriate for women’s activities: dining, drawing, gossiping (in the chabutra – a paved platform or terrace, frequently shaded but open along the sides), and sitting on the lawn. When women had their own rooms within men’s clubs, these were often known as the moorghi-khana (‘hen-house’). This was usually a spartan and depressing place, as its accouterments were under the control of male managing committees.63 Having opened its doors to women, the rules and bylaws took these new members into account, but mainly by limiting their freedoms within the club to a ladies’ dining room, drawing room, the chabutra, part of the lawn, and the library.64 The Sind Club, like many other formerly all-male clubs, established separate spaces for women, mirroring those available to men. However, the bar, usually the heart of any club, remained strictly off limits. Those mixed-gender clubs that retained men-only bars offered women small consolation for being kept out. Some had ‘blue seats’ – chairs or a bench just outside the men’s bar – where women could wait for their husbands to emerge. One such existed at the Darrawella Club (1868) in Ceylon, and it provides a vantage on members’ sometimes unusual antics. Mirabel Hawkes, the daughter and wife of tea planters, was waiting for her husband to emerge from the men’s bar. At 4 a.m., a drunken bachelor appeared in the doorway. Inexplicably, he decided the best way to leave was by climbing the draperies that curtained the room from the outside hall. Upon reaching the top, he fell, knocking himself unconscious and requiring a trip to the hospital.65 Space, it seems, could be traversed in a variety of ways. Another group of visitors not well tolerated at most clubs were children. Yet as more British women came to India and the number of children grew, some accommodation had to be made for them. The Cochin Club, which otherwise forbade children from entering the premises, nonetheless hosted an annual holiday party for them. When the no-child rule was violated, members expressed their consternation in the complaint book, which found its way to the managing committee, who in turn reprimanded those members in violation.66 Children, women, Indians, and others of the wrong rank, race, or class all found themselves entangled in the use and abuse of club spaces. Far from simple binaries of ‘accept’ or ‘reject,’ club spaces were often hybrid and porous – conforming or contesting the rule of the club or the needs of those occupying those spaces, or both.

Environs Clubs in urban centers were in close proximity to centers of imperial power. They were generally established just outside cantonment areas, [ 65 ]

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the latter being for military purposes while the former were civil and social in nature.67 Clubs were often located within walking distance of government houses, the high courts, and other important buildings. By this proximity, clubs shared in all-important imperial space, blurring the lines between places dedicated to purposes of governance and those used for social purposes. Three examples at Calcutta, Madras, and Bikaner (a princely state) illustrate the close relationship between clubs and their environs. The founding members of the Bengal Club of Calcutta chose to situate its premises in the heart of colonial Calcutta. Initially, the club rented space in Gordon’s Buildings in Esplanade East. That structure was later demolished and became the location of the Imperial Library.68 The club relocated to Dalhousie Square where it remained from 1830 to 1845. Finally, it secured a building that had been occupied by T.B. Macaulay during his time as law member of the Council. The structure was owned by Babu Kali Prasanna Singh and leased to the club for thirty years.69 Located at 33 Chowringhee Road, it was mere steps from Government House, the high court, and the town hall, all just to the north and west. To its east was Fort William, and on the club’s southern flank were more social locales: the racecourse, Maidan, Victoria Memorial, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Thus, the club occupied an intermediate zone between the official and more social areas of Calcutta’s city center. The original location of the Madras Club was just off Mount Road. This situated the club relatively far from Government House, but within the heart of the city’s business and social district. Unlike Calcutta, Madras’ urban geography seemed to require such a location. With the Indian Ocean marking its eastern side, the city grew southward, with the crowded lanes of Georgetown (formerly ‘Blacktown’) marking its northern edge. Moving south from Georgetown, the high court and Fort St. George follow in line with the Cooum River. Once across the river, the banquet hall, old Government House, and the Madras Club were all clustered in and around the neighborhood of Triplicane. Thus, as Madras expanded southward from its earliest days, the club was established in what was by then the heart of the business and social center of the city. Opening in a semi-residential neighborhood had its problems. In 1859, members of the club considered legal action against their Indian neighbors, since the latter disturbed the club with Indian classical music. Members claimed that because they lived in the ‘European’ quarter, they should be free from such ‘nuisance.’ The matter seems to have been resolved outside the courts.70 Later, as the city continued to expand to the south, the Madras Club merged with the Adyar Club (1890) at a location along the southern end of Mount [ 66 ]

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Road, thus continuing to occupy a central location as the city’s core shifted further south. Parallel to the role that Madras played as capital of the Madras presidency, so too did India’s princely states have their capital towns and cities. The princes were not only among the first Indians admitted into British clubs, but were also among the first to open clubs of their own. At Bikaner, beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, Maharaja Ganga Singh embarked on a series of new buildings that adorned his capital, among them the Victoria Memorial Club. This club, designed by the well-known architect Swinton Jacob in an Indo-Saracenic style, was to further the social intercourse between Britons and the nobility of Bikaner.71 The club had both Indian and British members, with an honorary president drawn from the governor-general of Rajaputana’s staff. The location of the club near the palace as well as its architectural style and stated purpose were all, in a sense, a hybrid of Indo-British ideas and ideologies.

Club affiliation networks Beyond the tangible world of the towns and cities in which they opened, clubs formed a less physically tangible but no less important network of affiliations. Affiliations among clubs created networks along which members could travel. An affiliate offered members several benefits. When traveling, members could avail themselves of guest rooms at reasonable rates, enjoy similar amenities, and mingle in social circles much like those they had left. In surveying the list of club affiliations, two generalizations come to the fore. Those located in or near imperial centers of power (Bombay, Madras, Calcutta) tended to be affiliated with others that were prestigious and generally of a similar caliber. Smaller clubs located further from centers of power also tended to affiliate with each other. These two networks of affiliation suggest a kind of informal hierarchy among clubs, evident also in the employment trajectories of club staff, explored in Chapter 4. Clubs located far from centers of power and having no regular contact tended to affiliate with similar clubs of equally minor status. Taking an example from south India, the networks maintained between 1948 and 1951 by the English Club, the Anamalai Club, the Conoor Club, and the Bamboo Club (1886) all overlapped. Most of these were plantation town clubs that served local businessmen rather than imperial dignitaries. There were exceptions, however. The Conoor Club had links with clubs in Secunderabad and Bangalore in addition to those in smaller towns.72 Beyond the rural locations of these clubs was not only the greater [ 67 ]

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subcontinent, but also London and other centers of power. In this outermost zone, members of affiliated clubs enjoyed some form of reciprocal membership. For example, members of the Madras Club who perused their rules and bylaws in 1832 would find that members of the Bengal Club were de facto members of their own club as well.73 Members of the Bengal Club were linked with members of London’s United Service Club.74 The reciprocal links India’s clubs enjoyed with the United Service Club of London and the Oriental Club served mainly imperial officers and Company members. For their part, members of the Bengal Club welcomed individuals from the Madras and Byculla clubs, as well as the Shanghai and Hong Kong clubs, as honorary members.75 Clubs forged new networks with their environs – both within their cities and towns, but also across the subcontinent and beyond – forming a series of transnational imperial linkages.

International destinations Clubs were important destinations for visitors coming to India. In the first half of the nineteenth century, a traveler to India’s urban centers or rural outposts would have found it a challenge to locate suitable accommodation, a problem that clubs directly addressed and resolved. One option was to stay in a hotel. Hotels opened in the 1830s, but were slow to spread, and even slower to gain acceptance among Europeans visiting India. Initially hotels appeared only in major cities; thus visitors to a smaller station would find themselves hard pressed for accommodation. Single men could opt to stay in military barracks; these were more widespread, but required either membership in the armed services or connections with a serviceman to secure lodging. Even members of the military might have difficulties, unless they were able to find lodging with a fellow officer or a friend. Another option was to take lodging in the private home of an Indian or European family. However, these limited offerings – taking advantage of a demand that outstripped supply – were often expensive and difficult to arrange. Thus, a club offered visitors a reputable destination as well as situating them at the social center of any particular town or city. This was especially useful for bachelors who, unless very well connected, carried a whiff of impropriety. As the first president of the Bengal Club stated, a club ‘will be infinitely more serviceable in Calcutta, where nothing like a respectable hotel or coffee-house has ever existed.’76 Indeed, the first hotel in Calcutta, Spence’s Hotel, did not open until 1830, three years after the Bengal Club opened. At Madras, before the opening of the Madras and Adyar clubs, locals and visitors faced the same challenges, having to reside in questionable accommodation and do their socializing in very [ 68 ]

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public locations. ‘Up to then [1832, when the Madras Club was established] the usual meeting-place had been Lord Cornwallis’s Cenotaph on the Mount Road, or (for the younger members of the King’s and Company’s services) the Tavern of the Exchange (now the British Infantry mess) in the fort.’77 With a club in their midst, the Madras elites could socialize in more respectable environs. Accommodation could be even more difficult to find, and more costly, in rural stations. In 1842, when the Ootacamund Club sought new members, then secretary R. Baikie specifically mentioned the value of the club to newcomers to the hill station, and especially to bachelors. ‘A primary object … was to afford a home on first arrival to visitors, temporary Residents, and in particular to sick Subscribers … As regards Bachelors this has been most fully accomplished and gratefully acknowledged by many – with respect to families it is fully intended to provide the same facilities.’78 Baikie viewed one of the club’s primary roles as being a home for visitors. Clubs across the subcontinent opened, maintained, and expanded their guest rooms to accommodate such visitors. A member could book a room for himself, or for an appropriate guest, by corresponding with the club secretary, who usually oversaw room bookings. A non-member could not stay at a club without an introduction from a member; thus, gaining lodging was linked to social networks limited to individuals who knew each other. Writing of his time as a young bachelor in India, Rudyard Kipling would later call home the Punjab Club (1879) in Lahore, which had provided him with a room, meals, and ready-made company. Kipling frequented the club as a young man of seventeen: ‘This was the setting in which my world revolved. Its center for me – a member at seventeen – was the Punjab Club, where bachelors, for the most part, gathered to eat meals of no merit among men whose merits they knew well.’79 Clubs came to possess certain reputations on the international scene. Guidebooks identified them as important destinations for anyone visiting India. Perhaps the most widely read were the many editions of Murray’s Guide to India, which certainly enjoyed the longest run of any guidebook of the day. This first appeared in 1859 and it continued to be revised and republished well into the 1960s. The Murray guides take their name from John Murray, the eighteenth-century publisher and bookseller whose name was linked with some of the better known publications of the time, including the Quarterly Review and Darwin’s Origin of Species. However, it was the third John Murray (1808–92) who oversaw the publication of Murray’s Guide to India. The redbound Murray guides were originally based on Murray’s own travels around Europe. They were organized around tours that visitors might take, rather than the now more common listings of cities and states. [ 69 ]

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The Murray guides provide a window into how clubs appeared from beyond India’s shores. In the late 1850s, when the guides appeared, clubs were the choice for bachelors arriving in India (married men traveling with their wives and families were advised to find a friend’s house). Over time, the guides reflected the growing competition clubs in India faced as the hotel industry developed; this even though the Murray guides were generally disparaging of hotels on the subcontinent. By the 1940s the guides recommended only a few clubs. For a traveler making decisions about where to stay based on racial considerations, many clubs were, by independence, multiracial. In addition, by this time an era of grand hotels was dawning in India’s urban centers, and thus the role of the club as the ideal place to stay was shared with new competitors. Murray published the first guides to the presidencies of Madras, Bombay, and Bengal in 1859, as the embers of the 1857 violence slowly cooled. At that time Madras was a hive of military, financial, and imperial activity, much of it centered on the Madras Club. For new arrivals to the presidency capital, the guide offered the following advice: ‘The best thing, of course, to be done, if no friends come to meet one, is to get into a palankeen and be carried to the club, if a bachelor; or, if traveling with ladies, to some friend’s house.’80 The only viable club was the Madras Club itself. For the prospective visitor to India, the guide provides the following description: The Madras Club is situated near the Mount Road, in the district of Pudupak, about 2½ m. from the landing-place. It was founded in 1832, and is admirably managed. It possesses a good library, which is also well supplied with periodicals, and the charges for living are moderate. Members of the Bengal and Bombay clubs, are de facto honorary members of the Madras Club, and vice versa. Strangers and travellers who have friends in the Club can easily secure their election through their intervention. The accounts of honorary members are settled weekly. There are sleeping apartments for bachelors, and a separate building for married people has been proposed. The charge for a bed-room and bath-room is half a rupee a-day, and the rooms must be vacated after a month if required by others and more recent visitors; but this is not likely to happen.81

Two decades later, the 1879 guide again stated its preference for staying at the Madras Club rather than a hotel: ‘visitors who can obtain admission to the Madras Club as honorary members will find themselves far more comfortable than in hotels, particularly if they are so fortunate as to secure a bedroom on the premises.’82 Hotels were not yet of a quality where they could compete with a club. Other clubs also came recommended. In 1881, for visitors to Bombay the Murray guide specifically suggests the Byculla and Bombay clubs. The recommendation echoes [ 70 ]

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some core reasons for having clubs: high-quality food, and in this case, proximity to government or ‘public’ buildings.

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The best way of locating oneself on arrival at Bombay is to obtain admission as an honorary member of the Bykallah Club, which is however inconveniently situated[,] very exclusive, and subject to disagreeable odours from the Flats, as the low ground round it is called. The Bombay Club is in a very convenient locality, close to the public buildings, and in a better atmosphere; the cuisine is also excellent.83

With a full stomach and close proximity to power, visitors to the club were ready to begin their stay. By the 1890s, the Murray guides were being published in a single volume that covered all three presidencies and the territories beyond. By this time, the number of clubs throughout the subcontinent had grown considerably. Furthermore, that the once separate guides were now published in one volume suggests that people were traveling more within India, and thus the location, condition, and network that a particular club participated in became even more important. The newly added index to the Murray guide mentions numerous clubs in both urban locations and rural outposts. These include the Bareilly Club (1883), the Cawnpore Club, the Darjeeling Club (1868), the Dehra Dun Club, and also the Byculla, Bengal, Colombo, Dacca (1911), and Sind clubs.84 Well-traveled colonial visitors to the urban clubs surely appreciated that the guide noted members of the Hong Kong and Shanghai clubs as enjoying affiliated privileges at the Bengal Club. At the turn of the century, clubs remained the recommended destination for overnight accommodation in India, but their portrayal in the Murray guides began to change. The following 1901 comparison of Indian and European hotels reveals a hardening of imperial attitudes, as well as the preferred destination of a club rather than a hotel. ‘He who expects to find good hotels in India, up to the European standard of excellence, will be disappointed … Most of the clubs admit recommended visitors as honorary members. A club which has sleeping accommodation is far more comfortable than a hotel.’85 By the 1920s, a significant number of Indian and mixed membership clubs had opened throughout the subcontinent. However, the Murray guides assumed that these clubs would be unacceptable and thus inserted a key term into their description of clubs in India. ‘Some of the European Clubs admit recommended visitors as honorary members.’86 Now the clubs that the Murray guide promoted were ‘European.’ The world of clubs was expanding and new entrants with mixed or solely Indian memberships made such a specification necessary. Further changes took place in the post-independence period. Travel writers viewed hotels in India [ 71 ]

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and Pakistan as far below the standard of European establishments. However, by the 1959 edition of the Murray guide, the term ‘European’ had disappeared. Clubs in South Asia that had been European were no longer so, and visitors to India or Pakistan would probably find themselves in a club with local members and guests along with a dwindling number of Europeans.87 Far from being homogeneous, space within clubs was composite and subject to the changing needs of its members. At one end, clubs served as centers for imperial fortification, while at the other they were homes away from home for lonely colonial and local officials. In the middle, clubs served the needs of the local community, providing information and a gathering place for socializing. Clubs occupied discrete spaces in urban and rural colonial settings, thus helping to demarcate a private association with restricted physical access from general public space. Yet clubs were not isolated bastions, but participants in a variety of larger networks. As such, the very private nature of clubs helped to sharpen public/private dichotomies, which in turn helped demarcate the realm of colonial civil society.

Notes  1 On space in urban Bengal, see Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Open Space/Public Place: Garbage, Modernity and India,’ South Asia 14(1) (1991); Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘Filth and the Public Sphere: Concepts and Practices about Space in Calcutta,’ Public Culture 10(1) (1997).  2 Jones, Interiors of Empire; Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), p. 144.  3 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, p. 28.  4 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 17 April 1858, p. 6. This story was drawn from the Morning Post.  5 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, pp. 29–30.  6 W.G.C. Frith, The Royal Calcutta Turf Club (Calcutta: The Royal Calcutta Turf Club, 1976), p. 39.  7 Macqueen, The Madras Club, p. 44.  8 The Bombay Times, 15 August 1857, in Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, pp. 141–2.  9 Yachting had taken place in Bombay from the early decades of the nineteenth century, but the club did not crystallize until 1846 with the procurement of a house. Kenneth Maciver, Yachting in Bombay 1830–1920: Being Some Notes on the History of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club (Bombay: Times Press, 1921), p. 74. 10 Prem Hari Har Lal, The Doon Valley Down the Ages (New Delhi: Interprint, 1993), p. 190. 11 The club shuttered its doors for good at the conclusion of the First World War. For a description of the club and its members’ antics, see Lang, Wanderings in India, pp. 1–29. 12 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, p. 254. 13 J. Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club 1871–1946 (Karachi: The Union Press, 1946), pp. 68–9. 14 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 60. Four years later, Lord Kitchener

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A round the club also gave a farewell speech at the club. When the latter was published, an original attendee at Curzon’s farewell found Kitchener’s speech remarkably similar, and published a letter to the editor of The Times pointing this out. The Times, 21 September 1909, p. 10. 15 Thomas Raleigh, Lord Curzon in India (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 571–2. 16 Samik Banerjee and Narendra Kumar Nayak, Calcutta 200 Years: A Tollygunge Club Perspective (Calcutta: Tollygunge Club, 1981), p. 126. Upon retiring from his duties as club president, Sir Henry Thoby Prinsep was judge for the high court in Calcutta. T.B.G. Overend was among the notable businessmen who served as president of the club. 17 Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, pp. 68–9. 18 Cosmopolitan Club extraordinary committee meeting, 15 March 1901, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 19 Mss. pp. 55–7, Bagnall Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. 20 King, Colonial Urban Development, p. 87. 21 Jhansi Club finance committee meeting, 24 November 1933, Private Papers, NAI. 22 Jones, Interiors of Empire, p. 177. 23 Shadwell, Notes on the Internal Economy of Chummery, pp. 168–9. 24 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 139. 25 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 83. 26 Ibid., p. 82. 27 K. Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out: A Centenary History of the Coimbatore Club (Coimbatore: Kalaimani Printing Industries, 1973), pp. 18–19. 28 Neville Chamberlain to the secretary, Ootacamund Club, 9 May 1939. Ootacamund Club Records. See also Compton Mackenzie, ‘Origin of a Great Game,’ The Billiard Player, April 1939; The Times, 3 April 1982, p. 6. 29 Love, Short Historical Notice of the Madras Club, p. 40. 30 King, Colonial Urban Development, p. 173. 31 Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). 32 Bombay Gazette, in The Times, 24 January 1933, p. 13. ‘Bahadurise’ derives from bahadur, a title given to gentlemen meaning ‘hero’ or ‘champion.’ The meaning here would be something to the effect that the countrymen would no longer hold court or be gentlemanly in solitude. 33 David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (London: Penguin, 2001), p. 28. 34 Indicus, ‘Indian Reforms and the Station Club,’ Contemporary Review 116 (1919), p. 323. 35 Nevill, London Clubs, p. 135. 36 Charles Allen, ed., Plain Tales from the Raj (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985), pp. 98–9. 37 George Dunbar, ‘George Dunbar,’ in Last Children of the Raj, ed. Laurence Fleming (London: Radcliffe Press, 2004), p. 201. 38 Photo 350, IOR Mss Eur, OIOC. 39 Jan Morris and Simon Winchester, Stones of Empire: The Buildings of the Raj, new ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 57. 40 The Trees of Tollygunge Club (1946). 41 Frank Conlon, ‘Dining Out in Bombay,’ in Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in Contemporary India, ed. Carol A. Breckenridge (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996). 42 A similar account can be found for the Byculla Club for 1843. See Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, pp. 151–2. 43 Frederick Price, Ootacamund. A History (Chennai: Rupa and Co., 2002 [1908]), Appendix B. pp. 518–19. 44 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, p. 253. 45 Love, Short Historical Notice of the Madras Club, p. 40. 46 IOR Mss Eur F/192/15, OIOC.

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I N TH E C LU B 47 IOR Mss Eur F 192/24, OIOC. 48 IOR Mss Eur F 192/24, OIOC. 49 Arthur Robert Kenney-Herbert, Wyvern’s Indian Cookery Book, Being a New and Revised Edition of Culinary Jottings for Madras, 7th ed. (Madras: Higginbotham & Co., 1904), p. 1. 50 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, p. 240. 51 Love, Short Historical Notice of the Madras Club, p. 38. 52 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 15. 53 Leonard Woolf, Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904–1911 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961), p. 135. 54 George Orwell, Burmese Days (New York: Harcourt, 1934), p. 39. 55 The Meerut Tent Club Log. A Reprint of the Records of the Meerut Tent Club from its Formation to the Present Time (Meerut: The ‘Official’ Machine Printing Press, 1899), p. 4. 56 Ibid., pp. 5–6. 57 Whiteside to Stewart, 7 May 1883, in Copies of Correspondence Printed for Private Perusal Only (Madras, 1883), pp. 1–2. 58 Whiteside to Madras Club committee, 17 May 1883, ibid., p. 13. 59 Stewart (1825–1913) served in India, Burma, and Ceylon; saw action at Lucknow in 1857; and rose to be appointed commanding officer, Eastern District, Madras. It was during this time that events with Pym unfolded. 60 Pym to Stewart, 8 May 1883, in Copies of Correspondence Printed for Private Perusal Only, p. 3. 61 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, pp. 78–80. 62 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 33. A further discussion of race-based restrictions occurs in Chapter 5. 63 The woman as a caged bird is also a well-known Victorian trope. 64 Rules of the Sind Club. Karachi (Karachi: ‘Union’ Press, 1947), p. 33. 65 Hawkes Collection, Mss. p. 27, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. 66 Cochin Club committee meeting, 18 December 1941, Cochin Club Records. 67 King, Colonial Urban Development, p. 82. 68 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, pp. 17–18. 69 Ibid., p. 28. To this day, a plaque notes that Macaulay had once lived at the club’s current location. 70 The Friend of India, 8 September 1859, p. 846. The neighbor was none other than the begum of the late Nawab of Chepauk. 71 Thomas Metcalf, An Imperial Vision (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002 [1989]), p. 127. 72 For the lists of affiliated clubs, see Rules, Bye-Laws, Schedule of Charges and List of Affiliated Clubs of the English Club, Coimbatore (1948), p. 37; The Anamallai Club. Rules and Bye-Laws (Pollachi: Sathanandha Power Press, 1948), p. 20; The Coonoor Club. Rules and Bye-Laws. 1950 (Coonoor: Victoria Press, 1950), p. 4, Appendix II; The Bamboo Club. Pollibetta. Rules & Bylaws. 1951 (Mysore: Bangalore Press Branch, 1951), p. 27 73 Macqueen, The Madras Club, Appendix A, p. 29. 74 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 61. 75 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club (1908), pp. 16–17. 76 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, pp. 2–3. 77 The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. I: Madras (Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, 1908), p. 509. 78 Price, Ootacamund. A History, p. 502. 79 Kipling, Something of Myself, pp. 48–9. 80 A Handbook for India; Being an Account of the Three Presidencies and of the Overland Route; intended as A Guide for Travellers, Officers, and Civilians; with Vocabularies and Dialogues of the Spoken Languages of India (London: John Murray, 1859), pp. 20–1. 81 Ibid., p. 21.

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A round the club 82 Handbook of the Madras Presidency. With a Notice of the Overland Route to India, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1879), pp. 141–2. 83 Handbook of the Bombay Presidency. With An Account of Bombay City, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1881), pp. 113–14. This club was established in October 1832. The Asiatic Journal, 1 April 1833, p. 133. The Bombay Club also came under review for its architectural composition. See The Friend of India, 2 October 1875, p. 901. 84 A Handbook for Travellers in India and Ceylon Including the Provinces of Bengal, Bombay and Madras (The Panjab, North-West Provinces, Rajputana, Central Provinces, Mysore, Etc.) The Native States and Assam (London: John Murray, 1891). See listings, pp. 426–37. 85 A Handbook for Travellers in India Burma and Ceylon Including the Provinces of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras the Punjab, North-West Provinces, Rajputana, Central Provinces, Mysore, Etc. The Native States, Assam and Cashmere, 4th ed. (London: John Murray, 1901), p. xix. 86 A Handbook for Travellers in India Burma and Ceylon Including All British India, the Portuguese and French Possessions, and the Protected Native States, 10th ed. (London: John Murray, 1920), p. xxv, my emphasis. 87 Arthur Lothian, ed., A Handbook for Travellers in India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon, 18th ed. (London: John Murray, 1959), p. xvii. Later editions of the Murray guide were edited by important figures in colonial and postcolonial South Asian circles. Arthur Lothian was a member of the I.C.S. and the last Resident at Hyderabad, considered a premier posting. The 1968 edition of the Murray guide was edited by L.F. Rushbrook Williams, also a member of the I.C.S. as well as a Professor of History at Allahabad University and later advocate for the princely states. He had a second post-independence career as an author and writer for The Times.

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C HAP T E R T HREE

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The business of clubbing

Clubs in India were private businesses. They depended on income generated by members and services of the club, but also fell victim when members defaulted or the cost of services outstripped the profit they produced. In their everyday operations, clubs had to steer uncomfortably between stimulating income and shaking off the many liabilities that plagued them. This negotiation between income and liability occurred on Indian soil and often involved local Indian businesses and businessmen. Many clubs borrowed money from local wealthy Indians and also employed Indian companies to provide them with a range of goods and services. Thus, the business of clubbing was transnational in scope – clubs ordered goods from around the world, but were also grounded in local Indian realities. As businesses, clubs were responsible to a growing colonial system of laws and regulations. Thus, they shed light on the increasing penetration of colonial governance into private businesses in India as they became subject to a series of laws that would shape and regulate their operations. The survival and growth of India’s clubland as a genre of private businesses is also a marker of an emergent civil society. As civil society rests upon a public sphere where associational life can flourish, so too it demands an economy where associations can participate in the market. Without a form of civil society, neither such an associational world nor the market in which it operated would exist. Clubs sat at the intersection of logistical and trade networks, linking them to each other, to their local community, and to suppliers around the world. Clubs worked on two fronts, negotiating their inner needs as private businesses, while at the same time handling their outer location within a colonial and transnational marketplace – procuring goods from across India, Europe, and North America, and redistributing them locally to their members and the community. Through the financial structure of the joint-stock system, clubs were thus often sites [ 76 ]

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T he business of clubbing

of technological innovation and global consumption, rather than being bastions of tradition and timelessness. In this sense they participated in much wider networks of consumption than might be immediately apparent. Arthur Griffiths, an early twentieth-century author on clubs in London, understood the financial complexities of clubs, while noting that very few others did. ‘[T]he business details and intricate arrangements that exist to secure the comfort and wellbeing of the whole body of members, are known only to those who are behind the scenes.’1 Thus, as we look ‘behind the scenes’ in this chapter, clubs tell us much about how private businesses survived in the colonial milieu and reveal the interplay between financial acumen and social practice in India.

Indian business practice The Indian subcontinent has a long and vibrant history of business and commercial activity that is evident from ancient times. As European powers yoked their commercial interests to Indian financial networks, this integration was built upon commercial systems that had already long been in place. While under the umbrella of the Mughal Empire, India’s commercial endeavors, vibrant in places, were not unified across the subcontinent. A multitude of languages, faiths, occupational restrictions, and customs networks, separated by a diverse physical environment, all hindered the formation of any real ‘national’ commercial system. That said, locales across the subcontinent buzzed with activity that was centered on the great market cities, many of which were connected to regions beyond India through commercial links.2 At the heart of many of these commercial networks were merchant families. Overseen by the family patriarch, these family networks linked important centers together by financing caravan trade and redeeming bills of exchange (hundis) at each end of a trade route. Merchant houses developed and bloomed into early proto-companies. These bear the names of their progenitors such as Jagat Seth, established by Seth Hira Nand Sahu in the city of Patna; or to the far west in Gujarat, Abdul Ghafur, headquartered in Surat. Ghafur maintained a fleet of ships to conduct outbound trade, as well as extensive hinterland operations. Jagat Seth and Abdul Ghafur are just two of the many family business houses that dotted the Indian subcontinent. Based on family relationships, these houses preceded the next stage in Indian business history, the joint-stock company. The European powers that came to India sought commercial opportunities, and the vehicle through which they channeled those endeavors was the joint-stock company – refined by the British East [ 77 ]

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India Company. The joint-stock company differed from the Indian family firm in several ways. Where family firms ran and perpetuated themselves through a particular lineage, a joint-stock company drew together unrelated individuals as investors. Family firms operated along customary lines, that is, they had none of the formal rules and bylaws that dictated the operations of joint-stock companies. In the joint-stock company, investors contributed sums of money to finance trade missions. If something went wrong, no one individual would bear too much of the burden. Family firms, on the other hand, were prone to suffer directly when caravans were lost or other tragedies befell their endeavors. Indian family firms tended to limit the geographical scope of their trade, generally preferring to conduct business within reasonably familiar circles (although some of these reached to Central Asia and beyond).3 European joint-stock companies were organized to explore and push far beyond the borders of Europe, and thus their scope of operations was much greater. Throughout the eighteenth century, European-style companies and financial practices mingled with those of the Indian family firms, and both became intertwined with the complex politics of the century. At this time, Indian rulers in the post-Mughal period pursued military campaigns against each other. Such ventures were expensive, and many rulers turned to Indian family firms and the new hybrid companies for loans. For instance, the Nizam of Hyderabad found himself at the mercy of the banking firm of Palmer and Company as Hyderabad’s state finances spiraled downward.4 A byproduct of this process was that family firms and local rulers turned on the peasantry to extract ever greater resources. The combination of a fluid post-Mughal political scene, new sources for financial support, and new forms of financial institutions (the European bank and the joint-stock company) all paved the way for new types of business to open in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Among these was the European-style club, a private business run as a joint-stock company, but intertwined with local Indian businesses and a growing colonial bureaucracy.

The onset of regulation During the nineteenth century a body of legislation developed to regulate businesses in India, including clubs. While a few clubs predated the first of several important laws, most were formed under the protection of the new legal structures and were subject to their mandates. By the later decades of the eighteenth century, the East India Company was carefully restricting what types of financial organizations could operate in India. This was a time of increased codification and regulation by [ 78 ]

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the Company under such governors-general as Cornwallis (1786–93), Wellesley (1798–1805), and Bentinck (1828–35). These men sought to rein in the excessive lifestyles and expenditures of the nabobs who predated them. By incorporating, a group of individuals who had organized into a company had some recourse to the law. However, with the East India Company limiting incorporation to just a few banks in the presidency capitals, organizations such as clubs had to find other ways to structure themselves; for clubs, the ability to incorporate would come later. One option was to operate as an enlarged partnership. In this form, a committee of directors managed and jointly held property in trust.5 The difficulty with this arrangement was that committees and shareholders were open to legal action. In other words, individuals who held stock in or worked for these partnerships could be directly sued, jeopardizing their personal savings. To stem the possible flood of lawsuits against directors and shareholders, the Company passed the Joint Stock Companies Act, No. XLIII, on 27 December 1850. This is also known as the Indian Companies Act.6 Though this Act was passed twenty-three years after the Bengal Club opened its doors, the legal and financial framework it provided would shape club financial structures in the years to come. The Act mandated that businesses advertise their intention to form a joint-stock company, hold annual meetings, have seven members form a quorum, and that the company – not individuals – could be sued. In short, a more codified and ‘civilized’ legal structure was put into place to rein in excessive legal actions that could threaten personal savings. These structures would become commonplace within clubs.7 Under the Act, a company that was registered enjoyed certain legal protections, both from external lawsuits filed by shareholders or creditors, and from internal dealings that jeopardized the company’s financial health. Individuals holding a petition and a deed of partnership could apply for registration with the Supreme Court offices in Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay. Yet among the problems with this early Act was that it contained no requirement for the deed of partnership to specify the company’s purpose. Thus, a company that extended itself too far and faced financial ruin could not be easily sued by shareholders since a definitive statement of purpose had never been set forth.8 In addition, several clauses in the Act made it unpopular: it required accounts to be audited – a process still not fully sorted out at the time; it forbade companies from dealing in their own shares, thus restricting a company’s ability to shore itself up through stock purchases; it restricted internal loans to the directors from company funds; it included provisions for ‘winding up,’ that is, when a company liquidated its assets it dictated [ 79 ]

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how profits would be distributed and debts shared; and finally, the Act required semi-annual general meetings and required further extraordinary meetings should more than seven members of the company board request them.9 This Act and its successors had long lives. In one instance nearly 150 years after its conception, the managing committee at the Cochin Club, in preparation for winding up, instructed the secretary to procure a copy of the Indian Companies Act for consultation, presumably to better understand the process of winding up as established by this law.10 This early version of the Indian Companies Act was critical in establishing a body of laws that dealt with financial organizations, but it failed to take hold because it did not compel companies to register under it, nor did it grant companies the benefits of incorporation. The next incarnation of the Act, passed in 1857, required companies to have a stated purpose; and on 1 May 1866 the Indian Companies Act – a combination of the 1850 and 1857 versions – came into force.11 This Act contained several important clauses that benefitted businesses which sought legal protection, and it was under this third Act that clubs in India finally registered. For clubs, the 1866 Act had several relevant clauses. It clearly stated that any seven or more people could come together to form an incorporated company. To do this, they need only sign a memorandum of association. The memorandum of association had to state the purpose of the company, thus closing the legal loophole of the 1850 Act. Club members who signed this document at the inaugural meeting thus became founding members. Next, the Act bound signatories to the articles of association to abide by its stated purpose. The 1866 Act also allowed a company to increase or consolidate its shares, but not to change in any way the stated purpose of its memorandum of association.12 A further amendment allowed the incorporation of private limited companies. These were an alternative to the joint-stock system. In the joint-stock system, members of the company faced unlimited liability. In the new private limited companies, members faced liabilities only as great as their shareholdings. This allowed new partners to contribute capital to the original shareholders’ company and thus expand the size of the business.13 Further legal codification came with the passing of Act No. XXI of 1860, which governed the organization of societies. Different from the Companies Act that covered clubs, this act specifically covered nonprofit literary, scientific, and charitable societies.14 A few specialty clubs registered themselves as charities or literary societies when their sole purpose was covered by this legislation. Like the legislation of 1857, it required a minimum of seven people to form an organization, who in turn subscribed to a memorandum of association that they then [ 80 ]

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filed with the Registrar of Joint-Stock Companies. In addition, like the previous legislation, it protected the individual from being sued and directed any litigation toward the organization itself, thus protecting individuals’ property. Taken together, these Acts codified the business practices of Indian and British firms. Clubs were directly enmeshed in this new emerging network of financial and legal structures, themselves organized around the binary of profits and loss.

The vagaries of club money As businesses operating in local and global trade networks, clubs developed a variety of strategies to accommodate the vicissitudes of cash flow. As membership rose and fell, clubs adjusted their financial strategies to cope. The clubs’ overall adaptive nature is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the forms of club money they developed. Initially, with small memberships and limited offerings, clubs operated on a cash basis. Members paid cash at the time of a transaction, which forestalled any delays in payment. When the Bengal Club opened, it opted for a strictly cash-based system of operation. Early rules and bylaws state: ‘All Members are to pay in ready money or by a draft on a house of Agency, their bills, and every expense they incur before they leave the house.’15 The problem with cash was that it easily disappeared. Barmen, bearers, and servants were not trusted with cash (still a common practice today), and the club eventually replaced this system with another. A new practice emerged in the early twentieth century of using coupons in lieu of cash. This worked like cash, but limited the number of hands handling actual cash. Under the coupon system, a member gave cash to the club secretary or head of accounts. In return, the club issued the member a booklet of coupons of different amounts, adding up to the total amount paid. Before an evening at the club, a member might purchase Rs. 20 of coupons. He or she would receive a coupon for Rs. 10, Rs. 5, two for Rs. 2, and one for Rs. 1. The coupons could then be used to pay for food and drink. In this way, the majority of club employees never handled actual cash, thus reducing the chances of theft or loss. However, the coupon system could be abused when coupons went missing, possibly having been given or sold (at a discount) to members by the staff. This occurred at the Bangalore Club in 1924 when over Rs. 3,000 in coupons disappeared. When the club questioned the secretary, a man named Fletcher Norton, problems with the coupon system became clear. The coupons, while numbered serially, were not issued in the same way, making it possible for blocks of coupons to disappear. The Bangalore Club printed coupon books in blocks of Rs. 50, but [ 81 ]

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sometimes they were issued for lesser amounts. No record was kept of the partial coupon books, providing ample room for theft or abuse. The secretary did not personally oversee the tearing and issuing of coupon books by his staff. Behind his back, fraud was always a possibility. While having the authority to order more coupon books to be printed, the secretary could not guarantee that extra books were not printed and illicitly used within the club.16 The managing committee found that in all likelihood the servants and staff had duped Norton, and asked for his resignation, which he tendered. As a temporary measure, the club reverted to another money system – the use of chits. The chit system was less complex than the coupon system and was sometimes used in lieu of it. It was nonetheless also vulnerable to fraud. In this system, after attending the club, servants brought the member a receipt which he or she then signed, also adding their membership number or some other form of identification. At the end of the month, the member would receive a bill for all of his or her chits. As mentioned before, this system offered no guarantee that members would faithfully pay their bills; there was little (except notions of civility and the threat of being posted to the club bulletin board) to prevent them from intentionally running up a tab, knowing that they would be leaving the club before settling their debt. The club was then left with the debt, which it declared as a loss. Over time, failures on the payment of chits came to be in a constant drain on clubs’ finances. Clubs also dealt with larger sums, as when they extended a line of credit to particular members. This privilege was directly linked to that individual’s financial relationship to the club, specifically whether he or she held any of the club’s debt, such as debentures. At one point the Cosmopolitan Club committee passed a motion that any member holding debentures from the club would be exempt from having to pay cash for their bills, and would instead be extended a line of credit. Members who held no debentures had to pay cash.17 These various forms of club money (cash, coupons, credit, and chits) were also bound up in social rank. During the Bangalore Club’s annual general meeting of 1941, a member raised the point that ladies who were long-time members of the club were forced to use coupons (seen to be degrading), while other permanent members were allowed to sign chits. ‘In reply the Chairman said that the interpretation of the Rule, by the Committee, was that only Permanent Members were exempt from using coupons, and therefore the rule applied to all other persons using the Club.’18 Thus, permanent members, who held the highest position within the club’s hierarchy, were exempted from the coupon system, whereas women – who were not allowed permanent status – had to contend with coupons, indicating an implied lack of trustworthiness. [ 82 ]

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Rank within the club’s hierarchy, gender, and class status all came to bear on the use of club money and could divide as well as unite the community of the club.

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Income The rise of clubs in India was predicated on raising sufficient private capital. Individuals interested in creating a club published a circular soliciting members, and requesting an initial monetary contribution. A subgroup of these founding members formed the managing committee that oversaw day-to-day operations. The nascent managing committee used initial funds to procure a physical home for the club and began to fill it with the necessary accouterments. Clubs raised capital through personal contributions by founding members, debentures, and initial subscription fees. The relatively low cost of joining and occasionally lodging in a club was attractive to members both in India and in London. As London club historian Nevill writes, ‘The excessively moderate scale of expenditure for which a man can live comfortably at many a club is highly attractive to the parsimonious.’19 At the Bengal Club, with its initial membership limited to 500, Rs. 250 for the initial subscription and Rs. 100 additional annual payment gave the club at the end of its first year an initial war chest of Rs. 130,000, enough to secure, furnish, and staff suitable quarters.20 The original members of the Madras Club raised the sum of Rs. 30,000, with which they eventually purchased a house and grounds. Within a year, they had raised an additional Rs. 70,000 to add sleeping rooms as well as billiard and smoking rooms to the original structure.21 These expenses were borne by the members themselves, from initial donations and monthly subscriptions. The inaugural membership fee for the Madras Club was Rs. 70, but for those having arrived in India and wishing to join after more than six months in the country, the charge was Rs. 175. By the 1860s, the membership fee at the Madras Club had climbed to Rs. 250. The Byculla Club opened in 1833, one year after the Madras Club, and early accounts of the club’s formation make it clear that Britons in Bombay were well aware of their Madras and Calcutta counterparts, suggesting the beginnings of a club network.22 Following the Madras example, the Byculla prospectus suggested an initial membership fee of Rs. 70. The committee estimated that the club could attract 700 immediate members, which would provide Rs. 49,000. Further, the Byculla Club – if formed – would keep its monthly dues for absent members to Rs. 1, thus offering a reasonable fee structure to members while netting Rs. 700 toward the cost of operating the club.23 For resident members, fees were to run between Rs. 4–8 per month. By early the next year, the [ 83 ]

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club’s finances were on stable ground. A report reveals that accounts were flush with Rs. 64,085, and from that the club spent Rs. 40,000 on making improvements.24 A common approach to raising funds was the use of debentures. Debentures might be offered at the time of a club’s inception, and over the course of its life, to raise money for capital improvements. A debenture was a kind of bond the club issued for purchase by individuals (Indian and British), sometimes within the club and sometimes from the community. The club would pay these individuals a fixed rate of interest on their loan until the principal was paid off, fixed for a certain date in the future. Sometimes, a new debenture was issued to pay off an old one, a practice akin to paying off one credit card with another.25 Debentures could also lead to unforeseen financial crises. In his advice to club managers, L.J. Shadwell offered this warning: Many, too, of these small clubs or gymkhanas or reading-room associations have borrowed money on debentures, the property of the club being the security for the debenture-holders; but the interests of the debentureholders and the liabilities of the club members have, in many cases, not been properly and legally provided for, so that the debenture-holders are not at all sure to receive their dividends regularly, or to be paid up in full if the club goes into liquidation, and the members may find themselves called on to pay up sums of which they had no previous knowledge.26

The use of debentures yoked clubs to Indian and British debentureholders. This financial relationship depended on sound legal backing, and as Shadwell notes, when this legal-financial infrastructure was poorly constructed or not in place, club members and their debentureholders could be left with unforeseen problems. Not all clubs relied on debentures, and some specialty clubs made their profits through more novel means. One club whose revenue was derived from a different source was the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club. This club’s main activity, as its name implies, was to stage minor theatrical productions during the peak season in Simla when it was the summer retreat from Delhi. For these events, the club made use of the Gaiety Theater, located (to this day) on Simla’s pedestrian mall. The revenue from plays was the main source of income for the club and could be increased simply by adding a performance when a particular play was popular. A page from the club records sheds some light on its financial arrangements. From January 1890 to March 1891, the club performed fifteen different plays. The accounts follow two different performance times, afternoons and evenings. The evening performances (of six different plays) grossed higher revenue than the more numerous afternoon events: Rs. 2,178 versus Rs. 976.27 This was probably due to the sale of expensive box seats for the evening shows, [ 84 ]

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higher ticket prices, and attendance by more of Simla’s theater-going community in the evenings. On the other side of the ledger, the club occasionally incurred losses from a less successful performance. Such was the case during the same 1890–91 season when its performance of Harlequinade lost Rs. 56. At the close of the season, the club’s debits and credits balanced out positively at Rs. 10,017, leaving the club in sound financial health for the next season.28 Income from membership fees, debentures, and the everyday charges from running the club – be it food, drink, lodgings, or even box-office revenue – all provided necessary capital for clubs. While clubs began with subscriptions and could use debentures to raise large sums of money, fees, rooms, food, drink, sports, and other means covered their daily expenses. Fees for services were more often than not a source of debt, and are thus explored below as forms of liability.

Liabilities Multiple forces drove club finances into troubled waters. There was the expense of maintaining a club at a certain level of excellence as the costs of maintenance, goods, and services increased. This was made more acute when the number of paying members decreased, a particular vulnerability for clubs with large military memberships: when a military unit arrived, club finances grew flush, but when the unit departed the area, income suddenly dropped. Worse, at times temporary members left the club without settling their debts. Members, whether military or not, were often lax in paying their expenses. While these debts could go on for some time without being settled, the club meanwhile had to continue covering its regular expenses. Urban and rural clubs faced different financial challenges. Those located in hill stations had smaller resident populations, and faced the challenges of seasonal fluctuations and the higher cost of getting goods shipped to their rural locations. At one point the Ootacamund Club was forced to change the way it did business in order to keep costs low. The managing committee explained its shift in strategy to its members in the 1866 annual report: ‘Your Committee considers it most undesirable to purchase in Ootacamund, where everything is so exceedingly dear … they are of opinion, that the Club should request one of the firms there [in Madras] to act as agents for the Institution, and that all supplies should be procured from or through that firm.’29 The membership agreed with the committee’s recommendation and in May 1867 voted to raise Rs. 10,000 in debentures to pay off immediate and local debts. They then shifted their purchasing to agents in Madras. Clubs like the Ootacamund Club that had British memberships, [ 85 ]

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however, had to accommodate themselves to local Indian realities. This took the form of loans from local Indian firms as well as wealthy individuals. The example of Ootacamund demonstrates that British clubs depended on goods and services provided by local Indian merchants and companies. In the Ootacamund case the majority of creditors to the club in 1866 bear Indian names: Framjee and Co., Gool Mahomed and Co., Fakeer Mahomed, Abdul Cawder, Aboo Sait and Co., Sugar Godown Proprietors, Abdul Hoossain, and Iyaloo Naidoo.30 This dependency on local Indian companies can be seen as well in the case of the Jhansi Club, which in 1937 employed several Indian firms: J.C. Mukerjee and Co., Messrs. Chajjoo Singh, Messrs. Moona Lal, and Mehta Peracha and Co.31 Thus clubs like those at Ootacamund and Jhansi were in many ways enmeshed in India’s economy and society. For the variety of difficult financial situations that stemmed from the behavior of their members, clubs deployed a series of responses. Financial infractions (as well as social ones) were punished, suggesting that clubs sought to impose norms of civility on their members. As discussed in Chapter 2, to punish members who failed to pay their bills, no tactic was more commonly used than posting a defaulting member’s name on the club bulletin board. Most club rules and bylaws specifically note that any member in default must have his or her name posted in a ‘conspicuous place,’ and for most clubs, the bulletin board in the main hall was just that place. With their names publicly posted for every member, as well as the inquisitive guest, to view, those in default would theoretically feel a sense of shame and embarrassment, prompting payment of their debts. Most debts came from late membership payments or an over-extended bar tab. Of the thousands of Britons who circulated in and out of clubs across India with debts unpaid, perhaps the most famous was Winston Churchill, who owed Rs. 13 – about one British pound – to the Bangalore Club.32 Churchill was a lieutenant stationed in Bangalore when he acquired the debt. He had come to India in 1896, and Bangalore was his base until he left in 1899. Churchill never paid the Rs. 13, and so his name appears in the minutes of the subcommittee with the debt to be written off.33 Of course, Churchill was not alone. In the spring of 1923, the Jhansi Club received one Captain Kearsey. He visited the club without anyone having proposed him. He made ample use of the bar, running up a bill of Rs. 97 – nearly 10 British pounds – then disappeared without a trace. The club secretary investigated his unpaid bill and brought the matter to the managing committee. After contacting local military officers, the secretary learned that no one named Kearsey was a member of their units. The whole matter was then turned over to the police.34 Other Britons also ran frauds that involved clubs. For instance, a ‘dis[ 86 ]

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tinguished looking individual’ posed as a professor from Calcutta, and he and his secretary ran up lavish accounts at the Agra Club (1863) before being discovered. The ‘professor’ was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment and the secretary to three.35 In debt, Indians and Britons alike found themselves equally guilty. At the Mahableshwar Club in 1924 the first Indian names appear in the records as having outstanding bills. Later, among other individuals on the list was Ghulam Hussain Hidayatallah, the first governor of Sind.36 Churchill, Kearsey, and the ‘professor’ are examples from across a spectrum of members. They also indicate the system of trust and presumed respectability that clubs employed, a system that could be manipulated and abused, and that would be replaced in many clubs later by the more modern (and impersonal) use of cash or ready money. Employees also defrauded clubs. In April 1853, Major Ottley of the Bombay Invalids was the subject of a court martial concerning his tenure as secretary of the Ootacamund Club. Fellow officers and club members claimed that he had intentionally defrauded the club of nearly Rs. 5,000. Ottley requested a trial. A colonel and major along with other unspecified officers were sent to Ootacamund to hear the case.37 The use of military officials to conduct the trial reaffirms the close relationship that many clubs had with the armed forces in India. In August, the verdict was announced: Ottley was acquitted of all charges, the money was lost, and the matter ended.38 At Bangalore, in July of 1898 the managing committee of the Bangalore Club convened an urgent meeting to discuss the resignation of the club’s secretary, Mr. Pinsent, who was charged with being ‘unfit for duty.’ As a result, Pinsent was immediately dismissed, his proposal to resign after three months having been rejected.39 A similar fraud occurred at the Coimbatore Club in 1945 when Rs. 6,000 was lost due to the nefarious sale of coupons.40 Such problems only expanded during wartime. During the Second World War, the Cochin Club had a large number of naval officers making temporary use of its facilities; it faced an increasingly grim financial situation as the navy men left port without paying their debts. The committee decided to meet with local commanders to arrive ‘at a payment system which will protect the club and at the same time will make the use of the club as convenient as possible to their officers.’41 The solution dictated that in the future, all temporary members would either pay in cash or purchase prepaid coupons from the club. This would allow service members to leave Cochin at short notice, which they frequently did, without leaving behind any debts.42 Indeed, the club might have profited from any unused coupons. As clubs entered periods of financial difficulty, it usually fell to the secretary to peruse the club’s budget categories and make suggestions [ 87 ]

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for reductions. Beyond raising prices, one possibility was cutting the salaries and number of servants. Such was the case at the Mahableshwar Club during the interwar years. In a report submitted to the club president and committee, the secretary outlined cuts to salaries and staff. The club reduced the salary of the head cook, consolidated the duties of the head butler and the barman, and dismissed several low-ranking servants such as tennis boys.43 Clubs faced financial difficulties from other corners of their operations as well. Members gambled away their earnings, and club employees (Indian and British) occasionally cheated the house. Club members frequently made bets on the outcomes of games including sports, cards, and billiards. Clubs generally considered these private matters, but if a member lost his entire savings, their debts to the club then became a problem. Still, a record from the Bangalore Club in 1898 notes the subcommittee’s characteristic reluctance to intervene. The committee’s response to the enormous sum of Rs. 2,000 lost during a game of whist at the club was that they did ‘not see their way to interfere in the matter it being a private debt of honour.’44

Wartime challenges and opportunities The global nature of the First and Second World Wars deeply affected clubs to the extent that they were tied into far-reaching social, political, and economic networks. Many experienced either a precipitous drop in membership, where their numbers were comprised of military men, or, conversely, a sharp rise in membership if they were situated in a town that had an active military outpost. Both situations had deep financial repercussions that led to clubs altering their membership policies. One change was to increase access for Indian military officers to some clubs. Wartime also saw women’s membership expand, which challenged the gender divide that had previously marked some clubs. Of course, membership policies had a direct connection to the economic well-being of clubs. At the beginning of the First World War, clubs whose memberships were comprised of Britons and other Europeans had to reexamine their membership, as some citizens of European countries were now enemies of Britain. Germans, of course, were first among those in that category. In 1915, the Madras Club altered its rules to expel ‘foreign enemy members.’45 Three years later, the Bangalore Club passed a similar rule that specified ‘no person who is or at any time was a German, Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian or Turkish subject shall be eligible for election as a member.’46 The divisions and hostilities breaking out across Europe were thus replicated in the Indian corner of the empire. Such policies [ 88 ]

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had an adverse effect on overall membership numbers and the financial health of clubs. Indian and British club members served in the world wars, with many never returning. Clubs thus became sites where those who had given their lives were memorialized. At the Bengal Club in 1917, a ‘Roll of Honour’ listed members who had given their lives in battles at Gallipoli, the Dardanelles, the Somme, and Flanders.47 Several had earned the highest possible honor for their service, the Victoria Cross. To honor others, on 31 March 1921 the then governor of Bengal, the Earl of Ronaldshay, unveiled a bronze plaque at the Bengal Club identifying fifteen members who had died in service. After the last, the inscription ran ‘Their names liveth for evermore.’48 That the governor of Bengal presided over the function further illustrates the close links between many clubs and government of India officialdom. During the interwar years, when veterans of the First World War were still numerous and circulating throughout the empire, the Jhansi Club organized annual dances in recognition of Armistice Day.49 Veterans and new recruits alike made up the large fighting force from India that served in the Second World War. Not only did individuals leave India for fronts in Europe, but the armed forces shuffled their assets, leading to a marked increase in the number of military men in certain Indian towns and cities. As the war developed, the fighting in Burma and an influx of Allied troops to secure that front meant changes for clubs. In Calcutta the Bengal Club had a longstanding affiliation with the Royal Navy whereby the club granted officers temporary membership. Now, in a time of war, it extended temporary memberships to servicemen from the United States as well. These men, like the Britons who found it increasingly difficult to get passage home, occupied many of the Bengal Club chambers through the early 1940s and provided a much-needed fillip to the club’s income.50 To handle the influx of war-related members, including officers of the Dutch Air Force, the Bangalore Club created an addendum to its club rules that allowed temporary members to be admitted under special circumstances. Temporary members would be admitted with no entrance fee, but could not vote in club elections and were required to pay their bills up front, so that the club was not burdened with tracking down delinquents.51 During the war, membership swelled in smaller clubs as well, such as at Cochin. This was the headquarters of the British-controlled Malabar district within the Madras presidency. Early in the war, the managing committee met and discussed the possibility of admitting a variety of British servicemen who were stationed at or visiting Cochin. The committee also examined the possibility of admitting individuals who served in the merchant marine; they were eventually granted [ 89 ]

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t­ emporary membership.52 The Jhansi Club was another that experienced an influx of temporary military members. Jhansi, an important military post during the war, relaxed its membership rules so that servicemen posted there might make use of the club without having to go through the lengthy membership approval process. Club rules from 1942 read, in part: It was agreed that as a War Measure, any gentleman wishing to become a member of the Club, will, on application to the Honorary Secretary, have his name entered on a list to be posted in a conspicuous place in the Club, and if no objection is received within one month of the posting of his name on the list, he will be considered a member of the Club, subject to his agreeing to conform to and be bound in all respects by the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Company.53

The club required a month’s grace for a prospective member to be vetted, but, making a concession to the war, opened its membership to ‘any gentlemen.’ A similar proposal was passed at the Dehra Dun Club in May 1944. The town of Dehra Dun lies in the foothills of the Himalayas, and during the British period it was within the Meerut division of the United Provinces. Dehra Dun served as a launching point for travelers escaping the heat of the plains, who sought relief in places such as Mussoorie’s Himalaya Club. The Dehra Dun Club put forward a special resolution establishing temporary membership for the duration of the war.54 A year earlier, the club had created a new category of women members to accommodate women whose husbands were not in station. ‘[I]t was decided, as a Temporary War measure, that War Separated Wives may be admitted as Independent Lady Members under Rule 44 on application to the Secretary who will obtain confirmation for membership from one Member of the Committee.’55 Such ‘independent lady members’ could not vote, but could enjoy the use of the club while their husbands were away.56 Regardless of their membership specifics, these new admittants to the clubs brought with them much-needed revenues. Changes in club membership during the war years extended not just to women but also to married couples. At the Mahableshwar Club, married couples won gradual changes in the club’s rules and regulations: they were allowed to stay at the club during the cold season, and later they were permitted to reside at the club at the discretion of the secretary. During the war, wives were invited to use the club free of any fees or payment.57 Wars, challenging economic times, and changing attitudes saw some clubs that were largely British begin to admit Indian members. In the [ 90 ]

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winter of 1914, the Bangalore Club altered its rules to allow Indian officers to make use of the club. This invitation to membership was not, however, without limitations. The managing committee decided that it ‘may temporarily invite’ select officers to become honorary members.58 While this step seems small in retrospect, it nonetheless opened the door to full Indian membership. In 1918 the door was inched further open when the Bangalore Club elected Lieutenant Colonel Desaraj Urs as a ‘special honorary member.’ Urs is the family name of the Mysore royal dynasty, and Desaraj was a prince in that family. The young, handsome colonel was eighteen years old at the time and had his command with the Mysore State Lancers. The ongoing shift was from inviting ‘temporary’ members to having Desaraj as a (permanent) ‘special honorary member’, that is, a member whose membership would not expire. Clubs in more rural locales were sometimes less stingy in their admission policies. The Mahableshwar Club, for example, in the elation at the end of the war, began allowing ‘Indian gentlemen’ who held no position in the armed forces to make use of the club.59 The world wars not only helped to shuffle membership categories, but also impinged on clubs’ supply networks, especially those reaching back to European shores. Particularly alarming for members was the shortage of spirits and beer, which forced rationing and changes in everyday consumption. In April 1942 the Cochin Club was prompted to reduce the hours its bar was open and then reduce the amount of liquor any one member was allowed to order.60 After the club had taken receipt of nine cases of whiskey, its supplier informed the steward there were ‘no further supplies in sight’; this prompted consideration of further rationing measures.61 The Coimbatore Club faced similar difficulties: the shortage of liquor reduced profits from the bar, while the overall strains imposed by the war saw general costs go up.62 In addition to coping with diminished supplies, clubs undertook a certain amount of belt-tightening during the war years. To help offset higher prices and fluctuating memberships, as well as support the war effort, the Bangalore Club imposed a series of fees in late 1914. The club added fees for resident members and lady members, reduced the number of servants, cut off some electrical lights, and raised fees on the use of its chambers and mess facilities.63 In the midst of changing membership policies and new interdependencies between Indians and Britons, clubs found new purpose as locally based associations that could support the war effort. Women raised money for the Red Cross, fallen soldiers were commemorated, and other supportive efforts were initiated. The Bangalore Club committee passed a resolution in 1940 to make an immediate Rs. 1,000 contribution to the War Fund.64 The next year the club held several [ 91 ]

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special events whose proceeds would go toward the war. These included a ‘Bridge for War,’ ‘Cabaret for War,’ and even a ‘Bar for War’ event. They donated the proceeds to air raid victims, to the ‘Bangalore Fighter Plane’ account, and to the general War Fund.65 Likewise, the Jhansi Club hosted a ‘Jhansi Ladies War Work Party,’ which held a bridge and mahjong party to raise money.66 That club’s committee sifted through its library and sent ‘works of Fiction by little known Authors’ to undoubtedly grateful troops at the front.67 When the war in Europe ended, clubs in India eagerly awaited the official announcement of Germany’s surrender. The Cochin Club, with its proximity to the port of Cochin and large numbers of wartime members, made elaborate preparations to celebrate VE-day. The club purchased a radio so members could hear the announcement of Germany’s surrender and planned a special dance to celebrate the event.68

Old Tom on ice As joint-stock companies, clubs simultaneously participated in local and global product networks as procurers and suppliers. Clubs maintained stores where they sold provisions and items from home, but by far the most transnational site was the club bar. Here, whiskey, wine, beer, and even ice all flowed in from global destinations to be consumed and/or redistributed by the club. Early Britons in India drank arrack and punch, but by the first decades of the nineteenth century, tastes had changed and wine had become more popular. Madeira, a fortified wine from the island of that name, was a favorite. Sailors fortuitously discovered that this particular wine improved with heat and agitation, both amply provided by the East Indiamen sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. Beer also gained in popularity, and like Madeira, its popularity in India prompted the development of new varieties better able to withstand the outward journey. In the late eighteenth century, British brewer George Hodgson discovered that using additional hops in his ale helped it survive the journey to India; thus, India Pale Ale was born. Breweries in India date from the early decades of the nineteenth century, the first opening at Kasauli, near Simla. Wine and beer were supplemented by a variety of whiskeys and spirits. Scotch was imported from Scotland, blended whiskies came from Britain, and bourbons eventually made their way from the United States. Thus alcohol, in all its varieties, was a prime commodity imported by clubs. The variety of spirits purchased from abroad and consumed may be seen in the orders of three clubs from the later decades of the nineteenth century. When the Sind Club was formed in 1871, among its first items of business was to order spirits from Europe, 15,000 cheroots from [ 92 ]

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Trichinopoly, and a billiard table from Cox and Yemans, London.69 Included in the order were claret, brandy, Old Tom (a brand of gin), light wines, sherry, port, and champagne. The shipping instructions reveal that the club was well aware of technological changes beyond India: these goods were to come by way of the new and faster Suez Canal route.70 The Coimbatore Club established its club store in 1878. Early purchases included items from the Army and Navy Stores, sherry, and claret.71 By century’s end, the quantity and variety of liquor purchased by clubs had grown dramatically. High-end spirits were still imported from Europe, while locally brewed beers (and later whiskeys) were becoming available within India. Late in 1897, the Bangalore Club’s bar committee placed an order for the following samples: from Steward Galbraith and Co., one cask of whiskey; from Christopher and Co., a small cask each of brandy, gin, and port; and from Justerini and Brooks, six bottles each of white Curaçoa, Benedictine, kummel, Noyaux, and yellow chartreuse. Some years later in 1907 the club purchased spirits and wine (of several varieties) from distributors in Scotland, Bristol, Malta, London, and Bombay. The order makes specific mention of certain wines and spirits which were the same as those purchased by other well-known clubs throughout the subcontinent, including the Dehra Dun Club and the Club of Western India, Poona.72 These spirits reflect both the increasingly sophisticated palate of club members, and the global extent of club purchasing. The Bangalore Club order also demonstrates an awareness of other clubs’ practices, and it is an indication of a growing club network. A more fleeting commodity imported by clubs in India was ice. An ongoing difficulty faced by Europeans in India was the effect of the subcontinent’s severe heat on both alcohol and food, not to mention on Britons themselves. When ice became more readily available in the early nineteenth century, cold drinks and better-preserved meats began to appear on club dining tables. Clubs were often in the vanguard of ice manufacturing or importation. Initially a few individuals manufactured ice in India, but only at great cost. In the early 1830s, the steward of the Bengal Club, Thomas Payne, manufactured ice both to sell to the club (at a large profit) and to the public.73 A more common method of cooling (still used today) was found at the Byculla Club. Here, a separate club servant, the abdar (water-bearer), was responsible for keeping wet the small ‘petticoats’ that were placed over bottles so that the evaporative process kept the contents cool.74 This process was largely abandoned with the advent of ice importation by the ‘Ice King.’ The Ice King was an American, Frederick Tudor (1783–1864).75 Tudor created a brief transnational trade in ice. He cut large blocks of ice from New England freshwater ponds, loaded them on to insulated [ 93 ]

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ships, and sold them at a considerable profit in balmy ports around the world. In 1854, Henry David Thoreau commented on the ice being cut from his beloved Walden Pond for shipment elsewhere: ‘Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well.’76 In India, several clubs contracted with Tudor for ice deliveries.77 In Bombay, the Byculla Club ordered forty tons to be delivered no later than 10 May 1840, the beginning of the hot season. They paid Tudor Rs. 300 per ton, a total cost of Rs. 12,000.78 Clubs not only sold ice to their members, they also spearheaded local efforts to secure a regular supply and suitable storage. The Byculla Club arranged to have ice shipped regularly to Bombay. The managing committee circulated a notice that it would ‘take into consideration the best measures for rendering the ice.’ The club offered to sell ice to the public, and then invested heavily in the construction of an ice house.79 Much of Tudor’s fortune was amassed not through the sale of ice itself, but through the real estate his ice houses came to occupy, often at the heart of growing urban centers.80 The same process occurred in Calcutta and Madras, whose elites led the way in the construction of public ice houses. Members of the Madras Club took an active part in raising funds for the ice house that Tudor supplied. Here the club was the nexus of global trade and empire. A painting from the time shows an American flag above an ice house whose construction was sponsored by a British club in India.81 The supply of ice was by no means consistent or necessarily profitable for either importer or exporter. In the 1870s, Byculla Club members found that ice was in short supply and thus prohibitively expensive. Leading citizens petitioned the government to find the cause of the ‘ice-famine’ that occurred in 1876 and 1877, and to procure a steady and affordable supply. By this time, ice-making technology had improved to the point that it was now possible to manufacture ice cheaply in India, thus ending the importation of ice and the Ice King’s reign. With ice no longer regarded as a luxury but a necessity, new domestic technologies were also developed to store it. In Calcutta, the ice chest ‘formed an additional and handsome item of domestic furniture, which custom has now rendered almost as common and indispensable as the sofa or the side-board.’82 By the 1880s, local ice-making technology trumped that from distant shores, and club ice houses gave way to mechanical ice-makers and permanent cold storage facilities. Clubs commonly supplied their members not only in their day-today consumption of spirits, ice, and other imported items, but through the club store. A countryside club member might visit his club once a month, purchase a cask of beer or whiskey, and take this back to his [ 94 ]

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rural post. The club purchased that cask at a lower price because it bought in bulk, and it resold the same cask to its members at a profit. However, to protect its relative monopoly on quality food and drink, clubs forbade members from consuming items it sold on the premises outside, other than provisions purchased from the club store; in other words, members were not to use the club as a sort of ‘take out’ service, but rather were expected to consume their meals and drinks on the premises. The Bengal Club rule states that ‘No provisions cooked in the Club House or Wines or other Liquors, are to be sent out of the house on any pretence whatsoever.’83 Should those services be unsatisfactory, specific paths of redress were made clear in the club rules. More importantly, clubs also restricted or limited members from bringing their own stock of liquor to the club. A member who bought a case of whiskey was expected to take it with him back to his post, and not attempt to bring a bottle into the club to enjoy with his meal. The Poona Club charged a 1 Rupee corkage fee per bottle for private wines and spirits.84 Other clubs completely forbade members from bringing in their own drink. This was the case at the Sind Club as of 1947 when the relevant rule stated, ‘No private wines, spirits or beers shall on any account be opened or used in the club, except with the permission of the Sub-Committee for Wines.’85 At a supper dance held by the Jhansi Club in January 1923, one member brought his own bottle of champagne and consumed it during supper. This breach of civil practice ‘in the Secretary’s opinion was against the recognized code of all clubs.’86 The transgression and the secretary’s response again alludes to a sense of commonly accepted civil behaviors that clubs and their members were expected to follow. In the spirit of the club world, such infractions were usually punished by making the member gift an additional bottle to the club. Not all clubs embraced a culture of drinks and drinking. The Cosmopolitan Club of Madras noted in the first year’s accounts that ‘liquor including aerated waters has had very little transaction.’ Two Indian members, G.P. Pillai and V.C.D. Chariar, put forward a motion to ban ‘intoxicating liquors’ from being sold at the club. Pillai had studied law in London and was an early lawyer to practice at the Madras High Court. He later established the English-language newspaper Madras Standard. ‘After a long discussion the proposition was put to the vote and lost.’87 However, by 1925 the club had opted not to serve liquor at all. The nature of the club explains its choice. This club was established for ‘the object of affording greater facilities for social intercourse between Indian and European Gentlemen in Madras.’ A vibrant Indian membership might have dampened the consumption and sale of liquor, or perhaps Britons and Indians felt that drinking, [ 95 ]

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especially excessive drinking, would reflect poorly on their respective communities.88 Nevertheless, other clubs that in their early years had no Indian members also chose not to maintain bars. The practice at the Coimbatore Club from 1875 to 1883 was for members to take turns bringing a bottle of whiskey, while the club provided the soda water and ice.89 Having looked ‘behind the scenes’ as Arthur Griffiths suggested at the outset of this chapter, we see the ways in which, as a business, much of a club’s operation was not necessarily immediately visible. Clubs participated in both local and global logistical networks of various kinds. They were entwined with local Indian businesses and businessmen; even the most British of clubs rested upon an Indian financial foundation without which many clubs, and some members, could not survive. Clubs also sat at the center of different trade networks, procuring goods from as far away as North America, to turn around and serve as providers of such goods not only to their members, but also to the community at large. Embedded in the financial world of clubs were also both an awareness of what other clubs were consuming, and a sense of commonly held ideas about civil behavior. Financial and civil networks were intertwined with each other, along with logistical and other networks, all overlapping to further create a growing club society, and adding to a civil society.

Notes  1 Arthur Griffiths, Clubs and Clubmen (London: Hutchinson, 1907), p. 161.  2 Several works address nascent business practice in colonial India. Among them, see C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Anand Yang, Bazaar India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).  3 On the role of Indian family firms in Central Asia, see Scott C. Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).  4 For a treatment of Palmer’s escapades in Hyderabad, see Peter Wood, ‘Vassal State in the Shadow of Empire: Palmer’s Hyderabad, 1799–1867,’ PhD, University of Wisconsin, 1981.  5 Rungta, ‘Indian Company Law,’ p. 300.  6 Act No. XLIII, 27 December 1850, V/8/33, OIOC.  7 Act No. XLIII, 27 December 1850, V/8/33, OIOC.  8 Sangal, ‘Ultra Vires and Companies,’ p. 968.  9 Rungta, ‘Indian Company Law,’ pp. 304–8. 10 Cochin Club committee meeting, 4 November 1946, Cochin Club Records. 11 Act No. X, 1866, V/8/40, OIOC. This Act contained nine parts: the constitution and incorporation of companies and associations; the distribution of capital and liability of members; management and administration; winding up; the Registration Office; relevance of this Act to Act No. XIX of 1857; companies authorized to register under this Act; the application of the Act to unregistered Companies; and repeal of the Act. 12 Sangal, ‘Ultra Vires and Companies,’ p. 969. 13 Christine Furedy, ‘Development of Modern Elite Retailing in Calcutta, 1880–1920,’ The Indian Economic and Social History Review 16(4) (1980), p. 391. 14 Act No. XXI, 1860, V/8/37, OIOC.

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T he business of clubbing 15 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, p. 64. 16 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, pp. 102–8. 17 Cosmopolitan Club annual general meeting, 26 April 1901, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 18 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 248. 19 Nevill, London Clubs, p. 153. 20 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, p. 61. 21 Macqueen, The Madras Club, pp. 18–19. 22 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 18. 23 Bombay Courier, 1 September 1832, in ibid., pp. 19–20. 24 Bombay Courier, 30 March 1833, in ibid., p. 31. 25 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 31 July 1903, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 26 Shadwell, Notes on the Internal Economy of Chummery, pp. 159–60. 27 Simla Amateur Dramatic Club, ‘Abstract of Accounts from 1st January 1890 to 31 March 1891,’ Simla Amateur Dramatic Club Records. 28 Ibid. 29 Annual Report of the Ootacamund Club, For 1866 (Ootacamund: Neilgherry Press Co., 1867), pp. 4–5. 30 Ibid., p. 8. 31 Jhansi Club finance sub-committee, 30 December 1937, 27 April 1938, 28 June 1938, 11 October 1938, Private Papers, NAI. 32 Winston Churchill was not the first in his family to visit India, nor to take part in its club culture. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–95) was in Bombay in 1885 and commented, ‘The Bombay Club asked me to a dinner but I declined, as there would have been speeches and more or less of a political demonstration against the Ripon party, which would never have done. I did not come out to India to pursue politics or to make speeches.’ Winston Spencer Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill, vol. I (London: Macmillan, 1906), p. 557. 33 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 13. Churchill’s (in)famous debt is now part of the Bangalore Club’s history and lore. To this day, the Bangalore Club proudly displays the minute book showing Churchill’s debt in a softly lit alcove in the main hall of the club. 34 Jhansi Club committee meetings, 4 March 1923 and 24 April 1923, Private Papers, NAI. 35 The Friend of India, 30 September 1896, p. 12. 36 Perin Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club 1881–1981 (Bombay: Asian Printers, 1981), p. 89. 37 The Daily News, 2 April 1853, p. 5. 38 Allen’s Indian Mail, and Register of Intelligence for British and Foreign India, China, and parts of the East, vol. XI (London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., 1853), p. 617. 39 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 8. 40 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 69. 41 Cochin Club committee records, 8 June 1942, Cochin Club Records. 42 Cochin Club committee records, 27 June 1942, Cochin Club Records. See also similar problems at the Byculla Club. Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, pp. 162–3. 43 Mahableshwar Club committee meeting, 2 May 1931, Mahableshwar Club Records. 44 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 5. 45 Macqueen, The Madras Club, p. 47. 46 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 83. 47 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club, Ltd. with Bye-Laws and List of Members (Calcutta: The Art Press, 1917), pp. 99–100. 48 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, p. 42. 49 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 19 October 1932, Private Papers, NAI. The club committee planned to hold a dance on 12 November, one day after the official celebration day of 11 November. On the evening of the 11th at the Bangalore Club

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I N TH E C LU B certain damage was done and wines and spirits consumed without being properly signed for. The club committee decided that, given the unusual circumstances, no individual would bear the costs. Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 84. 50 Panckridge and Macalpine, The Bengal Club, p. 83. 51 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, pp. 238–9, 255. 52 Cochin Club committee meeting, 10 April 1942, 22 October 1944, Cochin Club Records. 53 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 29 January 1942, Private Papers, NAI. 54 Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 19 May 1944, Dehra Dun Club Records. 55 Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 30 November 1943, Dehra Dun Club Records. 56 To the south, in 1945, the Kodaikanal Club implemented ‘special rules’ for war families and ‘war-separated wives.’ Women whose husbands were serving in the war were granted special membership status, and officers in the armed forces received coupon books for drinks. Rules and By-Laws of the Kodaikanal Club 1945 (Kodaikanal: Sri Ramakrishna Press, 1945), pp. 5, 7. 57 Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club, p. 84. 58 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 72. 59 Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club, p. 84. 60 Cochin Club committee meeting, 10 April 1942, Cochin Club Records. 61 Cochin Club committee meeting, 19 August 1942, Cochin Club Records. 62 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 67. 63 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 71. 64 Ibid., p. 227. 65 Ibid., p. 245. 66 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 28 October 1941, Private Papers, NAI. 67 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 9 July 1941, Private Papers, NAI. 68 Cochin Club committee meeting, 7 May 1945, Cochin Club Records. On this day itself, Germany signed the unconditional surrender, and on the next day, Prime Minister Churchill announced the surrender to the world. 69 Five years earlier, the Ootacamund Club listed debts to the European companies Todd-Heatley and Co., Tapling and Co., and Richardson and Co. The club also listed debts to Madras companies and local Ootacamund ones as well. Annual Report of the Ootacamund Club, for 1866, p. 12. 70 Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, p. 9. 71 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 21. 72 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, pp. 3, 47–8. 73 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, pp. 10–11. 74 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 155. 75 Macqueen, The Madras Club, p. 14. At the Madras Club, ice cost 4.5 annas per pound in 1871, and at the Sind Club 1.25 annas per drink in 1878. Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, p. 14; Carl Seaburg and Stanley Paterson, The Ice King: Frederic Tudor and His Circle, ed. Alan Seaburg (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society 2003). 76 Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (New York: Signet Classic, 1960), p. 198. 77 The process was not always a smooth one. A newspaper report from February 1837 suggests that an unnamed American distributor of ice was no longer able to supply the Byculla Club, although the latter had requested such service. The Oriental and Literary Chronicle, 4 February 1837, p. 17. The original story appeared in the Bombay Courier. 78 David G. Dickason, ‘The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade: An Hyperborean Epic,’ Modern Asian Studies 25(1) (1991). 79 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 156. 80 Dickason, ‘The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade,’ p. 55. 81 See Madras Ice House – South View by Just Grants [?], Madras, 1858, watercolor, in Susan S. Bean, Yankee India (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 2001), p. 181. 82 Colesworthy Grant, Anglo-Indian Domestic Life, ed. Bibhash Gupta (London:

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Thacker, Spink & Co., 1862), p. 37. See also Dickason, ‘The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade,’ p. 72. 83 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, Appendix C, p. 64. 84 By-Laws and Regulations for Games of the Poona Club, p. 17. 85 Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, p. 28. 86 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 9 January 1923, Private Papers, NAI, my emphasis. 87 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 29 April 1896, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 88 The Cosmopolitan Club Platinum Jubilee Souvenir, pp. 21, 23. 89 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 17.

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Servants and staff

Helping to maintain the club, enact and enforce its rule and bylaws, and fit the club smoothly into the greater Indo-British colonial milieu, were large numbers of staff and servants. As private businesses enmeshed in colonial civil society, clubs employed a wide variety of individuals. Some of these employees held titles such as club president, secretary, or chef, while many more were servants or peons. Ideally, these employees participated in the successful operation of the club, providing members with amenities and services for which they paid, and, in return, enjoying steady employment through the club. Yet inherent in the employment of individuals within a business is some form of power. Individual A has the power to tell individual B what to do, to provide them with favors, or to strip them of their job entirely. Clubs in India were not exempt from this dynamic, but as will be shown, the employees of clubs, and their relationships with each other and with members, was often more complex than employer or employee, or employee and member. Involved in the relationships were issues of race, nationality, and the larger dynamic of a colonial world in which employees and club members ultimately played a part. Part of this dynamic, and part a byproduct of club needs, were the social and employment networks that individuals participated in. For instance, secretaries moved from one club to the next, some trying to climb a hierarchy from one club to a better one. In other cases, clubs recruited chefs and stewards from Europe and they in turn moved from one club to another. Within British clubs, many presidents, secretaries, chefs, and stewards were of British or European descent, while other secretaries, servants, peons, and other club employees were Indian. The latter lived in the local community and often worked for a club for their entire lives. Thus, a club drew from two broad networks for its employees: Britons and Europeans filled some positions and were more mobile in their employment trajectories, while Indians were recruited locally [ 100 ]

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and found in the club a steady employer. This dynamic is somewhat different for clubs that had mixed-race or all-Indian memberships. Here, the presidents still came and went, but we find – as could be expected – Indians holding positions from the top down through the ranks, from president to peon. In clubs that were mixed race, such as at the Calcutta Club, positions such as president or secretary were intentionally alternated between an Indian and a Briton. Yet because there was a greater degree of turnover at the top of the club hierarchy, the day-to-day operation of the club and maintenance of its space – as well as its traditions and customs – fell largely to an Indian staff. This presents a complexity not immediately apparent when surveying India’s clubs, and forms a parallel to India’s colonial domestic spaces whose management was also entrusted to Indians, what has been called the ‘central paradox’ of the Raj.1 In addition to a network of members who circulated within the subcontinent and across the empire, there existed a network of what I call club professionals. These professionals (mostly British men) filled such positions as club secretary; they circulated from club to club, and sometimes in and out of India altogether. These men participated in a largely middle-class professional employment network that penetrated imperial India, but was not directly part of it. In other words, this was a network that spanned the sphere of colonial civil society – touching at one end the government and state when these men were retired government or military officials, and extending at the other end to the sphere of the home, where these men retreated to, and simultaneously recreated, the club itself. A second network was the local Indian one from which clubs drew employees. Local employees lived either on the club premises or nearby. They reported to work each day, collected their salaries, and often worked for a club their entire lives. Further, they frequently secured employment for their children at the club, creating a multigenerational ma-baap (mother-father) relationship with a particular club. Here too a network stretched across India’s colonial civil society, overlapping and binding together elements of the public and private worlds, as well as the personal and professional. The same was true for London clubs, ‘To be attached to a high-class club is, for the domestic servant, practically a provision for life. There is something patriarchal in the system; places often descend from father to son.’2 For these employees, the club provided safe, secure, long-term employment that often transcended generations.3 This chapter shows the ways in which club employees negotiated power between themselves and with members, and how notions of club civility impacted these relationships. [ 101 ]

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The challenges of leadership Presiding over the managing committee and providing all-round leadership was the club president. The position was generally held for a term of one year. The president was a man or woman hailing from a prestigious background, often with a military connection (if male and British) or royalty (if Indian). Yet he or she was much more than simply the presiding officer of the managing committee; the president in a sense carried on his or her shoulders the ‘weight of the world.’ From the records of the Cosmopolitan Club: As the head of the administration of this Republic ‘Social’, his responsibility [sic] are all the more difficult as more often than not he has to grip situation [sic] of amazing disposition, exercising a shrewd tact and diplomacy which the President alone can with his wide experience and vastness of knowledge of the Institution its principles, its history, its plan of organization and its general programme recognizing that the Club is an epitome of the Universe.4

In this case, the club president was expected to hold office in a manner akin to a national leader. For the Cosmopolitan Club, the description itself invoked – although in exaggerated expression – a ‘Republic “Social,”’ drawing its own link between club service and national service, and suggesting the club’s role in helping create and sustain a form of civil society. Among their primary duties, presidents were to conduct monthly, annual, and extraordinary meetings of the club, and in some cases they alone had the authority to admit temporary members or strangers to the club.5 As different as the clubs were, so too were their presidents and their style of management. Lady Erskine of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club at Ootacamund describes typical and ideal women club presidents: Now all committees are much the same, but Presidents vary tremendously. There are the Presidents who sweep into meetings, and having given a suspicious glance at the Presidential Chair (presumably to see if it will stand their weight!) sit down and gaze searchingly round the room to see who hasn’t come. Then there is the kind of President who bustles in being very busy, and having given the Committee a rather pitying look, which makes them all feel inefficient and slightly dazed, says that she ‘trusts there will be more business concluded at this meeting than there was at the last.’ And again, there is the nervous President, who creeps in, looking unhappy and shy, and clutching in a trembling hand the rather damp looking piece of paper on which she has written out her Presidential remarks. She usually casts a gloom over the meeting, by repeating her few words over and over again, under her breath, with the agonized expression of a person in pain!

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And then there is the Ideal President, who comes to the meeting as if she wanted to come, and who, by some magic peculiarly her own, manages to make it all a success, manages to make the Secretary feel adequately secretarial, the treasurer sufficiently financial, the committee warmly and pleasantly responsible, and the members and their friends very glad that they have come.6

In describing the ‘Ideal President,’ Erskine lays out that key personality trait so often necessary for elected office: charisma. Serving beneath the president, the vice-president, in all day-to-day matters, acted more like a regular committee member than an elected officer. However, since club presidents were sometimes members of the military and could be transferred to different posts, the vice-­ president often served as a president-in-waiting.

The burden of management The secretary of a club was its chief executive officer. He or she usually held the position for years or even decades, managed the club on a day-to-day basis, and thus was its most important staff member. A list of the secretary’s duties at the Cochin Club states, ‘The Honorary Secretary shall have the power of calling meetings of the committee of the Club on all necessary occasions, and shall keep a book of Minutes of the proceedings of such meetings. He shall also keep a register of debenture holders.’7 Most secretaries were full-time employees of the club, while a few – particularly early in the life of some clubs when funds were short – held the position as volunteer or ‘honorary’ secretary. Being an honorary secretary was difficult at best, as one’s professional career and duties to the club both demanded considerable time and energy. L.J. Shadwell warns that one who chooses to serve as an honorary secretary might be wading into deeper waters than expected. ‘The fact that a man, however unwillingly, consents to undertake the duties of club honorary secretary, generally means that he has at all events some idea of managing such an institution, but, on the other hand, there are details of which he may be ignorant.’8 A paid secretary was able to devote his or her full energies to the club’s operation. Recounting the early years of the Madras Club, Percy Macqueen, one of that club’s historians, describes the secretary in a way that is applicable to clubs throughout India: ‘He was invariably a military officer, and as time went on and the difficulties of management grew with the growing assets of the Club, the Secretary’s prestige of rank grew also.’9 This not only referred to the secretary’s role within the club’s structure, but also to the military rank held by that individual. [ 103 ]

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At the Madras Club in the 1830s, a captain held the secretary’s position, but by the 1860s the post’s responsibilities demanded that its holder be at the rank of lieutenant colonel. The Madras Club attempted to honor its first secretary, Captain Douglas, by commissioning a portrait of him to adorn the main hall, but members scuttled the move due to its expense. The same fate followed the club’s second secretary, Lieutenant Taylor. The club initially voted to spend 300 guineas on a piece of silver plate for him, but a group of members voted down the measure, arguing that it was an ‘unwarranted and wanton waste of the public money.’10 This came at a time when, beyond club doors, the East India Company itself was undergoing financial belt-tightening and undoubtedly some members of the club shared such fiscal conservatism. To overcome the difficulties of having a secretary whose time and attentions were divided, in 1872 the club switched from an honorary to full-time paid secretary who was not an elected member and worked at the pleasure of the managing committee. At many clubs, Indians held important positions and commanded the respect of the club elite and general membership alike. This was the case at the Sind Club of Karachi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when ‘Shapurji Captain,’ as he was known, served as a member of the staff. Shapurji worked at the club from 1881 to 1912 with only a small break, a total of thirty-one years of service. Although his exact title remains unclear, he seems to have been something like the club secretary, managing membership subscriptions and fees, and collecting overdue payments. A club history describes Shapurji in glowing terms: ‘There was nothing about the Club which Mr. Shapurji did not know, and he was the friend of all the Members – old and young alike – though he ruled them all with a rod of iron. There was no avoiding any payment due to the Club when he was there.’11 That Shapurji, as an Indian, ‘ruled’ the club’s members with a ‘rod of iron’ suggests that at least in some ‘exclusive’ clubs, there was significant participation by Indian staff in unexpected ways. Following the pattern at many clubs, the club employed Shapurji’s son, and when the elder retired, the club hung his portrait in the reception area. Other elected members completed the managing committee. These generally ranged from five to seven members but could expand to committees of over twenty. The committee, much like a prime ministerial or presidential cabinet, was responsible for maintaining the club’s operations and leading the club in new directions. While committees were charged with running a large organization, their meetings sometimes relaxed into a polite gathering of old friends. Such was the case in 1947 at the Jhansi Club, whose committee, perhaps concerned about its productivity, passed a resolution to limit the number of drinks during [ 104 ]

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a meeting to three per member!12 It was, in short, a kind of club within a club.

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The belly of the club Below the position of president and secretary, Indians and Britons formed an intermediary level of personnel that I call club staff. Staff, and beneath them servants, defy easy categorization. Some were beloved family members of the club, employed for their entire lives, while others were nameless ‘peons’ who often found themselves at the receiving end of members’ scorn. Altogether, these individuals provided the personal and personnel backbone to every club. Staff members included stewards, chefs, and sometimes the secretary, although the latter also usually held a position on the managing committee. Staff personnel were often mixed, drawn from both the Indian and British communities. Thus employment and participation in a club at this level did not use race as a determining factor, but rather skills and qualifications. Beneath the secretary was the steward, sometimes called a butler. The steward was generally the head servant, responsible for the other servants and the day-to-day operations of the club, especially in areas concerning meals. Unlike the secretary, the steward held no committee rank. The Cosmopolitan Club provided a specific list of duties for its steward: ‘He is the head of the catering department and is in charge of the crockery, cutlery, table cloths, napkins and towels. He draws up the day’s menu, supervises the kitchen, controls the cook and maty, and the Coffee Room as well.’13 In a few clubs, it was customary to hire a European steward who, presumably, was in a better position to maintain high culinary standards. Such was the case at the Madras and Bengal clubs. In 1935, the Bengal Club advertised for a steward, stating its preference for a British national, but in the end chose an Italian, Mr. U. Ressia. He adopted British nationality shortly after being hired, and thus was spared internment during the war. Ressia served as steward of the Bengal Club for three decades.14 Clubs recognized the valuable work of stewards and other staff through financial remuneration and other benefits. At the Mahableshwar Club, we can see that the steward, a man called D’Suza, and his wife were important members of the staff. In its financial report for the year 1918, the club reported spending money on a life insurance policy for its steward. D’Suza would contribute to this fund, and his wife would be the beneficiary should anything happen to him. Further, the club recognized Mrs. D’Suza’s contribution (unspecified) to the club, and sought to remunerate her with a sum of Rs. 300 annually.15 In another corner of India, the steward at the Dehra Dun Club enjoyed a regular salary that [ 105 ]

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included pay raises of Rs. 5 annually, one month’s paid leave, as well as three suits of summer and one suit of winter clothes.16 While stewards oversaw multiple aspects of a club’s operations, among those who held specific jobs none was more important than the chef. In British clubs, intended as they were to be recreations or at least reminiscent of home, members demanded proper culinary skills to conjure up faraway England and its cuisine. While this might have been the goal, in reality club cuisine often presented a hybridity in which both Indian and European dishes might literally share a plate. Early in the nineteenth century, many club chefs were European (the preference was often for a French national), but by the end of the century most were Indian. Thus, a key position in many clubs came to be dominated by Indians, regardless of the club’s membership policies. In the early years chefs trained in European cuisine were difficult to find and highly sought after. The Madras Club brought French chefs from Pondicherry and Hyderabad, and at one point went so far as to recruit a suitable chef from England – one Maltby, formerly of the Reform Club in London (1836). By 1871, the Madras Club had changed to an Indian chef.17 The Byculla Club employed French chefs from the 1850s, while the Cosmopolitan Club in Madras hired both a Brahman and a sudra (low caste) cook. A member of each caste community was necessary for the Indian members of the club. Those who observed strict(er) caste practices would have required a cook from the appropriate caste background; a Brahman club member would not have been able to dine on cuisine prepared by a sudra chef, as the latter was from a lower caste. Further, club space was reserved for those who wished to dine separately. Issues of caste distinction and vegetarianism or nonvegetarianism had crept into club life.18 We get some hint as to how chefs were treated from a combined cookbook and advice manual for British residents of Madras. Wyvern’s Culinary Jottings for Madras, by A.R. Kenney-Herbert, first appeared in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. It offered recipes for a wide variety of British and Continental dishes as well as advice on managing one’s Indian cook. Aimed at housewives in Madras, its suggestions are nonetheless in accord with the treatment of servants in clubs, the most important being an approach free of anger. ‘Of all failings inimical to the successful direction of a native servant, a hasty temper is the most fatal.’19 In fact, Kenney-Herbert suggests at the outset that the Madras housewife ‘must make a friend of [her] cook.’20 Clubs largely adopted this congenial attitude with regard to their chefs.

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Serving members Clubs employed a wide variety of servants who performed the duties necessary to maintain the club’s operations. A club might have fewer than a dozen committee members, but employ a hundred servants or more. The term ‘servant’ requires some elaboration. In domestic circles, it was used for individuals, male or female, in the employ of the ‘master’ of a home. Servants thus participated in both the domestic sphere and a master–servant relationship. In a club, they served not an individual master but the club itself, a relationship that held certain benefits for the servant.21 In India, a typical home of moderate income employed one or more servants to perform specific tasks: different servants cleaned toilets and bathrooms, prepared meals, washed clothes or looked after children. In some homes, servants lived in their own quarters on the family premises, while in other locations they lived in their own homes. The club was both a kind of home or domestic space, and at the same time served a broader public need as a kind of hotel/­restaurant/bar serving a civil–social role. Members or guests could sleep, eat, and entertain at the club, just as they might in their own homes. Yet the club was also a place that provided services for area residents – it was a place to drink, use the library, or have a meal. Thus, in club parlance, the people who worked as barmen, waiters, sweepers, and in a host of other jobs were servants. Their master was the club itself rather than a particular member or family. Within the club universe, British staff often treated Indian servants much as elderly uncles treat young nephews and nieces – sometimes coddled, sometimes ignored, and occasionally reprimanded. Local wisdom held that ‘The Native servants are often bad, because they are badly treated. Pay them well, and treat them well, and, in general, they will be found more faithful and attached than English domestics.’22 While this attitude of familiar benevolence had, on the one hand, the tone of imperial paternalism, on the other, as a form of civility, it allowed thousands of club servants to earn a regular wage in a safe environment and even obtain for their families a degree of security after their death. Clubs expressed this benevolence in a variety of ways. They gave their servants salary increases (both scheduled and in recognition of extraordinary service), access to provident funds supported by the club’s finances, and special bonuses at holidays. In one example, in recognition of his service, the abdar at the Jhansi Club received a raise that brought his salary to Rs. 100. Still, the committee noted that he ‘is to be informed that he must not expect annual increment in future.’23 The multi-decade employment that servants rendered, from abdars to hall porters, suggests that, for at least some individuals, the club was a [ 107 ]

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good place to work. Yet, ultimately, we only have one side of the record. As Swapna Banerjee has shown in her work on servants in Bengali bhadralok homes, the ‘lives and views’ of most Indian servants cannot be established. Banerjee is not easily deterred, however, and finds the voices of servants in the archival cracks and crevices, as well as when they participate in some form of resistance. As we will see, so too in club records it is possible to identify archival fragments that begin to give club servants a voice.24 At the front door of the club, one of the most visible and important servants was the hall porter. The hall porter held a variety of responsibilities connected to the comings and goings of members, their guests, and a host of other activities that crossed, or threatened to cross, the threshold of the club. The first responsibility of the hall porter was that of security: ‘He guards the Club at the entrance to prevent any non-member entering in or making himself at home in the Club in the absence of the member introducing him.’25 Once past the hall porter, many clubs maintained a ‘strangers’ room’ where non-members could be entertained. The ability to distinguish strangers from members was among the most important skills a hall porter had to master. Asking a member of the club for proof of membership was uncivil; thus knowledge of all members was vital. ‘He must be able to know every member by sight and never be obliged to ask his name or query whether he is a member or not, even though he may not come to the Club frequently.’26 At some clubs, the hall porter’s job was made more challenging by the fact that the club had a mixed membership and included Indians from a variety of linguistic backgrounds as well as Britons. Special note is made of this challenge: ‘He must be somewhat of a linguist himself and be able to answer simple questions in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindustani and, of course, English.’27 Who could possibly fill such an imposing set of requirements? The Cosmopolitan Club suggests someone who is ‘tall and well built in stature, stately and dignified in his deportment and career, a middle-aged Military Pensioner will be the proper person to fill this post of great responsibility.’28 To complete his dignity, the hall porter wore a uniform unique among the club staff. The important role of the hall porter was also true for clubs far afield. Of London clubs, Nevill wrote, ‘The most important servant in a club is, of course, the hall-porter. To fill this post to perfection, very exceptional qualities are required.’29 Clubs employed a variety of Indian servants who ranked higher than a peon, but below stewards or chefs. A list of servants employed at the Bangalore Club in 1929 includes 91 different personnel.30 While the Bangalore Club was among the largest and most prestigious clubs, at the other end of the spectrum the smaller Jhansi Club employed only [ 108 ]

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a few dozen servants. A list of the staff and servants and their annual pay indicates the different roles servants played in the service and domestic sides of the club’s operations: Steward, Rs. 150; Dhobi, Rs. 16; Head Clerk, Rs. 100; Assistant Cook, Rs. 14; Stores Clerk, Rs. 70; Peons, Rs. 12; Head Cook, Rs. 55; Watchman, Rs. 12; Charsawalas, Rs. 50; Masalchi, Rs. 12; Correspondence Clerk, Rs. 30; Ayah, Rs. 12; Bills Clerk, Rs. 30; Sweepers, Rs. 12; Carpenter, Rs. 30; Bhistis, Rs. 12; Barman No. 1, Rs. 27; Mineral Water Factory Man, Rs. 12; Tennis Marker, Rs. 25; Mali, Rs. 10; Assistant Barman, Rs. 23; Coolies, Rs. 10; Assistant Tennis Marker, Rs. 20; Glass Boys, Rs. 6; Kitmutgars, Rs. 18; and Tennis Boys, Rs. 4.31 Among these employees, the marker occupied a unique position within the club. A marker was the individual whose responsibility was any game or sport where two people were required for play. If a club member wished to play billiards or tennis (the two most common activities in which markers participated), the marker was there to play against them. This meant that, on the one hand, they could interact directly with members in competitive games and sports. On the other hand, if two club members wished to play, the marker became a silent observer, only speaking when spoken to. In a typical case, the marker was ‘custodian’ of the billiard room and responsible for having a copy of the game rules available for members to refer to. He was also responsible for noting the beginning and end time of billiard games so that the club could properly bill its members. In addition, he called the score, handed cues and rests to players, and served as referee if no other was present. Yet while he held this power, the marker was also warned, ‘He shall not give advice or opinion on points affecting the play during the course of the game.’32 Like billiard markers, tennis markers also held a special position within a club’s staff and hierarchy. The Cochin Club employed its tennis marker, Ibrahim, for four decades. When he announced his retirement in the early spring of 1945, the managing committee continued his salary as a type of pension. Ibrahim was further entitled to funds from the club’s provident fund, which the committee held in reserve until he or his family needed it.33 Keeping his provident funds was not an act of coldheartedness; rather the club served as an emergency resource for the family. Sadly, that May, Ibrahim died. In their meeting of 13 June 1945, the committee minutes noted: ‘The Committee instructed the Secretary to convey their condolences to the widow of the late Tennis Marker, Ibrahim, in her recent bereavement, and to record their appreciation of his excellent services to the Club during the past 42 years. It was resolved that the Club should bear the cost of funeral expenses.’34 The family also then accessed the provident fund. Such expressions of [ 109 ]

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warmth and appreciation and offers of financial assistance to staff and servants were common, but they were especially frequent in the case of club markers. Seen but not heard, subservient yet wielding a certain power and authority – arbiter of ‘fair play’ – and able to play against members as equals, the marker enjoyed special status in club life. A variety of peons aided the named servants and staff members. Generally, a peon was a club employee at the bottom of the employment hierarchy. He or she did menial jobs and errands in support of other club employees or members. These individuals were often responsible for specific locations in the club – an assistant to the front hall porter helped deliver mail or packages to members, or an assistant to the steward working in the dining room made sure that the club’s silver was regularly cleaned and polished. Upon arriving for work, peons would sign or mark a logbook to note their time of arrival – tardiness often resulted in docked pay. Peons were expected to wear the uniforms provided to them and keep them clean and well maintained. One club ordered that ‘All [peons] must be neat and tidy, and must have their uniforms, shoulder-belts and badges in good order, and should produce them for inspection on the 1st of each month.’35 Further, the atmosphere of the club demanded that peons behave in a civil manner that accorded with their rank. ‘The Peons must not talk aloud, be courteous and polite in their replies and must not club together or leave their places unless on duty.’36 At the Madras Club, where some servants wore numbered tags to be more easily identified, one member lodged a complaint about ‘No. 27 Peon.’ Evident in the complaint is both the problem with No. 27, but also a hint of the wit and humor often found in the complaint books. ‘Coming into the Coffee room this morning for breakfast, I found No. 27 Peon reclining gracefully underneath one of the tables. The practice is open to objection, and if a recumbent position is essential to the mundane happiness of No. 27, he might, I think, seek out some sequestered nook remote from the sacred precincts of the Coffee room and there lay him down.’37 The humor that underpins this ‘complaint’ underscores the basic humanity of No. 27. While the numbering system was degrading, it allowed individual servants to be identified – for praise or complaint. No. 27 or other servants must not be passed over without pausing to emphasize that their mention in the historical record does not do justice to their individuality, let alone their full names, families, and lives well beyond the club confines. An earlier description of the Madras Club mentions the ‘little boys’ picking up tennis balls in the late afternoon; a ‘peon’ demonstrated to a club guest that he had seen the same piece of cheese in circulation for months; and a club guest shouted ‘Boy!’ to hail a servant and, in so doing, disturbed other guests. [ 110 ]

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The tennis boys, peon, and ‘Boy!’ were all individuals, with real names and lives beyond the club walls. When the Mahableshwar Club tightened its budget, cut the salaries of some servants, and let others go, those individuals undoubtedly felt those sacrifices. While the records say no more on the matter, their loss, humiliation, or pain are no less important to the larger history of clubs in India. At times, servants participated in extracurricular activities well beyond their assigned duties. Among these were the occasions when a servant loaned a member money. As we have seen, club money could take a variety of forms including chits, coupons, or most fluid of all, cash. At the Sind Club, the managing committee warned servants that if they lent money to a member, it would result in their immediate dismissal.38 That the committee felt compelled to pass such a rule suggests the regular occurrence of such practices. It also points to an interesting dynamic: British club members, short on cash, borrowed money from Indian club servants. This is not all that surprising, since Britons formed close relationships with their domestic servants in India – a familiarity that might easily extend to club servants as well.39 Perhaps the sums of money were small, enough to cover a few drinks or a meal, or perhaps in the quiet halls of the club larger transactions took place. Occasionally servants or peons found themselves or their position at the heart of more unpleasant incidents. One example, as discussed in Chapter 2, was the event at the Madras Club in 1883, during which a member (Whiteside) used a peon to ask a guest (Lieutenant Pym) to desist from whistling and singing outside the club reading room. In addition to the initial offence committed by Lieutenant Pym, a second offence entailed Whiteside using a peon to deliver the reprimand. The proposer of Pym for membership at the club, General Stewart, wrote to Whiteside, ‘I think it a great pity that it did not occur to you to send him a word or two on a slip of paper rather than a verbal message by a peon, a proceeding which, no doubt, you will now acknowledge was most unusual and one solely tending to make matters worse.’40 As the dispute escalated, Stewart explained more specifically the offence committed: ‘But as regards this subject what are we to think of the positive irritating action taken by Mr. Whiteside the same evening, in sending a verbal message by a peon to a gentleman … Could anything shew [sic] more want of tact and taste than this – a proceeding so strange to the way and usages of a Club?’41 In recounting his side of the event, Whiteside stated, ‘I asked a passing peon the name of the gentleman who was singing … I then said to the peon, “Go to that gentleman and say a Member of the Committee sends his compliments and says it is not according to the rules to whistle or sing in the Club.” The peon returned and said, “Gentleman says all right.”’42 According to Stewart, [ 111 ]

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sending messages by way of a servant was not considered civil behavior at the Madras Club or at any club. Stewart here alludes to some form of common and recognized civility that extended across the network of clubs and their members. For Stewart, Whiteside violated not only the norm at the Madras Club, but one shared by all clubs. A peon, unlike a written note, had the potential to gossip about the contents of the message. Thus, a private affair could quickly turn into something much more public and potentially scandalous. Additionally, by using a peon to undertake the unpleasant task of reprimanding a fellow club attendee, a member undercut norms of civil behavior, even possibly putting a servant in a position of authority over a member. In other words, a true club man would have either communicated by note, or better yet, got up and said something directly, rather than employing a servant to do the matter for him. Clubs also had to negotiate the role of members’ private servants. Members who arrived with their own servant – a driver, personal attendant, etc. – faced restrictions on where that individual could go. The area where this became most troublesome was the dining room. There, with large numbers of members sitting down for a meal, if each insisted on being waited on by their own private servant, the room would erupt in chaos. Longtime club secretary L.J. Shadwell warned against such a scenario. He advised, ‘The result of every member having his servant to wait upon him will be that the room will be unduly full, that the servants being under no real authority, will fight over the dishes, etc., each one working to get his own master everything.’43 Shadwell urged clubs to have clear regulations on where private servants could go, and suggested that none be allowed in the dining room. Club servants not only provided critical services to the club and its members, but their roles often defy easy categorization. Some were beloved members of the club family, others were mere bodies with numbers pinned to their uniforms, while still others oversaw important sites of gaming and even on occasion served as a confidant who discreetly loaned a member some money. These multiple and shifting roles complicate understandings of power dynamics between Indians and Britons who participated in club life.

The opportunities of employment Just as club members stood for election and filled roles within the club’s administration, so too staff and servants were sought to fill important club positions. Clubs recruited individuals from local, regional, and international networks of qualified employees. Newspaper advertisements were placed in India and Britain for chefs, stewards, and secre[ 112 ]

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taries, and in this way clubs sought out professionals who circulated in a transnational club network. They also entertained requests from former employees and from individuals who simply appeared and asked if any positions were available. For example, in 1940, at the Jhansi Club, a butler named Mohammad Hanif applied for ‘reinstatement’ in his old position, but the managing committee was unable to employ him since there were no vacancies. However, as was common, the managing committee offered to write him a letter of recommendation.44 That a letter of recommendation from a club carried weight for Hanif is indicative of the important role clubs played in larger networks of employment. At the Mahableshwar the steward, D’Suza, turns up again in the record. This time, however, the club president is making note of D’Suza’s death. While the details remain unclear, his death was in some way a timely affair for the club. Some months earlier, in dire financial straits, the club had written to the governor of Bombay, Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon, asking for a donation toward its upkeep. The governor agreed to this if the club replaced D’Suza with a white steward. Before Willingdon’s condition could be fully considered or implemented, D’Suza was gone.45 The club urgently needed the help of a steward, and thus filed an advertisement for D’Suza’s replacement.46 D’Suza was probably an Indian, perhaps with a Portuguese background. Willingdon, who was a proponent of mixed-race clubs, seems to have wanted the Mahableshwar Club to alternate between an Indian and an Anglo in that position. North and east of Mahableshwar, the Jhansi Club also found itself in need of new staff. Looking for a new secretary, it placed an advertisement in the Statesman and the Pioneer. The advertisement read as follows: ‘Wanted – A Secretary for the Jhansi Club, Ltd., Pay Rs. 400, with free board and quarters. Thorough knowledge of accounts essential. Retired Military or Civil Officer preferred. Covers of application to be superscribed “Post of Secretary.” Apply to the SECRETARY, Jhansi Club, Ld. Jhansi.’47 The position was subsequently offered to and accepted by one Captain Croft of Calcutta. Nearly three years later, Croft applied to be secretary of the prestigious Ootacamund Club. In support of his application, the committee of the Jhansi Club sent a recommendation that highlighted Croft’s contribution to the club’s financial health, commented on his own background, and recognized the hierarchy of clubs in which Croft sought to move up. Captain Croft was engaged as Secretary of the Jhansi Club, Ltd. in November 1923, at a time when the finances of the Club were in a most precarious state. During the 2½ Years of his Secretaryship the position has steadily improved due, to a large extent, to his good work. In the course of these 2½ years, notwithstanding the financial stringency,

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several radical improvements have been effected in the Club property out of Revenue. Captain Croft is an Old Wykehamist of 1901–1905. He is of good appearance and is well set up. He is a conscientious worker – his integrity is above suspicion. The experience he has gained during the past 2½ Years as Secretary of the Jhansi Club, Ltd. should stand him in good stead as a valuable training for the larger and more important Club at Ootacamund.48

Before Croft, the Jhansi Club had employed J. Mackinon, who like Croft, left Jhansi for a position at a better club, the United Services Club in Lucknow.49 Men like Croft and Mackinon represent a professional class of club employees who sought new opportunities at better clubs. These men were from middle-class backgrounds and found employment not in the colonial government, but in an auxiliary capacity to it. In other words, they participated in a colonial civil society that occupied a space between the home and the state. Further, Croft’s climb from the club at Jhansi to that at Ootacamund, as seen in the letter recommending him, highlights that not all clubs were equal, and a position at the Ootacamund Club was clearly recognized as superior. For all their general attitude of benevolence and the degree of civility expressed toward employees, clubs were not immune to problems with employees, and they occasionally found it necessary to dismiss both Indian and British staff or servants. In one case, the Jhansi Club dismissed the abdar (water-bearer) for incompetence. ‘It was resolved that the services of the club abdar, Abdul Shakur, be dispensed with on his return from the month’s leave granted him, as in the opinion of the Committee he was unable to control the servants under him.’50 In another case, Mr. Watkins, the manager at the Cochin Club, was released after an unsatisfactory six-month probation period. The reasons for the club’s dissatisfaction with Watkins were not recorded, but after being paid a month’s extra salary and provided with a one-way ticket to Madras, he left. In a sign of the increasing Indianization of British clubs, the club replaced Watkins with an Indian manager named Shastry.51 This is in contrast to the earlier example of D’Suza. A shift was taking place (between D’Suza in 1923 and Watkins in 1945) toward filling these types of positions with Indian employees. Rarely club servants organized themselves and lodged a strike. At moments like these and others, the position of club servants more clearly comes through the archival record. A strike occurred at the Bengal Club in the months before India’s independence in 1947. The club had struggled with dwindling membership in the postwar years as its military members left Calcutta. A decline in membership brought less revenue, and this affected the servants. In May 1946, they expressed their grievances to the managing committee and received some degree [ 114 ]

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of compensation. However, it was not sufficient, and in February 1947, they organized a strike. The strike disrupted the social calendar of both members and visiting dignitaries, leaving a sting and some embarrassment.52 It also occurred in the months after the ‘Direct Action Day’ called for by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League, which in turn led to communal riots first in Calcutta, and then across north India. It is possible that the strike at the Bengal Club was in some way tied to the greater political upheavals taking place outside its gates. The club president recounted this event – minor in the long history of the club – in language not unlike that used during the 1857 uprising ninety years before.53 The ‘menials’ struck with ‘lightning’ speed, both ‘shocking’ and ‘disappointing’ the club president. Further, he considered that the majority was probably ‘loyal,’ while the others had been led astray. Here, the ‘menials’ seem to stand in for the ‘mutineers,’ since both are cast in terms of disloyalty. He also recounted the admirable efforts of members to keep the club running.54 No record of the strike from the servants’ perspective survives, and only the club president’s opinion has been recorded. Yet that the servants went on strike itself is indicative of their awareness of their rights, organizational capability, and the turmoil around them. At times, clubs suspected their employees of theft. The large quantities of supplies kept on hand must have presented a tempting target for pilfering. Along with tea, coffee, sugar, and other dry goods, liquor frequently and inexplicably went missing. In 1879, the Sind Club managing committee purchased 200 gallons of Irish and scotch whiskey. The committee found that in the next year, Rs. 1,290 worth of spirits had gone missing. The steward was held responsible, but rather than being dismissed – for it was unclear whether he himself had stolen the liquor or if the theft had simply occurred on his watch – he was offered the chance to repay the club at a rate of Rs. 50 per month, which he accepted.55 The Sind Club’s treatment of its steward was lenient, but such tact was not uncommon in clubs since staff tended to be long-time employees. In another case at the Murree Club (1903), the khansama (manservant, butler, or cook) was charged with a bizarre crime. A military officer’s wife awoke one night to find a man with his hands on her throat, threatening her with death if she screamed. The woman did not scream, but rather subtly pinched her sleeping child so it began to cry. The thief released the woman and told her to quiet the child. She stated that she could not see the child without a light, so the thief struck a match and lit the room’s lamp. He then requested the keys to her safebox, took a few Rupees, and asked if she had any rings. When shown those on her fingers, including her wedding ring, he refused to take them, and [ 115 ]

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fled from the room. The woman, having seen the thief clearly in the light, identified him as the club khansama, and he was subsequently prosecuted. A newspaper account commented on the incident: ‘In the West a thief, it is true, prefers to help himself to one drink or one dish in preference to another … He would not discriminate between wedding rings and others. It is hardly credible that an Eastern thief would be guided by different principles of selection.’56 The account suggests that the woman’s story is unbelievable, thus opening the door for suspicion of another type of event having transpired – perhaps that she herself was involved with the khansama and created an elaborate story to conceal and end the relationship. This example highlights the possibility of a variety of types of ‘relations’ between club members and club servants.

Club benefits Most clubs established provident funds for their servants. These amounted to a savings plan for individuals whereby the club deducted a certain amount of their salary that was set aside for use upon retirement or in case of emergency. Clubs also contributed to such funds annually, as well as paying interest on the entire amount. In one case, servants at the Jhansi Club were told that they might ‘form a Provident Fund by paying in one month’s salary per annum. The Club would then contribute ½% of the net profits of the Club.’57 This fund was set up for the servants five years after a similar fund had been established for the secretary and staff. At the Dehra Dun Club, and at clubs throughout India, servants occasionally made requests for loans against their provident fund savings. In one case, the Dehra Dun Club committee ‘considered an application from Habib Abdar asking for an advance of Rs 100 from his Provident Fund Savings. On the proposal of Mr. F.G. Quarry, seconded by Capt. Pearce Fleming, the advance was sanctioned. Repayments to be made at Rs 5 per month.’58 In these instances, the club served not only as an employer, but also as a bank and retirement administrator. At certain times throughout the year, clubs rewarded servants with bonuses. These usually coincided with extra-heavy workloads incurred during the winter holiday season when clubs bustled with Christmas and New Year’s events. From a managing committee meeting of the Jhansi Club we read: ‘That those Club servants, who have had a heavy time during January whilst the Station has been full, should receive a small bonus. The bonus to be left to the discretion of the secretary although it is suggested that it should average Rs. 3 per head.’59 Beyond raises to their salaries and holiday bonuses, some clubs installed other systems of compensation for their servants. At the Cochin Club, those [ 116 ]

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servants who staffed the chambers had a special box, located in that room, where members could leave a tip. The club collected and distributed the money among the chamber servants.60 Clubs also expressed benevolence at the time of a servant’s retirement. Most club presidents and secretaries rotated in and out of their positions as well as in and out of a given locale. Thus, while presidents, secretaries, and members generally were active in a particular club for a few years, servants often logged decades and even a lifetime of service to one particular club. Upon retirement, the clubs recognized such service. In his history of the Byculla Club, Sheppard describes one servant who achieved legendary status: Of many trusted servants of the Club in bygone days none seems better to deserve mention than a steward, Nasarwanji Fardoonji Grant to whom frequent references occur in the old minutes. Mr. R.P. Karkaria writes about that celebrity, who died in 1879: ‘It is said that he was so popular with the members that they presented him with a special gold medal on his retirement in 1856. When the medal arrived from England they sent it to E. Ravenscroft, Collector of Surat, his native place where he had retired, and it was presented to him by the Collector at a special durbar.’61

In this exchange is the nexus between a private club and the public realm of the colonial government. The Collector at Surat was not immediately related to the club itself, but did its bidding in presenting the medal. A kind of benevolence was also evident at the Cosmopolitan Club in Madras. In 1898, a peon named Coopooswamy Naick requested permission to retire ‘on gratuity.’62 The committee granted his wish, bequeathing him a gratuity of Rs. 42, ‘in consideration of his long and faithful service.’63 At the Cochin Club, the head barman and two other barmen were recognized for their five and six decades of service by the installation of their framed pictures on the wall behind the bar.64 Tent clubs were somewhat different from their immobile counterparts, but their itinerancy did not deter them from exhibiting a similar kindness toward servants.65 Like a marker, a tent club’s shikari (hunter) occupied a unique position. This individual possessed knowledge of the local terrain and his opinion about where the best game might be bagged was highly respected. The Meerut Tent Club’s shikari, Lachman, was honored by having his photograph grace the frontispiece of the club’s record book, and his advice on finding ‘piggies’ was consistently held in the highest regard.66 From the Delhi Tent Club comes praise for its shikari, Lalji. It is unclear just what occasioned the praise, but most likely it was his retirement. The club recognized his personality and technical skill. ‘All of us he has impressed with his [ 117 ]

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untiring ­enthusiasm, boundless energy, exceptional “pigcraft,” charming manners, and control of his subordinates. It has been a privilege to hunt with such a Shikari who ranks second to no other of the first class Tent Clubs.’67 Death also brought about a degree of benevolence. Dying in India required a speedy funeral and often left families in crisis. Many managing committees recognized both these factors and made suitable accommodations for the deceased and their families. With regard to hunting clubs, their activities and very purpose could be hazardous and even fatal for servants. Since these clubs employed large numbers of servants to beat out and encircle wild animals, it was not uncommon for these men to be injured. An unnamed coolie working with the Delhi Tent Club in early February 1887 sustained one such injury. The club was engaged in a vigorous hunt of wild boars in the area around Delhi: ‘The coolie charged by the pig was one of Buldeo’s men, and was badly cut on the inside of the thigh. He was bandaged up and sent to hospital on a charpoy, but bled to death on the way. A subscription was got up for his widow, and the amount of Rs. 51 with which she seemed to be quite satisfied, was handed to her a few days after.’68 Other examples from across India bear out a general benevolence displayed by clubs toward their servants – in these cases extended to families at the time of a death. In November 1904 at the Bangalore Club, the daughter of the billiards marker, Veeraswamy, applied for compensation since her father had died on 31 October. While the committee did not see fit to provide her with a permanent form of compensation (the idea being tabled), it did decide that ‘as Veeraswamy had served continuously for 19 years and 9 months, a donation of 8 months pay viz: Rs. 112 be granted to his daughter.’69 When the chaprasi Ram Nath of the Jhansi Club died in early 1929, the committee decided to pay his funeral expenses (Rs. 22) and grant Rs. 45 to his next of kin for three months.70 At the Jhansi Club, when the tennis marker Hafiz died on 31 March 1946, the committee took special notice of his family situation and his thirty-five-year relationship with the club. ‘It was also ascertained that the family of the deceased have practically no visible means of support. In view of this and of the loyal and faithful services rendered to the Club, the Committee strongly recommended that the sum be increased in the form of a pension to Rs. 720.’71 Shapurji, Janki, Ibrahim, No. 27 peon, Lachman, and Lalji, along with Erskine, Ressia, Maltby, Croft, Mackinon, and Watkins are just some of the men and women, Indians and Britons, who were presidents, chefs, servants, and staff that circulated through India’s clubs. They were all employees of clubs, and through their specific duties, [ 118 ]

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served the club that employed them. In return, the club – promoting a sense of civility extended to members and employees alike – most often reciprocated this service, providing long-term and even lifelong employment, salaries, retirement funds, and a variety of smaller benefits. Some club employees accessed regional and even transnational networks to move between Britain and India, and around India, as well as up the hierarchy of clubs within India. At the same time, many clubs drew Indian employees from the locales within which they were situated, thus accessing local talents and skills. Because of their fixed locality, these employees – the Jankis and Ibrahims, the Lachmans, and Laljis – ultimately­were the guardians of their clubs. That they occasionally loaned money to members, were possibly welcomed into their bedrooms, and were frequently remembered with affection and goodwill suggests that club servants and staff may have participated in more intimate relationships with members than might seem apparent.

Notes  1 Mary Procida makes the point that Anglo-Indian domestic space was ‘entrusted to Indians,’ thus forming a ‘central paradox’ of the Raj. Procida, Married to Empire, p. 82.  2 Griffiths, Clubs and Clubmen, p. 171.  3 On servants, see Swapna M. Banerjee, Men, Women, and Domestics (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004).  4 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. This quotation is reproduced without correction to the original grammar and spelling.  5 This was the case at the Cosmopolitan Club. Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai.  6 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1937–38 (Ootacamund: Ootacamund and Nilgiri Press, 1938), pp. 11–12. The president of the club at the time was Lady Marjorie Erskine.  7 Cochin Club committee meeting, 12 May 1944, Cochin Club Records.  8 Shadwell, Notes on the Internal Economy of Chummery, p. vii.  9 Macqueen, The Madras Club, p. 10. 10 The Asiatic Journal, 1 January 1836, p. 22. 11 Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, pp. 40–1. 12 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 28 February 1947, Private Papers, NAI. 13 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. A ‘maty’ refers to an inferior servant or peon under a head servant. The term may derive from the English ‘mate’ or possibly the Malayalam metti, which refers to a servant, or some combination of both. See Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1996 [1886]), p. 562. 14 Macqueen, The Madras Club, p. 11; R.I. Macalpine, The Bengal Club (1927–1970) (Calcutta: Statesman Press, 1970), p. 80. 15 Mahableshwar Club, 13 September 1916, ‘Report on the Financial State of the Club.’ 16 Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 29 June 1939, Dehra Dun Club Records. 17 Macqueen, The Madras Club, p. 14. 18 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 22 March 1906, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai.

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I N TH E C LU B 19 Kenney-Herbert, Wyvern’s Indian Cookery Book, p. 4. 20 Ibid., p. 3. I recognize that this could be read differently, in the paternal and patronizing tone found in some nineteenth-century British manuals for middle-class women who wanted to work among the poor. However, given the distance and context of Kenney-Herbert’s writing, I think the tone is genuinely positive toward the Indian cook – a realization that British households in India depended heavily on Indian help, especially the cook – usually the highest ranking member of a home’s staff. 21 Swapna Banerjee has also argued for the role of domestic servants in helping crystallize the ‘bourgeois ideology’ of the Bengali middle class. Banerjee, Men, Women, and Domestics, p. 3. 22 A Handbook for India, p. xcix. 23 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 27 April 1929, Private Papers, NAI. 24 Banerjee, Men, Women, and Domestics, pp. 16, 23. Listening to servants’ voices is a form of ‘hearing’ history from below. This history includes that of women, subalterns, and other subjects who have traditionally not received adequate attention. Fortunately, this trend has somewhat reversed itself. On the writing and representation of women’s history, see Burton, Dwelling in the Archive, p. 25. 25 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 26 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 27 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 28 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 29 Nevill, London Clubs, p. 174. This sentiment was expressed earlier: Griffiths, Clubs and Clubmen, p. 172. 30 31 October 1929. Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, pp. 133–4. 31 Jhansi Club finance sub-committee meeting, 20 October 1942, Private Papers, NAI. A charas is a device used to pull water up from a well using oxen and a leather bag; thus a charsawala would be the individual who worked with such a device. A mali is a gardener. A kitmutgar is ‘one rendering service’ and usually refers to a Muslim employed in serving individuals at meal times. A masalchi refers to a ‘humble domestic,’ or one who mixes spices. A bhisti is a water-bearer. A dhobi is a laundry person, and an ayah is a nursemaid. 32 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 33 Cochin Club committee meeting, 7 May 1945, Cochin Club Records. 34 Cochin Club committee meeting, 13 June 1945, Cochin Club Records. 35 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 36 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 24 August 1939, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 37 Love, Short Historical Notice of the Madras Club, p. 43. 38 Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, p. 12. 39 Procida, Married to Empire, p. 98; Buettner, Empire Families, p. 11. 40 Stewart to Whiteside, 9 May 1883, in Copies of Correspondence printed For Private Perusal Only, pp. 2–3. 41 Stewart to the Madras Club Committee, 16 May 1883, in ibid., p. 8. 42 Whiteside to Madras Club Committee, 17 May 1883, in ibid., p. 13. 43 Shadwell, Notes on the Internal Economy of Chummery, p. 195. 44 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 9 October 1940, Private Papers, NAI. 45 Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club, p. 85. D’Suza was in fact replaced first by W. Hill-Lewis who lasted one year, and then by Moss. 46 The club offered Rs. 180 per month, and preferred a married man for the job. Mahableshwar Club committee meeting, 11 October 1923, Mahableshwar Club Records. An advertisement was placed in the following locations: The Civil and

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S ervants and staff Military Gazette, The Pioneer, The Englishman, The Daily Gazette (Karachi), The Madras Mail, The Ceylon Times, and The Times of India. 47 Statesman, 24 October 1923. 48 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 7 July 1926, Private Papers, NAI. An ‘Old Wykehamist’ refers to a foremer pupil of Winchester College in Britain. 49 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 25 September 1923, Private Papers, NAI. 50 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 29 June 1923, Private Papers, NAI. 51 Cochin Club committee meeting, 5 July 1945, Cochin Club Records. 52 Shone to Secretary to the Cabinet, 3 March 1947, F 3813/905/61 in Anthony Best, ed., British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, vol. 4 (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1999), p. 22. 53 The exact identity of the president at this time is somewhat unclear, as the list of presidents does not include the date of assumption of office. The president of the Bengal Club in 1946 was C.M. Keddie, and in 1947 was W.E. Fetherstonhaugh. 54 Macalpine, The Bengal Club, p. 88. 55 Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, p. 15. 56 The Belfast News-Letter, 9 November 1882, p. 2. 57 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 30 January 1923, Private Papers, NAI. 58 Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 28 September 1943, Dehra Dun Club Records. 59 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 27 January 1939, Private Papers, NAI. 60 Cochin Club committee meeting, 4 October 1944, Cochin Club Records. 61 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 152, note. Edward William Ravenscroft served as Assistant Collector and magistrate, Bombay, from 1851–64. 62 This phrase suggests that employees were entitled to a kind of compensation package at the time of the end of their employment. 63 Cosmopolitan Club committee meeting, 1 December 1898, Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai. 64 Author’s visit to the Cochin Club, 2004. 65 On how the Bengali middle class complicated their relationships with servants, see Banerjee, Men, Women, and Domestics. 66 The Meerut Tent Club Log, frontispiece. An example of how Lachman’s voice was heeded by club members comes from an entry of 29 June 1889: ‘The canal also must contain good boar, but Lachman is not good or keen in that direction’ (p. 503). See also references to Lachman’s opinion on particular hunts, pp. 348, 399, 403, 416, 485, 529, 701, 751, and 811. 67 Delhi Tent Club. Log 1927–28 (Delhi: Oxford Printing Works), p. 66. 68 Log of the Delhi Tent Club for the Seasons 1874–5 to 1888–9 (Delhi: Imperial Medical Hall Press, 1889), p. 25. 69 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 37. A few months later, the club lost another longtime employee, ‘Abdool Khader,’ who had served the club for twenty-five years. His family was entitled to ten months’ pay. 24 August 1905. Ibid., p. 39. 70 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 11 February 1929, Private Papers, NAI. 71 Jhansi Club finance sub-committee meeting, 12 April 1946, Private Papers, NAI.

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Race, class, and the club

A close examination of India’s clubland reveals what might be expected – that some clubs discriminated along race lines – but also what might be less expected – that a variety of clubs existed where race was actively negotiated. Most surprising is that even the most exclusively British clubs had a variety of Indian participation. Perhaps most (in)famous were the clubs that maintained an exclusively British membership. These clubs and the snubs they dealt Indians seeking to join or even enter their premises dominate the discourse on clubs in South Asia. Yet opinions about them generated multiple and complicated descriptions and defenses. Debates over race and clubs occurred during the colonial period itself. Leonard Woolf spent seven years in South Asia. In his autobiography, he describes how one club had ‘a curious air of slight depression, but at the same time exclusiveness, superiority, isolation.’ Woolf continues, ‘Only the “best people” and of course only white men were members.’ C.P. Hughes Masterman, once president of the Madras Club, stated in response to Woolf’s depiction, ‘There was discrimination, but not against the Indians as such. It was a question of status.’1 As we shall see, while both Woolf and Masterman may be correct in some cases, in others we find a much different and more complex picture. This chapter suggests that exclusivity was not a simple affair and its application was deployed in a nuanced manner. At one end of the spectrum, some British clubs forbade potential Indian members (but not Indian employees) from being on their premises. This was the highest form of race-based exclusion. These clubs generally made it known that they were British or European-only in membership, and made no exceptions to this policy. Still, the number of clubs that self-identified in this way was very small. In George Orwell’s Burmese Days, the Kyauktada Club made the ‘proud boast’ that ‘almost alone of Clubs in Burma, it had never admitted an Oriental to membership.’ Yet, even [ 122 ]

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here, the Kyauktada Club was ‘almost alone’; or, put differently, the rest of the clubs had admitted ‘Orientals,’ and the Kyauktada Club was the exception, not the rule.2 Only 4 percent of the hundreds of clubs across South Asia were European only. This does much to reorient our view of the supposed bastion-like character of clubs; the focus might more fruitfully be shifted to the 96 percent of clubs that did not have race-based exclusion policies. Some British clubs had no definitive policy concerning race, but rather made their membership requirements so narrow that no Indian could become a member. Here, by member, I mean that no Indian could vote in the club elections and take a full part in the club’s operations. Yet these types of clubs did have Indians within their confines and participating in club life. Many Indians were asked to be a club patron, thus lending their names to clubs and providing financial assistance. In some cases, such patrons actively made use of the club, or at least visited now and then, while in other instances it appears that the role of patron was just a nicety that Indians conceded to, not bothering to get involved in British socializing. Indians, especially Indian princes, often served as patrons within their kingdoms – supporting the construction of a temple or mosque here, a step-well there, and financing a poet or dancer elsewhere. As such, the role of the local Indian patron appears to have continued into the colonial period through the support of clubs.3 For the British in India, to some degree having an Indian patron was a marker of a club’s rootedness within India. Clubs also made Indians honorary members. This title granted access to the club and its amenities but, again, not the right to vote. An honorary member could visit the club as he or she wished, and did not need to be accompanied by a member. Clubs also allowed Indians to be guests. As the name implies, a guest could visit the club as a guest of a member and enjoy the club’s amenities, but, again, was not a member and thus not able to vote. The mixed-race club, in contrast, approached the issue of race in a very different way. Indians and liberal-minded Britons formed such clubs and intentionally mixed the participation of each group in the club’s operation. These mixed-race clubs sometimes were established precisely for ‘social intercourse’ between the two communities. In some clubs, the membership ratio shifted one way or another, but the spirit of the club and its undergirding rules and bylaws allowed for both Indian and British members. Other clubs were exclusively Indian, even narrowing their membership pool to a particular community. In 1884, the distinguished Parsi, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta (1845–1915), brought together a group of gentlemen in Bombay and proposed the formation of a new club, the Ripon Club (1884). It was for ‘orthodox, Western-cultured and Britain[ 123 ]

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returned Parsis.’4 This club was to be different from those already in existence. Mehta had already established the Elphinstone Club, but that was little more than a circle of friends, and he felt the need to expand. In a speech Mehta said, But it was a Club of which the members were personal friends. In the course of a few years it occurred to us that these high traditions and noble aspirations should have play over a larger area. The Elphinstone Club was extended and enlarged into a Club in which every Parsi, who wished to live in an atmosphere of high ideals and noble thoughts, was welcome. (Hear, hear.) This idea, gentlemen, has been the seed of the Ripon Club.5

The new club would consider for membership anyone within the Parsi community who carried with him ‘social respectability.’ This would lead to a kind of club different from the norm in Bombay at the time. Mehta explained that in most clubs, with their membership drawn from similar pools, members dined at a common table, while at the new club ‘members may themselves form into gatherings and tables in any way that may suit their convenience and habits.’6 This initiative suggests the use of a club to foster bonding between members within a particular community. Not everyone found the Ripon Club a welcoming place. Lionel Tennyson, grandson of Lord Alfred Tennyson, visited the club in 1885. While the Ripon Club aimed to include a broader array of Bombay Parsis, it apparently did not allow Europeans to become members, but only to visit as guests. This bothered Tennyson, and he bitterly wrote, ‘All Europeans excluded in revenge for our excluding natives. I am rather disgusted with this mutual intolerance, which is worse than I expected.’7 In Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese community opened the Orient Club in 1894, which also denied access to whites. This was in response to the Garden Club, which was for (white) Britons only.8 At Mahableshwar there were both Hindu and Parsi gymkhana clubs (the former constructed in honor of Sir Chatter Sinhji Maharaj) which were for Indians only.9 While these clubs were exclusively Indian, they divided along religious lines, an outcome of associational life: individuals unhappy with one set of criteria (such as race or religion) undergirding a club in turn opened their own club – a form of community bonding, involving their own rules for admission. In the 120 years from the Bengal Club’s opening in 1827 to India’s independence in 1947, clubs changed their policies regarding race. In British clubs, the shift was always toward the admission of Indians into once seemingly exclusive British bastions. The end of the Raj allowed Indian clubs to carry on with the possibility of forming affiliations with once British-only clubs. In the early years after India’s independence, [ 124 ]

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the issue of race continued to haunt some clubs and required gentle intervention by the new state as explored in Chapter 7. Thus, the chronology of race and admission to clubs is somewhat haphazard: some clubs began as mixed race while others did not; some exclusive clubs only admitted Indians in a very limited way for decades, while others immediately flung open their doors. Indian participation in British clubs, the rise of mixed-race clubs, and the growth of Indian clubs all suggest that while lines around membership based on race could be abhorrent, when club participation crossed these lines it worked to strengthen a form of colonial civility, and thus undergird civil society. The intentional social intercourse between Indians and Britons within the medium of the club fostered bridging between the communities, but also spurred new clubs to open, adding volume to the number of associations operating in a given locale. Class barriers were more difficult to police, but when members of either the Indian or British community ran afoul of them at a club, the colonial associational milieu of the time allowed for yet more clubs to be created to address the needs of the aggrieved groups. Race and class, when transcended or reworked in new (club) ways, added an important associational form to colonial civil society.

The cost of admission Intertwined with the issue of race was that of class. At the outset, I recognize that club membership was not for the poor, and this work necessarily deals with Indians and Britons who could afford to become members of clubs. As India’s middle classes expanded throughout the nineteenth century, these individuals came from a variety of backgrounds. Within the world of clubs, particularly British clubs, individuals could be denied membership and admission based on their particular background – including class, or as Masterman called it, their ‘status.’ Thus, as shown in the discussion of club rules and bylaws, divisions between ‘Indian’ and ‘British’ clubs must be further complicated by considering those clubs that admitted only members whom they considered to have the appropriate status. In one case, the Calcutta Club opened its doors in part to serve the British business community, the ‘boxwallahs’ who had been denied admission to the Bengal Club. Yet the Bengal Club did admit members from the business community in direct contradiction to its own rules and bylaws. In other words, local realities modified the ideal club practice spelled out in the rules and bylaws. Status-based policies (when enforced) in turn spawned even more clubs when rebuffed individuals established their own associations. Lines drawn around race, class, and gender [ 125 ]

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­intentionally or u ­ nintentionally (and perhaps ironically) thus further spawned the growth of associational life. Class played a key role not only between Indians and Britons, but also within the British community where class cleavages were consistently apparent. In its original rules, the Bengal Club dictated membership eligibility. The founders had in mind a club comprised of civil and Company servants. Members of the business community or other merchantmen were not eligible, or so it would seem. However, as the Bengal Club historian Panckridge noted, the list of original members included several prominent businessmen. Panckridge considers the omission of the business community from the eligibility list an oversight: ‘It is evident, however, that this could not have been the draftsman’s intention.’10 Panckridge was writing a history of the club, for the club, so he was not in a position to judge its early actions too harshly. Some early members from the business community included John Palmer of Hyderabad Palmer and Co. fame; James Young, who served as director of the Bank of Hindustan; James George Gordon, a wealthy indigo planter; James Calder of Mackintosh and Co.; and a select few others.11 Following a common pattern, wealthy merchants who found themselves barred from the Bengal Club simply established their own club, in this case the Calcutta Club in 1882 (not to be confused with the later club of the same name).12 Prejudice and class consciousness were manifested in other ways as well. Between 1832 when the Bengal Club opened and 1857 when Haileybury College closed, those who had attended the college applied for admission to the Bengal Club, while those from army backgrounds applied to the United Service Club.13 Thus, differences in educational background also presorted individuals into different queues for club membership. In other cases, it was not the admission of a prince or an Indian noble that shaped a club, but rather the club owed its very formation to the leadership of such a noble. One example comes from the princely state of Balasore, located in modern-day Odisha. In 1902, Raja Baikunthanath De proposed lending part of his home for the establishment of a Balasore Club. However, his offer specifically limited the number of ‘native’ members to himself and two others. ‘I propose to lend my Garden free of rent as a club house to certain members of the European and native community: the only native gentlemen members will be the Rajas of Mourbhanj and Nigiri and myself.’14 The raja was careful to choose for admission only fellow Indians in a similar position to himself. In this case, an Indian chose to exclude other Indians so that his own status among the British would be secured if not elevated. One is reminded of Groucho Marx’s famous statement that ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.’15 [ 126 ]

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The color of admission As we have seen, in some cases the rules and bylaws of clubs forbade Indians from entering, let alone from becoming members. In 1891, the Club of Western India (1865) in Poona stated explicitly that ‘No native of India shall be admitted as a visitor or private guest into the public rooms of the Club, except with the special and unanimous sanction of the Committee.’16 Admission to the club was clearly along racial lines, yet the club allowed Indians into the club with the sanction of the managing committee. The club gave itself the option of admitting Indians should an individual appear who met its criteria. This secondary clause also meant that if a member wanted to bring an Indian guest and thus challenge the bylaw, the managing committee could make an exception without having to rewrite the bylaw completely – an action that would have required a general meeting of all club members and a vote. Evidence suggests that Indians were present in the club in additional capacities other than as guests or members – certainly as servants, but, as seen in Chapter 1, also as munshis (language teachers). We find a bylaw that forbade members from disturbing others when ‘studying with moonshees.’17 Thus, the club was a space where Indians, although denied admission as members unless they had special sanction, were allowed to enter as teachers and temporarily use club space like a classroom to educate their British pupils. Other clubs crafted language that carefully drew racial distinctions. What, for instance, would the Club of Western India have done if an Indian-born Briton had applied for membership? He or she might be a ‘native’ of India, but at the same time be white. To avoid such difficulties, clubs increasingly spelled out their racial requirements. The Tutticorin Club (1929) explicitly listed ‘European’ as the category for membership.18 The Madura Club (1876) went further, granting membership to ‘European British’ subjects, ‘British colonial subjects of European descent,’ as well as individuals from the United States.19 Here, the club went to great lengths to make membership dependent on being white. It was possible for an individual of Indian descent to be ‘European British’; thus the clarification ‘of European descent’ indicates a person strictly of Anglo background. Larger cities could better afford to segregate the two communities and offer separate clubs. And in some cases, while nationality and race were important to a club, other factors could trump those stipulations. At the Royal Bombay Yacht Club (1846), the rules and bylaws of 1926 state, ‘No guests shall be introduced into the Club other than Europeans but this rule shall not apply to Officers and gentlemen specially accredited by Foreign Governments, or to Officers of Foreign Navies (whose ships may be in [ 127 ]

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harbour), who may be made Honorary Members of the Club by special permission of the Committee.’20 The Yacht Club left open the possibility that a non-European (i.e., non-white) officer might – if the committee agreed – find honorary membership within the club. If an individual of Asian or African descent who was an officer or gentleman (or both) had applied for honorary membership, it is interesting to speculate on what the club might have done. Ultimately, however, the committee, having ascertained something about an individual’s background, would still be in a position to reject an application. Rules and bylaws were the letter of the law, but such regulations were subject to interpretation. As Masterman saw it, two guiding factors determined the admission or non-admission of Indians to clubs. He understood the role that status – linked to class – played in the admission of Indian and British members alike. Just as Indian princes were deemed to be of the ‘right’ status and thus were courted and admitted, so too, in opposite fashion, Britons who occupied lower positions within the Raj were denied entrance. Here he explains the tension over whether to admit a Briton who had a lower-status type of work: In Palamcottah for instance the District Medical Officer and the District Public Health Officer were both Indians; the District Medical Officer was a member, but not the District Health Officer. I recall a very long club committee meeting to decide whether an Englishman, who had been newly appointed to Tennevelly as a ‘coolie catcher’ – to recruit Tamil coolies for the Ceylon Tea Estates – should be admitted as a member.21

While the record is unclear as to whether the ‘coolie catcher’ was in fact admitted, Masterman describes a further example of status-based denial that occurred within the British community. In this case, a local British mill owner carefully excluded some fellow Britons along class or status lines. Masterman comments, ‘I could never fully understand what was the basis of his discrimination, but I know that all the whitecollar workers – the office staff – were eligible [for membership] but none of the technical experts on the weaving and spinning of cotton and on the machinery, though many of these men had come out from England and were drawing a far higher pay than many of the office staff.’22 Here it seems that a line existed between white-collar workers and those who, despite their technical skills, were still associated with the manual labor of the working class. The former were clubbable, the latter were not. Masterman viewed the determination of eligibility along broad, almost civilizational lines. His thinking echoes a view expounded by Samuel Huntington that neatly divided the world into ‘clashing’ civilizational groups.23 For Masterman, that ‘clash’ was manifest in habits in [ 128 ]

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two areas crucial to all modern life: the bathroom and the kitchen. ‘As long as I was in India it [the Madras Club] firmly resisted all attempts to allow Indians to become full members. Being a residential club, it would have meant altering the lavatories and kitchens or providing separate lavatories and kitchens for caste Hindus.’24 Continuing, Masterman elaborated on his ideas of race and racial difference: ‘It is sometimes forgotten when speaking of racial harmony that the social habits of races are different. Whether the habits of one race are better or worse than the other is immaterial; they are different.’ Masterman recognized, perhaps unwittingly, the multiple ramifications of race in clubs. At the very least, altering lavatories and kitchens would have come at considerable expense and, more critically, integrating the club would have carried with it considerable social costs. He was certainly not alone in his thinking. While belonging to a club that automatically admitted certain Indian officials, E.F. Lydall, who served at Lakhimpur in Assam, felt that Indians had their own ‘social set-up’ which made club life less appealing. There was no actual colour bar. An Indian medical officer who took over during my time automatically joined the club. For the educated Assamese, mostly pleaders, an evening drinking whisky and playing billiards with tea-planters would have held no attraction. They had their own well-established and very different social set-up and their wives were in any case in purdah.25

Social practices ranging from food and toilet customs to gender and marriage all informed ideas and policies regarding race and club admission. One area where race was less an immediate issue was within the Indian army. From the eighteenth century, Indian soldiers had fought under the command of European officers. By the twentieth century, Indians had begun to enter into the officer ranks and thus, technically, became eligible for honorary membership at the many clubs where such courtesies were regularly extended. Yet with the advent of commissions for Indian officers, their admission to clubs became a point of contention.26 The Madras Club, for example, held a vote during the time of Masterman’s presidency on whether or not to admit Indian army officers. As the debate was underway, in another turn of the race card, one British officer, General Rob Lockhart, commander-in-chief of the Southern Command in India, forbade his white officers from making use of the club unless their Indian counterparts were admitted. Lockhart was not racist, but rather used the club’s admission policies regarding race to make his point. The club rejected the proposal, and we can assume that Lockhart and his officers made use of one of Madras’ other clubs. Yet Lockhart’s request and the debate within the club were [ 129 ]

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not in vain; by 1942, the club had changed its policies and admitted Indian officers. Clubs here and elsewhere served as a colonial site where issues around racial mixing were being negotiated. Club rules and bylaws spelled out membership requirements. At times these were race based, while in other cases the restrictions otherwise imposed meant that no Indians were eligible for membership. Britons sometimes tried to excuse these policies by pointing to cultural differences between the two communities, yet no such excuse could remedy the snubs received by many Indians at the doors of some British clubs.

Challenges to exclusivity For Indians seeking membership to exclusive British clubs, the snubs and rejections from prominent clubs (such as the Bengal, Madras, or Byculla clubs), as well as from small rural clubs, stung badly. This prompted some to open their own clubs, yet for others the moment of rejection seems to have passed with little or no effect. Some illustrations bear this out, drawn from different clubs on different sides of the subcontinent. M.A. Husain, an I.C.S. officer, and a companion, Hamid, went to visit a colleague, George Abell, at the Punjab Club in Lahore.27 Upon arriving, the front hall porter told them that Indians were not allowed. As Husain narrates the event: The next day Abell called us at the Settlement Office and profusely apologized and expressed his indignation at the existence of the rule debarring Indians from entry into the club. He assured us that he would try his best to have the rule changed. I don’t recollect when the rule was changed but I do recollect that both of us, knowing Abell, had no rancour or ill feeling about this incident.28

Neither Husain, Hamid, nor Abell had been aware that the Punjab Club did not admit Indians. As a guest of the club, it is clear that Abell – and quite possibly many other well-meaning Britons – had not read, or was not aware of, the rules pertaining to Indians. Moreover, Britons like Abell were deeply troubled by such policies and sometimes made efforts toward having them changed. A more cynical interpretation of the meeting might see it as an intentional snub, with Abell inviting Husain and Hamid to the club knowing that they would be rebuffed. But Husain’s own recollection of the event and his account of Abell’s actions immediately thereafter do not bear this out. A second incident involved M.K. Gandhi. While in Calcutta, John Ellerthorpe of the Daily Telegraph invited Gandhi to the Bengal Club. Like Abell, Ellerthorpe was unaware of the Bengal Club’s policy on the [ 130 ]

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admission of Indians to certain spaces – here, the drawing room. As Gandhi recounts the event, ‘He [Ellerthorpe] did not then realize that an Indian could not be taken to the drawing-room of the Club. Having discovered the restriction, he took me to his room. He expressed his sorrow regarding this prejudice of the local Englishmen and apologized to me for not having been able to take me to the drawing-room.’29 Like Husain and Hamid, Gandhi recollects this moment with no rancor; and like Abell, Ellerthorpe was both unaware of the club’s policy and apologetic about Gandhi’s inconvenience. These examples suggest that many Britons did not take racial exclusivity for granted, indeed quite the reverse. At times, Britons who abhorred exclusive club policies came into conflict with their fellow countrymen over the admission of Indians. This happened twice to Lord Willingdon. On one occasion during his time as governor of Bombay, he invited members of Indian royalty to join him at the Bombay Yacht Club.30 The Indians were denied entry because that club technically allowed no Indian guests. Willingdon, upset and embarrassed, resigned his membership. In 1917, he created a new club that bore his name and was open to both Indian and British membership.31 Willingdon felt that ‘what was required was no less than a means of bringing together the best elements of Indian and European society for the best, healthiest and most congenial purposes, and not for Bombay only, but for all parts of India.’32 This ‘bringing together’ was a form of social bridging. Fifteen years later during his term as viceroy (1930–36), Willingdon returned to Bombay, this time delivering a speech on 16 December 1932 at the Orient Club – also created to bridge the social space between Indians and Britons. He proclaimed, ‘And I am glad to be here for I know the purpose for which this Club was created, in order that through friendly social intercourse our two races should get to understand each other better, an object for which I think I can claim I have always worked since I first came to India.’33 Three years after that speech, Willingdon again ran afoul of local club policy. In 1935, the Byculla Club of Bombay invited him to a dinner, and Willingdon wanted to invite some Indian guests. This went against club policy, but Willingdon, who favored mixed clubs, hoped that his position in Bombay might have some sway with the club’s committee. Unfortunately, as Willingdon narrates events, the tense relationship between himself and Motilal Setalvad – who would become independent India’s first attorney general – spoiled any chance of a more diverse dinner. Before he wrote it [a letter] I was in communication with Brabourne asking him whether he could induce the Byculla Club – knowing as

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he did my strong feelings on the Club question – to invite some of the principal Indians to that dinner as a special favour to me. Then Setalvad, when Brabourne was beginning to put out feelers, suddenly barges in with this letter which has bust any hope of anything being done … But, as you may imagine, the Bombay European has now stiffened his back completely and Brabourne and I are completely agreed that I must get through my Byculla Dinner in the ordinary manner. It is all a great pity, but can’t be helped.34

Clearly, Setalvad was aware of the club’s policies and saw Willingdon’s dinner as an opportunity to challenge the club, while at the same time making his own presence more clearly known to Willingdon.35 In the end, Willingdon gave his speech with no Indians in attendance. In his autobiography, Setalvad makes no mention of this incident with Willingdon, but describes later attending and hosting events, ironically, at the Willingdon Club. In one case, an Indian put up for membership to a club understood more clearly what was at stake than his British counterpart. Sir John Edge, a member of the Allahabad High Court, put up Motilal Nehru, the prominent Indian nationalist and father of the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, for membership at the Allahabad Club (1864). However, the senior Nehru declined the offer, not wanting Edge to face his nomination being blackballed.36 It appears that Nehru clearly understood the politics behind the club’s admissions and chose to forgo membership rather than see his friend embarrassed. Other Indians, rather than go through repeated attempts to gain admittance to a British club, simply started their own; India’s colonial public sphere allowed for such innovations. In 1886, the Mahableshwar Club received letters from Pherozeshah M. Mehta and J. Cowasjee Jehangir claiming the ‘right’ to use the club’s sports facilities. Mehta was a prominent Indian Parsi and active in nationalist politics, while Jehangir was a prominent Parsi businessman in Bombay. When their claim was refused, Mehta and Jehangir opened their own club.37 Differences of opinion over race at times caused clubs to snub one another, rupturing at one junction the network of clubs spread across India. One such occasion occurred in 1941 between the Cochin Club and the Madras Gymkhana Club. From the Cochin Club records, it is clear that the admission of Indians to the Madras Gymkhana Club was the sticking point: ‘A letter from this Club [the Madras Gymkhana Club] advising that their membership is not exclusively European was read. In view of this the Committee decided to go no further in the matter [forming an affiliation].’38 No shared network of membership could be forged, but while differing approaches to race relations scuttled one such affiliation, a similar approach could become an [ 132 ]

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agreed principle for others. Such an agreement was indeed worked out between the Jhansi Club and the Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club (1913), when they established an affiliation based on the condition that ‘both European and Indian members are accepted on equal footing.’39 Thus, racial tolerance and a diverse membership were strong reasons for these two clubs to form an affiliation.

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Patrons, guests, and ‘strangers’ From their inception many British clubs involved Indians as patrons. The Madras Club was for Britons, yet to help the club begin its founding members sought the patronage of the Naib-i-Mookhtar, the commander-in-chief of Prince Azim Jah of Arcot. This gentleman not only became a patron of the club, but loaned its members one of his palaces to serve as their initial meeting place. Club historian S. Mutiah noted the contradiction between the Madras Club’s supposedly exclusive British membership and its Indian patron: ‘Apparently his Indianness did not come in the way of a Club which had made it clear was intended for Europeans only.’40 Thus, the role of the Indian patron for a British club presents something of a paradox, and helps to complicate the binaries of race in India’s clubland. There are several reasons why the Naibi-Mookhtar might have been asked to be a patron of the Madras Club, and why he agreed, and these reasons expand to cover the participation of British elites as patrons in clubs. Of course, for the latter cases, race was not an issue: a British patron for a British club made sense for both parties. A club might have sought a patron, Indian or British, for financial reasons. This was an especially important reason for clubs that were just beginning and needed a large amount of ready cash to launch the club. In 1875, Sir Cowasjee Jehangir gave Rs. 1,000 to the new Bombay Gymkhana Club to help furnish its pavilion.41 (Perhaps this donation added to his feeling of entitlement to use the Mahableshwar Club a decade later.) Clubs also drew upon the social capital of having select individuals as patrons or members. Their patronage lent a club a degree of legitimacy, the reasoning being that if so-and-so was a patron, the club must be reputable. These individuals typically were drawn from India’s aristocracy and from the upper ranks of British political service. Clubs boasted of having ‘Maharaja X,’ ‘Nawab Y,’ ‘Governor Z,’ or in some cases simply ‘the Viceroy’ as patrons. For the individuals so invoked, holding the title of ‘patron’ was a nicety of imperial life that bestowed upon them no new or impressive favors. Perhaps for the Naibi-Mookhtar it was a chance to show his goodwill toward his British neighbors. For the club, such links to power and prestige added to their own sense of importance and proximity to high officialdom. In addition [ 133 ]

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to the prestige conferred by patronage, over time individuals came to regard their club membership itself as a mark of success.42 Thus, clubs not only extracted money and logistical support from patrons, but they derived legitimacy from having elites as their patrons, and members derived legitimacy from their membership, all of which contributed to the social network centered around the club. Having asked Indians to serve as patrons for their clubs, many British clubs began to admit Indians as guests within their confines. Of course, a guest held no voting rights, and ranked below an individual given ‘honorary membership’ status. Nonetheless, Indian guests in exclusively British clubs served as the thin edge of a larger wedge that eventually led to full Indian membership in such clubs. Bringing an Indian guest to a British club was at times a contentious act. Members clashed with each other and the managing committee, lines were drawn, and votes cast. In 1857 at the Byculla Club of Bombay, Dr. Herbert Giraud brought a local Parsi, Dr. Rustomjee Byramjee, to the club for dinner.43 Byramjee was a surgeon-major and member of the Indian Medical Service. Several club members questioned Giraud’s action, but he pointed out that no explicit rule existed that forbade the visits of Indians to the club. The matter escalated and was brought before a general meeting. Members conceded that since there was no rule forbidding the admission of an Indian guest, Giraud had been in compliance with the letter of the rules and bylaws. Yet the incident led to a proposal being put forward to create a rule that ‘without drawing a racial or colour line, would exclude guests not “European in manner, habits, and ideas.”’44 The similarity to Thomas Babington Macaulay’s famous Minute on Education (1835) cannot be missed here. Macaulay called for a group of Indians who were Indian in blood and color, but British in taste, opinion, moral, and intellect. The proposal would not exclude those Indians who were in fact European in manner, habit, and ideas. In the end, the Byculla Club committee decided against introducing any such rule. A similar chain of events occurred in 1907, when the Amir of Afghanistan, Habibullah Khan, was entertained at the club, and a call rang out to put in writing the unwritten rule that Indians (this time referred to as ‘Asiatics’) were not to be admitted to the club. Again, the committee rejected the proposal. Thus, proponents of a tightly conceived rule on exclusion were twice defeated in favor of a more open policy that in fact allowed Indians to participate in the life of the club. Special events were often the moment when Indian guests came to a club. At the Madras Club in March 1870, during the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit, Indians (and British women) were for the first time admitted to the club to attend the dinner in the duke’s honor. On [ 134 ]

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the Indian side was the Maharaja of Travancore and Prince Azim Jah, Nawab of Arcot.45 In 1882, the Mahableshwar Club committee gave permission to the Rao of Kutch, Khengarji Pragmalji III, to hold a dance with invited guests at the club.46 To the south, while attending a farewell dinner at the Palamcottah Club in 1910, J.T. Gwynn noted that the club was ‘not quite the Star Chamber as it appears in the northern native mind.’47 In attendance at this dinner were three Indians as guests at an otherwise all-British affair. Gwynn noted that two of the Indians were I.C.S. members, and the third a member of the legislative council. Dinners, dances, and royal visits provided clubs with special events that Indian guests (and other excluded groups) could attend. In some clubs, the nomenclature deemed guests as ‘strangers.’ These individuals, as we shall see, could be Indian or British, noble or humble in birth; the club momentarily categorized them all as strangers. On the treatment of strangers in London’s clubs, which was applicable to many Indian clubs as well, Nevill writes, ‘As a matter of fact, they were usually treated like the members’ dogs – they might be left in the hall under proper restraint, but access to any other part of the house, except, perhaps, some cheerless apartment kept as a strangers’ diningroom was forbidden.’48 The Byculla Club of Bombay is illustrative of clubs that struggled with admitting Indian and British strangers. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the club forbade non-member Britons. But because the British community was small in Bombay, and members perhaps more liberal in their outlook than London contemporaries, the rule denying strangers admission was repeatedly violated, prompting a reappraisal of the rule in 1846. In exception to the rule, it was proposed that the club would allow certain guests to be admitted at certain times of the year. This proposal passed narrowly in the managing committee by a vote of 14 to 13.49 However, the rule was soon challenged again when Sir Charles Napier was invited to dine at the club, and non-club members of the community were invited to the accompanying banquet. Napier (1782–1853) served as a major general in the Indian army and then as governor of Bombay. The event was successfully navigated by instituting a one-time exception to the general rule. Finally, in 1854, the club formalized the ‘introduction of guests.’ Thus, while the letter of the rule was clear, local realities sometimes demanded that clubs make impromptu exceptions. Far to the south, the Ootacamund Club had its own policy for dealing with strangers.50 Here again, the stranger was a European who was not a member of the club. A careful examination of the club’s rules and bylaws reveals that this category was limited to whites, and that Indians were not to be admitted at all. Should a stranger appear in the club’s front hall, a separate room was set aside in which such [ 135 ]

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individuals could be entertained by a member and served refreshments and meals.51 The club allowed that a member might bring a stranger to the club, ‘provided such friend has no disqualification from being a member of the Club under its rules.’52 This neatly kept both Indians and Britons of the wrong rank and class from even being allowed on to the club premises. Indians were not allowed to become members, and the club was for those in Her Majesty’s or the Company’s service and ‘others moving in General Society.’53 The latter phrase no doubt allowed certain wealthy merchants to obtain membership, but club rules regarding strangers made clear that only a select few were entitled to the privilege of that status. Thus, even while demarcating the role of a particular group within club circles (the stranger), while the letter of the rule was clear, its interpretation and actual practice – at the Ootacamund Club and elsewhere – was more flexible.

Changing membership Nominally exclusive clubs changed their membership policies over time. Some began with Indian patrons and then allowed Indian guests, and finally moved toward having Indians as honorary and full members. Of course, not every club followed this pattern so neatly. Some accepted an Indian patron but did not admit Indians as members until the 1940s, while others never had a patron at all, but in one move skipped from being British-only to admitting Indians as full members. If Indians were allowed as patrons and guests, generally the next step was to grant some individuals honorary member status. These individuals could access the club without a host, but held no voting rights within the club’s operations. Not surprisingly, many of India’s princes were among the first to be admitted to once exclusive clubs as honorary members. At the Bangalore Club, a motion was made in 1897 that ‘with exception of H.H. the Maharajah of Mysore no Native of India shall be qualified to become a Member of the Club.’54 This motion did not pass, though it remains unclear if this was because of objections to the maharajah’s presence or to that of Indians in general. Yet over time attitudes changed, and in 1901 the club invited the same maharajah to become an honorary life member.55 At the Mahableshwar Club the Maharaja of Bhavnagar, the Rao of Kutch, the Aga Khan, and the Chief of Jamkhandi were all honorary members, while no other Indians were admitted. In another case, in 1924 at the Jhansi Club, the managing committee decided to offer honorary membership to the Maharaja of Gwalior, which he accepted.56 While such a membership did not carry with it voting rights, it began a process of Indianization. Becoming a full member of a British club was undoubtedly not easy [ 136 ]

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for many Indians. Some clubs opened their admission policies and welcomed a large number of new Indian members, while for other would-be members the process was much slower. One instance of the latter comes from the south Indian town of Coimbatore. In 1889, the Coimbatore Club accepted its first Indian member, C.V. Narasiah. He had gone to England to study law, and while there not only took a law degree but also studied comparative religion. Impressed with Christianity, he converted. Upon his return to India, British friends wanted him to join the club, if he would bring his wife. Indian women were much less commonly in attendance at predominantly British and male clubs. It is unclear whether she was a Christian, or whether she regularly attended the club.57 In writing the club’s history, Sreenivasan describes the tension that existed in Coimbatore (and probably elsewhere as well) over the participation of Indian women in mostly British clubs. He suggests that Narasiah’s willingness to bring his wife to the club might have helped ease his membership, but that other factors were also likely at play. Among these was the desire on the part of British men to meet and socialize with women – Indian or British. Thus the club was not only mixed race, but wished to be heterosocial as well. One of the factors that tended to create friction between the Indians and the British in social relationships was the fact that most Indian ladies did not mix with men freely – particularly with strangers and ­foreigners – as the European ladies did. This was resented by Englishmen who felt that westernized Indians wanted to mix with them and dance with their wives, but left their own spouses safely at home. The fact that Mr. Narasiah agreed to bring his wife to the club must have made his election to membership somewhat easy, but it could not have been the only factor.58

The magnanimity of the club was short lived: no other Indian was admitted as a full member until 1959. Concern over interracial mingling and dancing is found elsewhere as well. H.T. Wickham served in north India with the police from 1904–22. He recounts how at Bishraw in 1921, ‘Their chief objection [to allowing Indian members] was the fact that the 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 while unveiled.’59 British female sexuality, if available at the club, was thus in danger with Indian men present, while Indian female sexuality was frustratingly unavailable for British men. Clubs were at times flooded with temporary members from the armed forces posted to nearby cantonments, or saw their memberships plummet as members left a station. Such fluctuation created space for [ 137 ]

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Indians to join these clubs. Such was the case at the Mahableshwar Club during and after the First World War. In 1919, the minutes record that two individuals, Mr. Bhabha and Mr. Lalji, were both permitted to use the club’s sports facilities as guests.60 Furthermore, the shift from allowing Indian guests to allowing Indian members was relatively short in the making: during the interwar period, in 1924, the Mahableshwar Club elected its first Indian committee member, K.S. Framji.61 The club elected its first Indian president in the spring of 1933. This was Ghulam Hussain Hidayatallah, whom we saw earlier as also having his name posted for late payments to the club.62 In the interwar period and the years just before India’s independence, a growing number of Indians joined the I.C.S. and thus found themselves interacting more frequently with British colleagues in mixed clubs. This interaction had social benefits with, of course, long historical antecedents. For instance, in colonial America, clubs and other associational forms were part of improving a civil or civilized society. Making this claim in the eighteenth century was none other than Lord Shaftesbury, who said, ‘We polish one another, and rub off our corners and rough sides by a sort of amicable collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a rust upon men’s understandings.’63 Two centuries later, on the other side of the world, another version of such ‘corner rubbing’ and polishing again comes to the fore, made by a very different type of individual. S.H. Raza recounts the advice given in the Assistant Collector’s manual for Bombay. The manual was the key text for young I.C.S. officers beginning their careers in the field. Even though you may be shy of thrusting yourself among comparative strangers, make a practice of going to the club regularly, it will probably rub off some unsuspected corners of your personality to your lasting benefit. Even if you should find the society at the club uninteresting, you have, in virtue of your position, to fill a place in the social life of the station, and to do your part to amuse and entertain the other residents, who may not have your resources of culture and interests. Golf, tennis etc. and bridge are valuable aids to getting to know your fellows.64

Implicit in Raza’s advice was that the club was mixed race. For a young Indian I.C.S. officer, then, the club was both a place to have one’s ‘corners rubbed off,’ and at the same time a place where an officer fulfilled a duty to his station’s civilized social life. Raza’s advice illuminates the overlap between members of the Civil Service, a public office, and their more private obligations in clubland. Thus, while advertising their exclusivity along racial lines, many of India’s most exclusive British clubs followed more nuanced and conflicting policies. The Madras Club had an Indian patron, the Byculla Club had Indian guests, the Bangalore Club had Indian honorary [ 138 ]

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members, and so on, creating a more complex picture of India’s clubland. Clubs and club space were thus sites where issues around race as well as gender and class were subject to negotiation and renegotiation. At different moments in time, rules, policies, and general understandings of club practice came to be debated, and when no agreement could be found, often a new club opened to accommodate Indians and Britons who felt aggrieved. This process occurred most frequently in the years after the 1857 uprising.

Crossing race lines Two years after the events of 1857, race relations between Indians and Britons were traveling in different directions. On the one hand, Britons began to retreat behind their ‘civil lines’ and into clubs. In these spaces they bonded more tightly together. Within their own community, they felt a sense of safety and security whereas within a mixed IndoBritish community, a degree of unease settled in. Part of this retreat and retrenchment entailed an increased practice of aloofness, a position that presented a sense of distance and thus fairness in British thinking. If Britons and Indians socialized, the logic went, then the British would in some way lose their ability to rule in an impartial manner. On the other hand, there arose an opposite movement – to bridge the span between the Indian and British communities and to better understand one another with the hope of avoiding future disasters. Clubs facilitated this process of bridging just as they facilitated forms of segregation. While many clubs opened to promote social intercourse, a twist in their reasoning argued that this was in fact good for imperialism. In other words, if Britons and Indians mingled more in clubs, then the two would have better relations that would accrue to ‘the lasting honour and benefit of our world-flung Empire.’65 Among the earliest clubs established to encourage social bridging between the two communities was the Union Club of Calcutta. Its prospectus of 1859 declared: ‘It is proposed to set on foot, in Calcutta, a Club to be called the UNION CLUB, the primary and declared object of which will be to promote friendly social intercourse between European and Native gentlemen.’66 The club offered members a reading room, dressing and dining rooms, and space for billiards and chess. The managing committee of eight men was to be comprised equally of Indians and Britons. From the members’ list, several names are noteworthy for the roles they would play in Indian history. The father of Rabindranath Tagore, Debendranath Tagore, was a Union Club member.67 The list also included members of Bengal’s nobility such as the rajas of Burdwan and Nuddea. European members included Sir James Outram who had [ 139 ]

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served in Lucknow in 1857 and was a military member in the GovernorGeneral’s Council in 1859. With Outram was Sir Stewart Bayley, who in addition to serving in several positions in Bengal went on to become secretary to the government of India in the Home Department and would later become the Resident at Hyderabad. The same process of social bridging occurred in the princely states of India as well. Hyderabad was home to a club formed for the purposes of ‘friendly intercourse’ between Indian and European gentlemen, yet it ran afoul of the increasing racial tensions of the late nineteenth century. The Hyderabad Boat Club was established in 1877 and soon merged with the Lawn and Tennis Club to become the Hyderabad Boat and Gymkhana Club, also known simply as the Hyderabad Club. This club used as its early home a bungalow provided by the Hyderabad state’s minister, Sir Salar Jung, and was later moved to the ‘Old Telegraph Bungalow.’ The club had the support of Sir Salar Jung and the Nizam’s government, which provided both a physical home and the club’s furniture. Yet by 1898, two additional clubs, the Nizam’s Club and the Secunderabad Club, had also become established in the city. The former catered to members of the Hyderabad state government, and the latter to the British community.68 That same year the new Hyderabad prime minister, Sir Vikar ul Umra, heard that the Hyderabad Club had only one remaining European member – ‘the rest have left.’ Sir Vikar argued that the club was no longer fulfilling its stated role of promoting ‘social intercourse,’ and so it closed. Nearby, social intercourse, or lack thereof, was a charge hurled at the Secunderabad Club, but in a letter to the editor of The Times, P.J. Donnelly claims that the club ‘had long given a lead to British India in disregarding race as a criterion for membership.’ It is possible that the club disregarded race but used other means to differentiate prospective members and keep the club exclusively British.69 The Hyderabad Club appears to be a case study in failure for clubs designed to promote social intercourse. Even with its early success and state support, it could not survive the opening of newer clubs that served more specific communities. Located within a princely state, the number of Britons available to support multiple clubs was more limited than in the urban environments of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay and their respective presidencies. It is also possible that Britons posted to the princely state were more socially conservative, being located within a native state of India, than their presidency counterparts, and thus opted for exclusive clubs over mixed clubs when they became available. When newer clubs opened in Hyderabad that catered to more specific communities, the Hyderabad Boat Club and others that required support from both communities could not draw upon a deep enough pool of members to sustain themselves. [ 140 ]

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Other princely states had greater success. In Mysore, M. Kantharaj Urs – the city’s dewan (chief minister or revenue officer) from 1919–22 – helped establish the mixed-race Cosmopolitan Club in 1896.70 The club boasted the patronage of the maharajas of Mysore (Nalvadi Krishnaraje Wodeyar and Jayachamaraja Wodeyar), and had such members as educationalist and freedom fighter Amble Subramanya Iyer, and philanthropist and representative assembly member Amble Annaiah Pandit. By the early twentieth century, nationalist politics provided the opportunity for new mixed clubs to emerge. Yet in at least one case, a club formed around shared anti-national sentiments. This sentiment was the grounds for the creation of the Darwin Fatehabad Club, which opened on 26 November 1933. F.H. Darwin and his wife had come to Fatehabad district in 1930, where he served as Collector and magistrate. The district covered Agra and what is now the heartland of Uttar Pradesh. Fatehabad town is about 20 miles southeast of Agra city. Darwin conceived of a tehsil (district-based organization) to ‘combat the evils of Civil-Disobedience.’ Over the next few years, the organization grew to include over 6,000 members. By 1933, local Indian leaders had pooled funds and opened a small club in honor of Darwin. Siding with Darwin and against the nationalists, they proclaimed, ‘We have scotched the civil disobedience movement beyond all chances of recovery and have infused loyalty into the hearts of even the misguided and vacillating.’71 The speech read at the club’s dedication, printed on a silk cloth in blue ink, was presented to Darwin and his wife.72 The Darwin Club then was a mixed-race club opened to bring together like-minded Indians and Britons in their campaign against the growing nationalist movement. As the new century dawned, new largely social clubs emerged out of an increasingly politicized environment. In 1907, the Calcutta Club opened with the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Nripendra Narayan, as its first president.73 Among the club’s founding members was Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee. The Calcutta Club was mixed race and stated explicitly in its rules and bylaws that ‘no person shall be ineligible for membership of the Company on account of race, politics or creed.’74 The managing committee had equal numbers of Indians and Europeans, with the presidency alternating between the two communities. As Geoffrey Moorhouse describes it, ‘the main staircase is hung with the photographs of club presidents whose faces have from the start very carefully been alternately white and brown.’75 This balancing act was an intentional bulwark against the club’s slipping too far into the grip of one community or the other. Yet, as Rudrangshu Mukherjee notes, the Calcutta Club opened against the ‘grain of popular feeling in 1907’ to bring together the ruler and the ruled.76 The [ 141 ]

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partition of Bengal had stirred Indian nationalist feelings and raised tensions between the two communities. In one case, a crowd attacked the Coconada Club (1867) after a member had assaulted a servant for shouting Bande Mataram.77 At the same time, the next generation of Indians saw the utility in having clubs created predominantly for themselves, yet still open to British membership. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya can be credited with establishing two well-known clubs of the late nineteenth century, the Deccan Club at Poona, and the Century Club at Bangalore. Indian members dominated both clubs, but they were not exclusively Indian by rule. Visvesvaraya had held positions as superintending engineer in the Bombay Irrigation Department and came to Hyderabad state while holding the position of dewan of Mysore state. In 1955, the government of India recognized his service to the nation and awarded him the Bharat Ratna. A product of a mixed social milieu, Visvesvaraya – like Frere and Subbarayan – recognized the utility of clubs: To promote the social and cultural life of the people, every local authority must bring into existence clubs, reading-rooms, libraries, associations, etc., upon the model of those in progressive countries. Meeting places for people to come together, think together, and work together are indispensable for that co-operative effort which should be the watchword of the future.78

For Visvesvaraya a club contributed to the ‘local authority,’ who arguably had some say in the making of a viable public sphere, and thus to a form of civil society as well. This society was to be modeled after those of ‘progressive countries’ and build a ‘co-operative effort’ that would lead to India’s future. To this end, he established the Deccan Club in Poona in 1891. Members included nationalist reformers from Maharashtra such as M.G. Ranade (1842–1901) and G.K. Gokale (1866–1915). Among the guests of honor to speak at the club was Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) who was internationally famous for his lecture tours in the United States and Europe. In 1917, Visvesvaraya explored the idea of establishing a club in Bangalore. In November, he presided over a meeting of interested individuals that resulted in the creation of the Century Club. Early patrons included the Maharaja Shri Krishnaraje Wodeyar (1894–1940) and the younger Shri Kanteerava Narasimha Raja Wodeyar of the ruling dynasty of Mysore. The club’s name came from its target of 100 members to start the club, a number quickly surpassed. Visvesvaraya served as the club’s first president and Leslie C. Miller as vice-president. Of three secretaries, only one was British, and on the managing committee, again only one Briton held a position.79 [ 142 ]

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Indians continued to open clubs aimed at bridging racial divides. A decade after Visvesvaraya’s efforts, Raja Jai Prithivi Bahadur opened the Humanistic Club in Bangalore. As the name implies, this club catered to those holding ‘humanistic views’ and aimed to foster peace and goodwill among all.80 At the club’s opening in Bangalore on 8 March 1928, the raja summarized the state of relations between East and West: The West and the East have come into closer contact than ever before, and the consequence is the rise of a new wave of enthusiasm in both parts of the world. The West, in consequence of her vast scientific discoveries, immense wealth acquired through highly organized industries, the territorial acquisitions and solidarity, appears to be the leader of both in spheres of action and thought. The East, on the other hand, is more or less the follower and, to a certain extent, even the imitator of the patterns set by the other. As a result, the East is exhibiting a spirit of restlessness that is the result neither of a conscious and organized grasp of the Western ideals, nor of a deliberate revival of her ancient noble philosophy. In fact, the present tendency in the East is the result of a more or less moribund combination of half-understood and half-combined ideals of both the West and the East. In consequence, there is much misunderstanding about the goal to be reached and the means to be adopted.81

These comments seem to be thinly veiled attacks on the political leaders and strategies of the day, yet the club itself forbade anyone from engaging in politics within the club grounds. Still, the rules added that the club would not ‘prevent anybody from demanding his legitimate rights in a legitimate manner.’82 Clubs in colonial South Asia used race and class in a variety of ways. Some British clubs drew sharp race lines around their membership policies, forbidding Indian members. Yet those policies – expressed in rules and bylaws – were often subverted by local realities. Exclusively British clubs had Indian patrons, guests, honorary members, and finally admitted Indians as full members, although in some cases the shift was painfully slow. At the same time, Indians created their own exclusive clubs. Between these two race-based extremes were a variety of mixed clubs created or operated to include members of both the Indian and British communities. Layered on to racial distinctions were also class and status distinctions in response to which, again, members of an excluded community in turn opened their own clubs. At one level, this is a process of making the best of a bad situation; but more significantly, such associational vibrancy points to a secure public sphere where individuals from a variety of backgrounds could form associational links, and thus contribute to a colonial civil society. [ 143 ]

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Notes  1 Masterman Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. Masterman was born in 1889. He first entered the I.C.S. in 1914 and was assigned to Madras as an Assistant Collector and magistrate. From 1917–19, he served military duty, and then from 1924–32 was Collector of Salt Revenue in Madras. He served from 1932–35 as Collector and district magistrate of Madras, then as secretary to the government of Madras for the education and public health departments; then as district magistrate of Vizag district. From 1943–46, he was chief secretary and adviser to the government of Madras, and concluded his career as deputy high commissioner for the UK in Madras in 1947–48. He died in 1982.  2 Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 17. See also the recollections of H.C.G. Brown about life in Rangoon. H.C.G. Brown, ‘H.C.G. Brown,’ in Last Children of the Raj, ed. Laurence Fleming (London: Radcliffe Press, 2004), p. 313.  3 For an overview of some debates on the role of the British in India, see Douglas M. Peers and Nandini Gooptu, eds., India and the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).  4 A Hundred Years of Ripon Club: 1884–1984 (Bombay, 1984), ‘The Prospectus.’  5 C.Y. Chintamani, ed., Speeches and Writings of the Honourable Sir Pherozeshah M. Mehta, K.C.I.E. with an Introduction by Dinsha Edulji Wacha (Allahabad: The Indian Press, 1905), p. 806.  6 A Hundred Years of Ripon Club, ‘The Prospectus.’  7 Lionel Tennyson, Lionel Tennyson (London: Macmillan, 1891), p. 16.  8 G.P.S.H. de Silva, The Centenary History of the Singhalese Sports Club 1899–1999 (Colombo: Gunaratne Offset, 2000), p. 6.  9 Nasserwanji Merwanji Dastur, Hand Book of Mahableshwar with a Map (Poona: Chitrashala Steam Press, 1932), pp. 72, 73. 10 Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, p. 61. 11 Banerjee and Nayak, Calcutta 200 Years; Panckridge, A Short History of the Bengal Club, pp. 50–1. 12 Mukherjee, One Hundred Years of Calcutta Club, I, p. 29. 13 Gilmour, The Ruling Caste, p. 42. 14 IOR Mss Eur E360/15, OIOC; Rules of the Balasore Station Club (Balasore: De’s Utkal Press, 1922), Appendix I, pp. 24–5. 15 Groucho Marx, Groucho and Me (Boston: Da Capo Press, 1995), p. 321. 16 Rules of the Club of Western India, p. 17. 17 Ibid., p. 21. 18 Rules and Bye-Laws of the Tuticorin Club. Revised 1931 (Madura: T. Cunniah Naidu & Sons Press, [1931?]), p. 3. 19 Rules and Bye-Laws of the Madura Club. Revised up to April 1929 (Madura: Sri Vengugopal Press, 1929), p. 1. 20 Extracts from the Rules and Bye-Laws of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, and Regulations Relating to Yachting and Boating 1926 (Bombay: Time Press, 1926), p. 9. 21 Masterman Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. 22 Masterman Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. 23 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Penguin, 1996). 24 Masterman Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. 25 Hunt and Harrison, The District Officer in India, p. 127. 26 Indicus, ‘Indian Reforms and the Station Club,’ p. 322. 27 Abell (1904–89) was an I.C.S. officer and served in Punjab. 28 Hunt and Harrison, The District Officer in India, p. 127. 29 M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth, 3rd ed. (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, reprint, 1982 [1927]), p. 150. 30 Zareer Masani, Indian Tales of the Raj (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 51.

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Race , class , and the club 31 Ibid. 32 Behram Contractor, A Commemorative Volume to Mark the Sixtieth Year of the Willingdon Sports Club Bombay 1917–1977 (Bombay: N.J. Ardeshir, 1977), Introduction by Jashwant P. Thacker. 33 Freeman Freeman-Thomas Willingdon, Speeches by the Earl of Willingdon, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Simla: Government of India Press, 1935), pp. 184–5. Willingdon thinks of himself as a ‘koi hai,’ or ‘old India hand.’ The phrase literally means, ‘Is anyone there?’ but the implication is that of a master calling for a servant. See pp. 18–19. 34 Willingdon to Dundas, 9 December 1935, IOR Mss Eur 609/6, OIOC. Laurence John Lumley Dundas (1876–1971), 2nd marquess of Zetland, served as Secretary of State for India from 1935 to 1940. Lord Brabourne (Mountbatten’s son-in-law) was governor of Bombay from 1933 to 1937. 35 Motilal C. Setalvad, My Life: Law and Other Things (Delhi: Universal Law Publishing, reprint, 2008 [1970]), pp. 38, 94; The Times, 19 November 1935, p. 13. 36 B.R. Nanda, Motilal Nehru (Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1964), p. 18. This anecdote is followed by a similar one of Jawaharlal Nehru’s actually applying and being blackballed from the same club some time in the early years of the twentieth century. See Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club, p. 79. 37 Ibid. 38 Cochin Club committee meeting, 18 September 1941, Cochin Club Records, Cochin. 39 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 25 March 1941, Private Papers, NAI. 40 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, p. 9. 41 The First Fifty Years, p. 7 42 Since independence, members of India’s parliament have regularly listed club membership as part of their credentials. See biographical details at http://loksabha.nic.in/ 43 Giraud (1817–88) joined the Company in 1842. He served as Chief Medical Officer of Sir Jamsetjee Jheejheebhoy’s Hospital and later as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Bombay University. 44 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 145. 45 Muthiah, The Ace of Clubs, p. 36. 46 The club entertained other royal guests including the Maharaja of Bhavnagar, the Chief of Jamkhandi, and the Aga Khan. 47 Gwynn to Robin, 24 July 1910, J.T. Gwynn Collection, Cambridge Centre for South Asia. Unfortunately, he did not give the names of those in attendance. 48 Nevill, London Clubs, p. 148. 49 Sheppard, The Byculla Club 1833–1916, p. 132. 50 The initial circular for the club dates from 1842 and was addressed to the ‘European Residents in India.’ See Price, Ootacamund. A History, Appendix A, ‘Circular to the European Residents in India and the Indian Islands,’ p. 499. 51 This stipulation came from 1865, but from the rules of 1856 a stranger was to be offered only a glass of wine, a biscuit, or soda water. Rules of the Ootacamund Club. 1856, p. 8. 52 Rules of the Ootacamund Club. 1865 (Ootacamund: Albion Press, 1865), p. 10. 53 Rules of the Ootacamund Club. 1856, p. 1. 54 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, p. 1. 55 Ibid., p. 23. 56 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 17 October 1924, Private Papers, NAI. 57 Sreenivasan, One Hundred-Not Out, p. 30. 58 Ibid. Such tension surrounding dance partners continued well past India’s independence. Anglo-Indians at the Lucknow Club faced similarly awkward arrangements well into the 1960s. See Alison Blunt, Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), p. 157. Concerns over race extended to dance floors and other spheres of social life in Britain as well. See Shompa Lahiri, Indians in Britain (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 48–77. 59 Allen, Plain Tales from the Raj, p. 99. 60 Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club, p. 84. 61 Ibid., p. 89.

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I N TH E C LU B 62 Mahableshwar Club committee meeting, 13 May 1933, Mahableshwar Club Records, Mahableshwar. The Sind Club itself opened its doors to ‘Oriental Visitors’ in 1936 while at the same time merging the men’s and women’s dining rooms into one. Humphrey, Story of the Sind Club, p. 55. 63 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, ‘Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour,’ in Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinion, Times, Etc., ed. John Robertson (London, 1900), p. 49. 64 Hunt and Harrison, The District Officer in India, p. 126. 65 Indicus, ‘Indian Reforms and the Station Club,’ p. 325. 66 Prospectus. List of Members, Etc., of The Union Club, Calcutta, p. 1. 67 Ibid., p. 6. The Raja of Burdwan, Maharaja Mahtab Chand (d. 1879), had pro-British leanings during the Santal Rebellion of 1855 and the mutiny of 1857. 68 The Advocate of India, 23 June 1897; The Times, 28 March 1959, p. 7. 69 The Advocate of India, 22 May 1899. 70 Centenary Celebration Souvenir 1895–1995 the Cosmopolitan Club (Mysore: Cosmopolitan Club, 1995), p. 1. 71 F.H. Darwin, 26 November 1933, IOR Mss Eur F395, OIOC. 72 F.H. Darwin, 26 November 1933, IOR Mss Eur F395, OIOC. 73 This Calcutta Club replaced an earlier club of the same name that had been established by Calcutta’s Anglo businessmen who were denied entrance to the Bengal Club. 74 IOR Mss Eur F 233/99, OIOC. Calcutta Club Ltd. Memorandum and Articles of Association Including General Bye-Laws (1944), p. 6. 75 Geoffrey Moorhouse, Calcutta (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), p. 150. 76 Mukherjee, One Hundred Years of Calcutta Club, I, p. 31. 77 Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885–1947 (Madras: Macmillan, 1983), p. 130. 78 M. Visvesvaraya, Reconstructing India (London: P.S. King & Son, 1920), p. 227. 79 Y.M. Balakrishna, ed., Century Club (Bangalore: Akshara Printers), pp. 2–3. The Century Club also received a boost in its initial membership by merging with the Cosmopolitan Club, once located at Seshadri Memorial Hall. Ibid., p. 3. 80 Speeches and Writings of Colonel Raja Jai Prithvi Singh (Nepal), Founder-President of the Humanistic Club, Bangalore, (S. India) (Bangalore: National Press, 1930), front flap. 81 Ibid., pp. 4–5. 82 Ibid., p. 74.

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CHA P T E R SIX

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Women and the club

Clubs created by Indian and British women together bridged, and quietly disrupted, practices of colonial exclusivity, explicitly forging bonds that spanned both race and the colonizer/colonized divide. Like their male counterparts, clubs served as homes away from home for Indian and British women alike. A home-like space, the club additionally provided opportunities for women to enjoy greater freedoms in each other’s company than might be found as guests at a men’s club, at home, or in the heterosocial public sphere. In this sense, clubs served as a training ground for participation in public life, contributing to a civil society in India that by the twentieth century included women. Women’s clubs promoted and achieved social bridging among diverse memberships: Indian and British women, Hindu and Muslim women, British and purdah-observing Muslim women, and others.1 Some clubs catered to specific communities, while others intentionally brought together diverse communities for social purposes. As Antoinette Burton has shown, Indian women who made their way to London, the heart of the imperial world, had clubs that were created for the purpose of ‘social intercourse’ between Britons and Indians. However, as Burton explains, not every club put such noble goals as their highest priority, some acting more paternally to keep young Indians from straying into trouble while in London.2 Still other clubs promoted social skills, in particular those that might lead women into political participation, like that seen during India’s nationalist movement, or activity in regional and national women’s organizations. Clubs in India, particularly women’s clubs, networked individuals and associations into complex webs that challenged and spanned the simple categories of ruler and ruled, revealing that the categories of colonizer and colonized were constantly shifting and being renegotiated.3 That women’s clubs survived into the postcolonial period further suggests that their meaning and purpose transcends colonial ­explanations [ 147 ]

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and forces us to re-evaluate them and their meanings to Indian women in the postcolonial present. Included in club membership were some of India’s leading women nationalists, and a study of their participation in India’s clubland adds to our understanding of their role in the nationalist movement, where clubs served as nodes of both social and nationalist activity. Women fully recognized that clubs and other associational forms helped them prepare for a bigger role in political life.4 This chapter examines the role of women’s clubs in colonial South Asia and not only their contribution to its emerging colonial civil society, but at the same time, their role in bringing women more actively into an associational sphere.

An associational world By the late nineteenth century, many more British women had come to reside in India. Under pressure from this growing community, some British clubs allowed women to use their facilities as guests, though they were not allowed to be voting members. The growth of male clubland in India combined with the advent of Indian women’s movements, and women’s emergence into the public sphere prompted the opening of separate women’s clubs. No list of all the women’s clubs exists, but it is likely that by the interwar years the combination of greater women’s associational activity and the general rise in associational life probably led to as many as dozens or hundreds of women’s clubs scattered across the subcontinent. Women’s clubs have deep roots in other forms of female associational life. The first wave of Indian women’s associational activity, which began in the second half of the nineteenth century, was patterned after that of their male counterparts but served different needs, tending to be organized around political and religious themes.5 Examples from Bengal and Maharashtra provide some context for later club activity. In July 1865, Bengali women established the Brahmika Samaj (Brahman Women’s Society), a spiritually inclined group that met weekly and listened to lectures by prominent male Bengali activists such as Keshub Chunder Sen.6 A second group took shape in 1879, the Banga Mahila Samaj (Bengali Women’s Society). This group, like the clubs of a few decades later, was well organized and instilled in its members organizational skills that could translate to participation in a larger public sphere: convening meetings, enacting resolutions, and writing reports were all part of their repertoire.7 The Banga Mahila Samaj also had an internal structure identical to most clubs, which included a president, secretary, and other office bearers, as well as rules regarding payments and expulsion. [ 148 ]

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In Maharashtra in the late nineteenth century, women not only began to form associational bodies, but also creatively ‘adapted and modernized many of the institutions of the private sphere, in order to meet the requirements of the colonial world.’8 Through the local traditions of halad kunku (women’s rituals) and kirtans (songs) Maharashtrian women began to merge their private and public spheres into one realm. In the 1880s, women in Maharashtra who regularly gathered to hear lectures on issues of the day formed their own Striyancha Sabha (Women’s Society). At their weekly meetings, they discussed news, gave lectures, and discussed ways to combat prejudices commonly held against women.9 Under the inspiration of the women’s rights champion Pandita Ramabai, the Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya Women’s Society) also took shape at this time and provided another associational roof for women in Maharashtra to gather under.10 Less well-known organizations, such as the Hindu Ladies’ Social Club established by Ramabai Ranade, also emerged and attracted members. Due to their relative lack of organizational structure, these groups made less of an impact than did the Arya Mahila Samaj.11 Nonetheless, all these associations were the foundation from which India’s female clubland would grow. Early clubs post-dated the first women’s organizations in India, but either predated or overlapped with the prominent national women’s organizations that began in the interwar years. Some included the Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club in the princely state of Bhopal (1909); the Ladies’ Recreation Club at Egmore, a neighborhood in Madras (1911); the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund; and the Purdah Club at Simla (probably established sometime in the 1920s or 1930s). Women’s clubs, not surprisingly, opened in the same centers of Indo-British activity as their male predecessors: presidency capitals, hill stations, and princely state capitals. Women opened their own clubs for a variety of reasons. Clubs provided them with first-hand experience of skills needed to bridge their private and public spheres where their (progressive) male counterparts wanted them to take part.12 Women, both Indian and British, were largely bound to their homes, so a club offered a place outside the home to socialize, one which remained suitably removed from the dangers of the market. As a kind of domestic space, the club was well within the bounds of propriety.13 In the club, women discussed home, children, servants, food, and other issues largely relating to the domestic sphere. The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club sponsored lectures on specific domestic issues such as hygiene and sanitation. The club also taught embroidery and needlework, two skills that Muslim women could practice at home and use to earn an income. Thus, it provided an educational service, [ 149 ]

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taking a maternal posture vis-à-vis the less privileged women of Bhopal who attended.14 Over time, the focus of this club and others shifted from domestic to more service-oriented programs, offering women new skills that would enable them to participate in broader social and political circles. To this day, clubs continue to serve as an informal social center for domestic information: where one can find a babysitter, purchase a baby stroller, or acquire hard-to-find cooking ingredients. Women formed some clubs around specific activities or goals, such as knitting, reading, literacy, etc. This kind of club offered women with similar interests a common meeting place and helped structure their activities. The decades between the wars brought about a wave of associational activity and the birth of a number of national organizations. Among this era’s most prominent organizations were the Women’s Indian Association (WIA, established 1915); the National Council of Women in India (NCWI, established 1925); and the All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC, established 1927).15 Some of these shared members with other women’s groups; for instance, the WIA in part resulted from a merger between the Tamil Madar Sangam (Tamil Ladies’ Association) and a branch of the Theosophical Society, which together formed the Ladies’ Recreational Club at Madras.16 Women readily switched hats, going from the local club to a more regionally or nationally oriented association. K. Radhabai Subbarayan was a founding member of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club and a member of the WIA and AIWC. The organizations either absorbed, or affiliated with, the earlier regional associations.

Interracial clubs Of the clubs examined here, none had explicit prohibitions barring one community or the other from admission; on the contrary, several were created explicitly to bridge racial and religious divides. As such, women’s clubs directly challenged ideas of colonial exclusivity, and invite a reexamination of gender and race politics in India. One early women’s club in south India was the Ladies’ Recreation Club. In 1961, the club celebrated its golden jubilee by publishing a small booklet. While understandably celebratory in its tone and mission, the booklet provides a window into the club’s past. A prominent voice in the jubilee publication is that of Lady Stokes. She was born Alice H. Lawrence, the great-granddaughter of Sir Henry Lawrence, a hero of the British forces trapped at Lucknow during 1857. She served as the Uttar Pradesh inspectress of schools before marrying Sir Hopetoun Gabriel Stokes.17 Lady Stokes described the club’s meetings and ‘the opportunities they gave me of meeting my Indian friends and making new friends.’18 The [ 150 ]

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meetings suggest a combination of both social bridging and bonding. The club served as a bridging force in Stokes’s life between her own background and that of her Indian counterparts. The club provided a space where women from the two communities could gather and forge personal, social networks among themselves. While Stokes was active in the ladies’ clubs at Egmore and Ootacamund, she does not appear to have universally enjoyed the club experience. For instance, while visiting the Baroda Gymkhana Club in December 1921, she wrote to her mother that the club was ‘a dreary place’ full of ‘oldies’ and their wives.19 The Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, another south Indian club, was located in the hill station of Ootacamund in the Madras presidency, later the state of Tamil Nadu.20 The club began in 1930 as the brainchild of Lady Stokes and K. Radhabai Subbarayan. The two women overlapped in Madras from 1926 to 1930; both of their husbands were prominent members of society in Madras. Their joint efforts to establish the club represent a bridge across a colonial/colonized divide, as well as between wives of men who held power in very different ways. The Nilgiri Ladies’ Club rules and bylaws clearly explain its objective: to promote social intercourse between Indian and European women.21 This club was to be a place where bonds could be forged across race and religion and where women could find ‘healthy recreation.’22 The club defined a ‘lady’ as a female over 12 years of age, the marital age of consent since 1891, thus allowing the admission of younger members who might find themselves on holiday in the cooler climes of Ootacamund. By according them ‘lady’ status, the club provided young educated women a safe place in which to socialize and be socialized outside of home and school. Since the members of this club and others similar to it came from middle- or upper-class backgrounds, they could afford both the membership dues and the luxury of leisure time to participate in club activities. The Nilgiri Ladies’ Club issued its first annual report in 1931, and this provides a clearer picture of its membership and early activities. In that year, the club had 32 Indian members and 23 Europeans. The club enjoyed the patronage of Rani Lady Annamalai Chettiar of Chettinad, wife of Raja Annamalai Chettiar (1881–1948), who was a landlord, an elected official, and a successful businessman. The club had a distinguished list of life members drawn from across south India’s aristocracy.23 Five vice-presidents, three Indian and two European, aided the club president, Lady Beatrix Stanley. Lady Stanley was the wife of Sir George Frederick Stanley, the governor of Madras from 1929–34. In its first year, the club hosted a number of meetings, parties arranged around themes (badminton, deck tennis, ping-pong, and bridge), and several ‘at homes’ arranged by more senior members. When invited [ 151 ]

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to attend the Round Table Conference (a series of meetings in London organized by the British government to discuss constitutional reforms in India), K. Radhabai Subbarayan resigned from the managing committee, but she would return the next year and remained an influential and outspoken member of the club. Clubs not only served as meeting grounds for Indian and British women, they also sought to bring together Indian women, and addressed their respective needs. In north India, for instance, cross-communal interaction occurred at the Princess of Wales Club at Bhopal. Her Highness the Nawab Sultan Jehan Begum established and supported this club. Not only did India have very few women rulers of princely states, but the begum was also particularly progressive for her time and saw utility in providing a club for the women of Bhopal.24 She was, ‘devout, stoic and mature.’25 This combination of progressiveness and maturity evolved into a range of actions that the begum initiated. She recognized that establishing a club would provide a comfortable place where the women of Bhopal could meet and socialize. The members of the Princess of Wales Club were Muslim women drawn from across the spectrum of class and society of Bhopal city. The club also welcomed Hindu and British women as members and participants in the club’s life.26 The club records state that ‘In spite of the differences of colour and creed, the frequent intermingling of the members has naturally resulted in a perfect union and sympathy.’ It goes on to recount interactions between Indian women (not specifically mentioning particular faiths) and European ‘sisters,’ to both groups’ benefit. Later we learn that ‘The Club no doubt is the meeting place of civilized Hindoo and Muslim ladies.’ The begum stated, ‘The Indian ladies have profited by coming in contact with their European sisters, while the latter in turn have been greatly affected by the morals and culture of the former.’27 Here, roles were reversed, with the ‘European sisters’ being exposed to the edification of Indian morals and culture.28 The club celebrated its mix of both Muslim and Hindu women when, on at least one occasion, it gave prizes for skill at Urdu and Hindi dictation.29 This club and others thus served as an important bridging force in the community while also engaging in fostering civility. Women’s clubs and associations continued into the postcolonial period. In 1956, the Rani of Bobbili, in her capacity as chair of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, noted, ‘I would like to emphasize one important factor which some of us are apt to forget. Our Club is first and foremost a ladies club – a club where all ladies irrespective of caste, creed and colour have mixed freely and enjoyed one another’s friendship understanding and affection.’30 Bobbili was a large and wealthy Telugu Hindu kingdom (samasthan) located north of Madras on the Coromandel [ 152 ]

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coast, and the ruling family was active in local and national politics. This same spirit was alive and well at another women’s association in south India, the British Women’s Association (BWA) of Madras. Despite its name and the fact that its membership was mostly comprised of British women, the association’s patron was the governor of Madras, Shri Jaya Chamaraja Wadiyal Bahadur. The practice of having a club patron thus continued in the postcolonial period, but now with an Indian governor rather than a British one. Events at the BWA reflected an interracial postcolonial milieu.31 In October 1965, at a screening of the film My Fair Lady as a fundraising event, the proceedings began with news, the singing of Jana Gana Mana and God Save the Queen, followed by an address by the president of the BWA, a draw for prizes, and finally the film itself. The order of events reflected the BWA’s mixed membership. The Indian national anthem took pride of place, sung by Indian members, and then it was the British members’ turn. The nationality of each community having been recognized, the business of the association having been concluded, members of all backgrounds could then sit together for some light entertainment, albeit a film that spoke directly to the issue of how women could be properly tutored to be civilized.

Threats at the door Women’s clubs in India presented places outside the home that accommodated the needs of Hindus and Muslims as well as Britons. They were a safe space where women could pursue their interests. When some women’s clubs began to admit men, some Indian women sounded the alarm that this would put in jeopardy their ability to freely discuss matters of concern to them. As one early member of the Ladies’ Recreation Club at Egmore explained, ‘This idea [starting a club] was supplemented with the feeling that such a club for use of ladies alone would give ample opportunity for ladies to discuss matters with greater freedom, especially on subjects which normally did not interest gentlemen.’32 Just what these subjects were tended not to be specified, but we get some clues from comments left in the record of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club. The women clearly enjoyed the club’s gender exclusivity, which allowed them to discuss ‘purely feminine matters and in fact have a good woman’s gossip about homes and children, servants and food, and all sorts of other interesting topics.’33 In support of such feminine matters, the Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club in Bhopal held lectures on hygiene and childrearing as well as more intellectual topics: ‘The object of the Club is not only to give a delightful change, after hard duties of the household, to the minds of women, but they [ 153 ]

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also find here ­opportunities to partake in all sorts of intellectual, moral and national movements.’34 The presence of men thus would interfere on the one hand with the ability to discuss domestic issues, and on the other, threaten their intellectual and political independence to focus on movements of particular interest to women. By the Second World War, in a significant change, some women’s clubs had begun to admit men. The war years in India were a difficult period for almost all clubs. Club members abandoned their usual patterns to meet the needs of the war. As a purely financial decision, in 1943–44 the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club began to allow men into its inner confines. Men were restricted in the times and days they could call on the club, and they were screened by women members. The club did not allow men to become regular members, but they might visit as guests. The presence of men at the club was popular, but also upsetting. The next year, in her report to the club, Rajkumari Leelavathi of Mysore, then chair of the managing committee, noted that nearly fifty individuals had shown up during a single day after the new ‘mixed’ club had opened its doors. While impressed by the sheer numbers of people making use of the club, Leelavathi was nevertheless concerned: These mixed meetings although pleasant to some, threaten to overwhelm the original Purdah Club. This is a danger. This club was initiated as a Purdah Club: money was donated on the understanding that it would remain so. We must not let it cease to be essentially a Women’s Club. This need not preclude mixed club evenings or entertainments when we can have our male relations with us, but to go beyond this, I think you will agree, is to defeat the purpose for which the club exists and which in past years it has so successfully carried out.35

The club’s original raison d’être centered on its women-only membership, which allowed members to freely discuss matters of importance to them without the hindering presence of men. With the greater number of mixed events, male participation threatened to undermine the central purpose of the club. Indeed the mere presence of men might make the attendance of some Indian women who observed purdah impossible. Some social gatherings were conducted specifically in purdah, or respecting the practice of those who observed purdah. Both Indian and British women embraced this label, manifesting sensitivity to Indian cultural practice. The Princess of Wales Club, the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, and the Simla Purdah Club all referred to themselves as purdah clubs. The term ‘purdah club’ had two possible meanings. Any club for women only could be termed a purdah club, in the sense that purdah carried the meaning of ‘seclusion’ or ‘women only.’36 This then was a general designation for women’s clubs. Beyond this, some Indian women in [ 154 ]

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South Asia practiced forms of seclusion that meant their needs within a club were more stringent. These women kept their faces and bodies veiled, so such a club would not have admitted men, and kept visitors limited to those individuals known by club members. This stricter type of purdah club was less common in South Asia; more common were general women’s clubs that offered veiled women greater privacy somewhere within their physical space. Such clubs followed clear and strict admission practices to ensure respect for Indian sensitivities. At the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, two members had to propose and then second a prospective member whom they personally knew. The club had in place a system of checks and balances to ensure that its members knew each other, keeping the membership more closely known to itself. However, the club differed from many others in that it specifically set itself apart as a women-only club. ‘The Club being exclusively a Gosha Club, no man will be permitted within the Club building during the hours that the Club is in use by the members.’ Gosha is the Persian term for female seclusion.37 The club rules and bylaws state: ‘This being a purdah Club, under Rule XII, no men guests may be received anywhere on the Club premises in Club hours, and the men servants of resident members must also not be on the Club premises in Club hours.’38 Such purdah clubs existed across India.39 In the north Indian hill station of Simla, the summer capital for those serving in New Delhi, a group of British women began a purdah club, which no men or male servants were allowed to enter. This served as a meeting place for British officers’ wives and noble Indian women, princesses, and begums.40 Lady Haig was one of its founders. Lady Haig was born Violet May Deas and married Sir Henry Graham Haig in 1908.41 From her 1967 memoir, we know the Simla Purdah Club was functioning in the 1930s and possibly earlier (no firm establishment date was recorded). In Simla we wives of English officials started, with some of our more advanced Indian women friends, a ‘Purdah Club’, open also to the strictly secluded Indian wives. All male servants were excluded and the strictest ‘purdah’ observed. English and Indian tea and fruit drinks were served and about once a month some form of entertainment, plays, music, country dancing, recitations were organized. The Club proved a great success. We were told that many of the pretty and beautifully dressed Ranis and Begums who came, used to count the days each month to the next meeting. Of course, that was over 30 years ago. Things have moved fast in India since then.42

While establishing purdah seems to suggest cultural sensitivity, in fact Lady Haig’s recollection takes a tone of decided condescension. The Indian women who joined her club were among the more ‘advanced’; [ 155 ]

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the women drawn from the local aristocracy Haig describes like exotic dolls who had nothing better to do than count off the days until the next meeting of the club.

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Nation-building During the wars, women’s clubs transformed from forums where private and domestic issues were discussed into a focus of increasingly public and political actions. At Bhopal, the begum encouraged members of the Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club to contribute to the war effort. To stir passions, she invoked the history of Bhopal and a battle fought against one Jagwa when the women of the town had thrown bricks and stones at the marauder, forcing his retreat. ‘We have also the same blood running in our veins. How very shameful it would be for us if we do not help the heirs and children of the soldiers who left their families and have gone overseas to show their bravery.’43 The club subsequently collected Rs. 4,000 for the Imperial Relief Fund; in addition, members sent sheets, shirts, and socks to the St. John Ambulance Corps, and contributed Rs. 5,010 to a fund established for educating children of Indian soldiers killed in the war. Recounting her experience at the Ladies’ Recreation Club during the Second World War, one unnamed member wrote for the jubilee, as if to remind newer and younger members of their links with the past: ‘During the first World War the ladies did a lot of hard work. They collected money for the War Fund and helped in Red Cross work by sewing, knitting, crocheting and rolling bandages.’44 Thanks to club organizations, such private domestic skills could be usefully transformed into public action. The merger of private and public worlds continued in clubs of the postcolonial era. Created in 1956 with an initial membership of some 200 women, the British Women’s Club of Calcutta had grown to nearly 500 by 1963. The annual subscription fee was only Rs. 10, an amount that had not changed since its inception. The club met monthly at the Calcutta Swimming Club’s facilities and enjoyed the patronage of the governor of West Bengal, Shrimati Padmaja Naidu. Here again, an Indian dignitary lent a certain social capital to a club that called him or her a patron. Various events were scheduled at the club’s monthly meetings: talks, ‘mannequin parades,’ cards (bridge, canasta, mahjong), and floral demonstrations. This club, like others, regularly held events to raise funds for charities. The list of charities that benefitted from the British Women’s Club indicates the club’s awareness of its social and moral obligations to those in need in India and at home in Britain; these included Her Excellency the Governor’s T.B. fund, Little Sisters of the Poor, Dr. Graham’s Homes, The Charteris Hospital, Calcutta School [ 156 ]

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for the Blind, The Missionaries of Charity, Cheshire Homes, East India Charitable Trust, and the Society for the Protection of Children in India. Thus, though the stated purpose of the club was to provide social gatherings for the British ladies of Calcutta, it in fact served a much broader audience.45 Women’s clubs offered Indian women a space in which to meet and hone skills to take into the public sphere. This combination produced vibrant members of the nationalist movement and citizens of the new Indian nation. Women’s clubs supplied their members with valuable, transferable skills that helped women move from the private world of clubland to the public world of politics and nation-building. The early 1930s were a time of fervent political activity, and despite its hilltop location, the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club was not isolated from the political tumult sweeping India. The club’s members were both aware of, and encouraged to be participants in, the new activism. Leading the charge was K. Radhabai Subbarayan. After her return from the first Round Table Conference (1930–31), she masterfully rebutted charges against the club, and clubs in general, of being purely social and having no real value. Subbarayan deployed her wit and acumen to turn those charges on their head. It has been pointed out that it [the club] enables ladies coming from different parts of our province and of our country to meet and know each other, and the social and athletic amenities of the Club provide its members with a healthy education. There is therefore no doubt that it will promote better understanding and unity among women of different race, class, creed and caste, a factor of great national importance, particularly in a country like ours and at the present time.46

Subbarayan recognized the importance of social space and institutions in helping to forge regional and national unity. She clearly appreciated India’s vast diversity and political fervor. Without directly engaging the political issues of the day, she could address those of difference, national integration, and the need for neutral space in which such issues could be engaged. Some clubs, on the other hand, implicitly forbade members from actively discussing or engaging in politics within club confines. For this reason, unknown outsiders denigrated the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club and other clubs as purely social, without recognizing the value of bringing together women from a variety of backgrounds in a spirit of ‘harmony and friendliness.’ This criticism Subbarayan addressed head-on. The rationale for excluding politics was twofold: if politics were allowed to creep into the club’s activities, it would ‘mar its greatest utility,’ namely, a club’s role in cultivating sociability and some degree of [ 157 ]

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c­ ultural understanding, or put simply, civility.47 Further, because the club admitted women from Indian and British circles, some of whom were in government service, politics within the club would have presented difficulties for their participation in club life. We also desire that our Club should be open to all women who wish to enjoy the many advantages which its membership gives, and if the Club included politics among its activities it would practically shut its door against those women who are in Government service and who are therefore debarred from taking part in politics. A large number of welleducated women would thus be prevented from joining the Club and both the Club and those women would lose by it. It is therefore certainly desirable that this Club should keep clear of politics.48

It is unclear exactly what such ‘Government service’ was. The Indian Civil Service did not admit British or Indian women, though some women served in the Women’s Medical Service and Educational Service while others were wives of men employed by the government. But, just as it appears that Subbarayan had abandoned her own politics and any hope of bringing them to the club, she changed tack, stating that the club had members here who do take an active part in various kinds of public work including politics, outside the Club, and I know that the Club appreciates the participation of its members in the public life of the country. Under the new constitution to which we are all looking forward, women are sure to have increasing opportunities of public service, and I am sure that the members of this Club will not lag behind in availing themselves of those opportunities, and will make a most valuable contribution to the service of our country.49

Undoubtedly, Subbarayan counted herself as one of those taking part in politics beyond the club gates. At the beginning of the Second World War, as news of atrocities in Europe began to reach colonial India, the chair of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club committee reiterated the value of the club in an increasingly fractured and violent world. R.L.B. Gall, who was chair at the time, spoke at its annual meeting.50 Regarding the war in Europe, Gall stated, ‘Meantime surely there is nothing that can help more towards such a solution [ending violence between communities] than the deepening of sympathy and understanding between nations and individuals which social intercourse makes possible. As a Club we exist for social relaxation and amusement but truly these are only of minor value unless they lead to a fuller understanding and sympathy and friendship with each other.’51 Like Subbarayan, Gall argued that the very social nature of the club served a greater purpose. As the war progressed, she returned to [ 158 ]

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this same theme: ‘Had the peoples of the earth had the same ideal [of social intercourse] the present war with its toll of slaughter and suffering would have been impossible.’52 Closer to the war’s end, the club’s president reiterated the same theme. Lady Hope (1886–1965, née Doreen Maud Milner) had married Victor Alexander John Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow. Her husband served as viceroy from 1936–43, and Lady Hope spent some of the war at Ootacamund, during which time she served as club president. In her remarks it becomes clear that the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club entertained a wider array of individuals during the war – a common phenomenon as the movement of soldiers and armed forces often brought newcomers to more remote places. During this War there has been much scope for people from East and West to get to know each other. I don’t mean only British people and people from India, but also Americans, Australians, Poles, Chinese and people from many other Countries, and surely the more one comes in contact with fresh ideas the more broad minded one must become and more sympathetic to the difficulties, and troubles of other people.53

Pride and energy aimed at unifying a diverse people and forging a strong, vibrant India filled the years after the Second World War and into the independence period. Such spirit was alive and well at the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club. The earliest embrace of independent India’s new direction can be seen in a reference to the socialist form of economy that then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru set forth. Rather than putting Nehru’s ideology at the center of the club’s direction, the chair, the Rani of Bobbili, inverted the origin of the idea, giving credit to the club for its own early socialist frame. In her address of 28 May 1956, she stated: ‘The socialistic pattern of society which our Country has adapted now was followed by our club since its inception and I feel sure it will be continued for all time.’54 Echoing this sentiment and continuing on a theme of nation-building through club participation, the club president, the Maharani Shantadevi of Baroda, commented, ‘What we need most in our country now is good understanding among our people, so that we may advance still more rapidly. No place gives us more opportunities of correct thinking and programming our advance than a club.’55 The regional background of these women is also worth noting: the Rani of Bobbili was a Telugu speaker from coastal Andhra, while Shantadevi was from a Maratha family in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, but married into the royal family at Baroda. This club, like others, had come to embody an Indian national identity that was at the same time both diverse and unified. Other iconic Indian women were also members of clubs. While [ 159 ]

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­isiting London, Cornelia Sorabji and Sarojini Naidu were both v members of the Lyceum Club.56 Naidu also circulated in part of India’s clubland, having addressed the Pittapuram Club in 1915, opened by the Rani of Pittapur, Kamala Sathianadhan, specifically for the women of that small kingdom.57 At the Ladies’ Recreation Club, one member wrote, ‘To train up these women to take active part and fit in the pattern of society is a noteworthy cause and goes a long way in building up the prosperity and welfare of the State. In short such a gesture of Recreation clubs giving their hand in social work activities is a sure step in bringing to our motherland abiding joy and glory.’58 Far from the cool breezes of the Nilgiri hills, the Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club took on a similar mission. The club – along with other associational forms – helped Muslim women ‘gain experience in political organization.’59 This might have included exposure to voting and forms of associational governance, public speaking, organizing for a particular event or cause, and other activities that benefitted political organization and mobilization. As Sultan Jehan Begum expressed it, the club’s object was ‘to infuse a spirit of culture and refinement in the ladies so that the Club may truly become a training ground for all noble thoughts and deeds that make for Right Living and immensely increase the value and worth of life.’60 This ‘Right Living’ is perhaps a different way of striving for a kind of civil society that rests upon a foundation of associational forms, including clubs. The begum chided Bhopal society into becoming more ‘productive, serious and modern.’61 She herself participated in the wider networks of Indian women’s activity; not only did she create the Princess of Wales Club in Bhopal, but she supported the All-India Ladies’ Association, the All-India Muslim Ladies’ Conference, the All-India Women’s Conference, and the National Council of Women in India, thus linking herself and her local club with evolving national women’s organizations.62 The idealistic rhetoric of the 1950s and early 1960s had fallen away by the 1970s as Nehru’s ‘socialist pattern of economy’ burdened the country with problems. Still, the value of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club to its members was not lost; it simply adapted to the new needs of the day. If the club’s value had shifted from being a training ground for democracy (à la Subbarayan), to a meeting ground of different nationalities (as a result of the Second World War), to a meeting ground of different Indian communities (post-independence), the next role for the club was to address the growing ills that had crept into Indian society. In other words, women’s clubs continued to transform private activities into public, even national service. At their annual meetings, members began to hear the new theme of social service through participation in groups like the Red Cross. Club members were now encouraged to participate [ 160 ]

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in such organizations to help strengthen the nation. During the annual meeting of 1970, the club president was Sardani Ujjal Singh, the wife of Ujjal Singh, who served as governor of Tamil Nadu from 1966 to 1971. Sardani Ujjal Singh was active in social outreach; she helped establish an institution dedicated to looking after the mentally ill. In her speech to the club, she offered the following suggestions: ‘A club that is purely recreational in nature, can, with advantage, start some extension projects. I would like to stress this point because a developing nation like ours has to throb with activity and endeavour. Individuals, institutions and groups can and must do their little bit to take the nation along the path of progress.’63 Singh emphasized what she believed a club could do to move the country along a path of p ­ rogress – throb with ‘activity and endeavour.’ Women’s clubs spanned racial, religious, and the colonizer/­colonized divides, and represented an important secondary wave of women’s associational activity in India, post-dating local groups that focused on domestic and religious activities, and overlapping with the emergence of national women’s organizations. They also spanned Hindu–Muslim divides and thus served as a bulwark against communal tensions. Indian and British women created clubs that were interracial, challenging the convention of the exclusive and racially homogeneous club. Indian women played critical roles in their local clubs, and served as links to larger regional and national organizations, forming a network of sociopolitical activity that penetrated both clubs and larger women’s associations. As such, these types of clubs joined a growing list of associational forms that contributed to a colonial civil society. Clubs survived into the postcolonial period and transformed themselves again to become centers where Nehru’s social and economic programs could be grown. At the same time, as British women found themselves in Indian metropoles, they sought an organizational umbrella under which to meet both fellow Britons and important Indian counterparts. This marks the rise of the postcolonial integrated diasporic club. Membership in women’s clubs and mixed clubs continues to be a popular social badge worn by Indian women today. The Ladies’ Recreation Club at Egmore and the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club at Ootacamund are both still in existence.64 Then and now, clubs provide an identity that is adaptable to broader social participation while at the same time offering community in the local setting.

Notes  1 Although many of the British women who were club members were loyal to the British Raj, they and some of their more progressive companions took an active

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I N TH E C LU B part in creating new and racially diverse clubs. For an exploration of such women, see Kumari Jayawardena, The White Woman’s Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Rule (New York: Routledge, 1995).  2 Antoinette Burton, At the Heart of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 56.  3 Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 1–25.  4 Partha Chatterjee has explored the roles of women during the nationalist period in Bengal. They were held up as bastions of all that was ‘traditional’ within India, not to be trammeled by British intervention, but at the same time, they were to be the bearers of modernity and step free from traditional domestic spheres into public life. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). See also Judith E. Walsh, Domesticity in Colonial India: What Women Learned When Men Gave Them Advice (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). For instance, see the comments of Begam Shahnawaz in Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 166.  5 It appears that some clubs might have existed, but a lack of archival support makes this assertion tentative.  6 Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849–1905 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 273.  7 Ibid., p. 278.  8 Padma Anagol, The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850–1920 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), p. 6.  9 Ibid., p. 60. 10 Ramabai (1858–1922) was among India’s champions for women’s rights. A converted Christian, she traveled to both England and America to raise awareness over the plight of India’s women. See Burton, At the Heart of Empire, pp. 72–109. 11 Anagol, The Emergence of Feminism in India, p. 64. 12 Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 10–31. 13 For the experience of Indian women, see Walsh, Domesticity in Colonial India. For the experience of British women, see Buettner, Empire Families. 14 A Brief Decennial Report of The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club Bhopal (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1922), pp. 10–11. 15 Forbes, Women in Modern India, pp. 72–83. 16 Ibid., pp. 72–3. 17 Sir H.G. Stokes married Alice H. Lawrence in 1922. He served as acting secretary to the government of Madras from 1921–22; as a member of the Madras Board of Revenue from 1922–24; chief secretary to the government of Madras from 1927–29; and finally was appointed a member of the Madras Executive Council from 1930–35. Some information about Lady Stokes comes from a letter cited in P.J.O. Taylor, A Feeling of Quiet Power: The Siege of Lucknow 1857 (New Delhi: Indus, 1994), foreword. 18 Ladies’ Recreation Club Egmore, Madras. Golden Jubilee 1911–1961 (Madras: Gnanodaya Press, 1961), p. 7. 19 Stokes to her mother, 29 December 1921, Stokes Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. 20 For a history of this hill station, see Price, Ootacamund. A History. On hill stations more generally, see Dane Kennedy, The Magic Mountains (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 21 Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. Rules and Bye-Laws (Madras: Hoe & Co.), preface. 22 Ibid. 23 These life members were the Rani of Jatprole; the Maharani of Mysore, C.I.; the Maharani Regent of Travancore; the Rani of Bobbili; Mrs. A.M.M. Murugappa Chettiar; Mrs. O.A.R. Arunachellam Chettiar; the Zamindarini of Telaprole.

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W omen and the club 24 The club was a ‘memorial of the blessed time’ when Queen Mary visited India in 1905, then as Princess of Wales. The club was officially opened in 1909 by Lady Minto. 25 Shaharyar M. Khan, The Begums of Bhopal: A Dynasty of Women Rulers in Raj India (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), p. 155. 26 A Brief Decennial Report of The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club Bhopal, pp. 9–10, 24. Siobhan Lambert-Hurley has shown that in addition to Muslim women, so too Christian, Parsi, and Hindu women also attended. Two of the best known were Cornelia Sorabji and the Maharani of Dewas. Lambert-Hurley, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage, p. 157. 27 A Brief Decennial Report of The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club Bhopal, p. 10. 28 Scholarship has recognized that Britons in the eighteenth century in India were far more influenced by and likely to adopt Indian customs and habits than those of the nineteenth century. However, such social intermingling did continue into the nineteenth century, and might best be viewed through the Indianization of many Britons in clubs, and of the clubs themselves. On the eighteenth century, among the best examples of such cross-cultural hybridity is explored in Dalrymple, White Mughals. 29 Lambert-Hurley, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage, p. 115. 30 The Annual Report of Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund (Ootacamund: Jothi Press, 1956), pp. 3–4. 31 22 October 1965, IOR Mss Eur F334/17, OIOC. On the Bobbili samasthan and those related to it, see Venkata Swetachalapati Ranga Rao, A Revised and Enlarged Account of the Bobbili Zemindari, 2nd ed. (Madras: Addison and Co., 1907). On the samasthans of Hyderabad state, some being relatives of Bobbili, see Benjamin B. Cohen, Kingship and Colonialism in India’s Deccan: 1850–1948 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 32 Ladies’ Recreation Club Egmore, Madras. Golden Jubilee 1911–1961, p. 61. 33 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1944–45 (Ootacamund: Fawcett’s Press, 1945), pp. 7–8. 34 A Brief Decennial Report of The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club Bhopal, p. 2. The club was to help bring about ‘happiness in your homes’ and help in the ‘training of children’ that would result in increased ‘splendour’ in their homes, pp. 96–7. 35 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1944–45, p. 6. 36 On purdah, see Hanna Papanek, Gail Minault, and Shirley Lindenbaum, eds., Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1982); Gail Minault, Secluded Scholars: Women’s Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford, 1999). 37 Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. Rules and Bye-Laws, p. 8. 38 Ibid., p. 14. The practice of women’s clubs having male servants was also found in London. David Doughan and Peter Gordon, Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 43. 39 Margaret MacMillan, Women of the Raj (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996), p. 62. 40 See also the role that clubs played in some women’s leaving purdah. Lucy Moore, Maharanis: The Extraordinary Tale of Four Indian Queens and Their Journey from Purdah to Parliament (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 239–41. The purdah club is not found in recent scholarship, but Simla had other male and mixed clubs such as the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club and the United Services Club. On Simla’s club life, see Pamela Kanwar, Imperial Simla: The Political Culture of the Raj, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 78–9, 81–2; and Edward J. Buck, Simla Past and Present, 2nd ed. (Shimla: Minerva Book House, 2000), pp. 123–9. 41 Sir H.G. Haig served as private secretary to the viceroy (1925) and home member of the viceroy’s Executive Council (1932–34), among other positions. These positions and their proximity to the viceroy would have meant regular travel in the summer season to Simla, and thus the opportunity for Lady Haig to help establish the club.

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42 43 44 45 46

1967, Lady Violet M. Haig Collection, Cambridge Centre of South Asian Studies. A Brief Decennial Report of The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club Bhopal, pp. 8–9. Ladies’ Recreation Club Egmore, Madras. Golden Jubilee 1911–1961, p. 23. 6 November 1963, IOR Mss Eur 334/16, OIOC. The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1931–32, pp. 26–7. 47 Ibid., p. 27. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., pp. 27–8. 50 Unfortunately, no information on R.L.B. Gall could be located. 51 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1938–39 (Ootacamund: Ootacamund and Nilgiri Press, 1939), p. 10. 52 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund. For the Year 1939–40 (Ootacamund: Ootacamund and Nilgiri Press, 1940), p. 8. 53 Ibid., p. 7. 54 The Annual Report of Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund, pp. 3–4. 55 Ibid., p. 6. 56 Lilian Whiting, The Lure of London (London: Little, Brown, 1914), p. 154. Other clubs like the Northbrook Club were established in London also for ‘social intercourse’ between Indians in London and Britons. See Burton, At the Heart of Empire, pp. 55–7. 57 Padmini Sathianadhan Sengupta, Sarojini Naidu: A Biography (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1966), p. 95. 58 Ladies’ Recreation Club Egmore, Madras. Golden Jubilee 1911–1961, p. 63. 59 Lambert-Hurley, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage, pp. 112–13. 60 A Brief Decennial Report of The Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club Bhopal, p. 18. This sentiment is repeated; see pp. 123–4. 61 Khan, The Begums of Bhopal, p. 172. Khan indicates that the begum encouraged married women to join the ‘Bhopal Ladies Club’ which, I assume, is the same as the Princess of Wales Club. 62 Lambert-Hurley, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage, p. 145. 63 The Annual Report of the Nilgiri Ladies’ Club, Ootacamund, for the year 1969–70 (1970), p. 3. 64 An informal internet search shows current addresses and phone numbers for these two clubs. Bhopal’s Princess of Wales Club and the Purdah Club at Simla seem to have long since shuttered their doors. No further information about them was available.

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Postcolonial clubbing

While mutinies, rebellions, and wars all posed challenges to clubs, perhaps their greatest challenge was sorting out their own position in South Asia’s transition from colonial rule to independence. Those that had maintained largely British memberships faced the decision of whether or not to carry on, and if so, whether to admit Indians. Clubs with mixed memberships also faced contentious debates, in which British members returning home wanted to close their club and pocket the earnings from the club’s sale, while Indian members – now enjoying freedom and independence – wished the club to continue. After 1947, regardless of membership criteria, clubs continued to play a role in fostering civil society. Many Britons stayed on in South Asia into the 1950s and 60s, and for them the local club became an important site for networking, socializing, and reassuring themselves of their importance. A few communities maintained clubs with largely British memberships, and this became a point of contention between the old (British) government, and the new (Indian) government. Club matters thus became entangled in international politics and diplomacy.1 From the 1970s, as memories of the Raj attained a degree of nostalgia, clubs that had opened in the 1870s and 1880s celebrated their centenaries. This was an occasion for looking back and for justifying their existence within the nation-state. Slowly, clubs began to capitalize on their Raj connection, noting their contributions to civilized society, and marketing themselves as sites of colonial nostalgia in a postcolonial world. At the same time, new clubs opened across South Asia. Like their predecessors, these catered to a specific clientele who sought the amenities of the club over other options. As such, clubs have continued to be part of India’s and South Asia’s associational world, and thus also components of its ongoing civil society. This chapter considers the winding up of some clubs; the issue of the last remaining ‘exclusive’ clubs; postcolonial nostalgia; and revisits some of the core [ 165 ]

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components of clubs to see the ways in which they have (or have not) transformed themselves in a postcolonial world.

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Winding up India’s independence in August 1947 proved perhaps the most challenging moment for many clubs. Clubs were themselves sites where key figures of the period met. Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah regularly attended the Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club in the 1930s and 40s. Gandhi, along with Lord Irwin and the Nawab of Bhopal, attended the club prior to the Round Table Conference held in London. As independence dawned, clubs faced at least two possible futures. The first choice was to wind up a club by selling its assets and distributing the proceeds to eligible members. The club would cease to exist, but its members would receive some monetary compensation in the process. Second, more commonly, clubs carried on through the transition from the colonial to the postcolonial period. This allowed members to continue to enjoy the amenities provided by the club. In a few clubs, debates arose about how exactly to turn over power to Indian members who had not previously held an elected office. In other instances, clashes erupted between members who sought to close the club and those who wanted the club to continue. These disputes usually pitted Indians against departing Britons; the latter sought to profit by dissolving the club. Further, as partition unfolded, some members in India left to begin anew in the nascent Pakistan, and vice versa. Numbers of members who left their club during the independence period are very difficult to come by. In one example we learn that 60 Muslim members of the Calcutta Club resigned in 1947, presumably as they were leaving for East or West Pakistan, but it remains unclear what percentage of the total club membership those leaving represented, or even what percentage of the club was either Hindu or Muslim.2 By 1946, for the first time, committee minutes show that members began discussing the possibility of winding up their clubs. While external factors may have triggered initial discussions about closing a particular club, it is unlikely that India’s independence was the primary reason for taking such action. Two more likely reasons suggest themselves: club members leaving India saw a financial opportunity since the committee and any permanent members of the club would stand to receive a fair amount of money from the sale of club assets. A more sinister and less obvious reason for closing a club was racial. Departing Britons, especially those few belonging to clubs that retained Britishonly membership up to 1947, might have felt that Indians were in some way not capable or deserving of stepping into their shoes. While there [ 166 ]

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is no direct evidence to support this, some form of racial motivation cannot be discounted. Members of those few (4 percent) British-only clubs might well have felt that the club was theirs, and that they were fully within their rights to sell its assets, take the profit, and go home. Such was their legitimate right. As private businesses within colonial civil society, they could largely do as they pleased if members approved. However, closing a club that had Indian members was more difficult. While Indian members would gain a share of the proceeds, in most cases they objected to such moves. Events at the Jhansi Club demonstrate some of the ways in which clubs began the winding up process. In May of 1946, the committee of the Jhansi Club made its first tentative steps toward winding up.3 At that time, the club had both Indian and British members. As the number of Britons decreased – some leaving in connection with military deployments elsewhere and others leaving for Britain – the overall number of local members using the club dropped dangerously low. G.A. Bower, the chairman of the club, raised the concern that, with so few members, the club would no longer be viable. He addressed a general meeting of the club: ‘you cannot now especially in view of the decision to evacuate practically all British members of the community from the country, maintain this Club as you maintained it before; it will inevitably run at a considerable loss.’4 In September 1946, as membership continued to decline, the club slipped into debt. This was considered an untenable position to maintain for any length of time; thus the matter was referred to a finance sub-committee.5 Simultaneously the committee moved to seek outside counsel regarding the process of winding up. The club’s articles of association and bylaws contained language on winding up the club, but this, like a kind of doomsday option, had never before been considered. Since club rules on closure had been written decades earlier and were rarely invoked before 1947, it is unlikely that members had any idea of how to go about the actual process. The Jhansi Club committee consulted with the liquidator of the Allahabad Club, and while on a visit to Bombay, Bower sought legal advice.6 The result of these consultations was that in July 1947, the Jhansi Club committee decided to call an extraordinary meeting to secure a vote to wind up the club. Such a decision carried with it a host of logistical challenges. Calling an extraordinary meeting required contacting by mail all known current members and providing them with three weeks’ notice of the time of the meeting. The committee voted on the decision, carefully noted in the committee minutes.7 Given the time required to notify all existing members, and that it was already July of 1947, it was clear that the Jhansi Club would not close its doors before India’s independence the following month. [ 167 ]

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In mid-July, the committee held a special meeting to solidify the details of the extraordinary meeting. In accordance with the club’s articles of association, rules, and bylaws, adequate notice had to be printed in newspapers in addition to mailing notices to members directly. The Jhansi Club advertised the extraordinary meeting in the Statesman for north India, and in The Times for members residing in England. The notice stated: Jhansi Club Ltd. – Notice. All who are Members in accordance with the Articles of Association and Bye-laws of the Jhansi Club Ltd. are advised that under the provisions of the said articles an Extraordinary General Meeting of the aforesaid Company will be held in the Club Building at 7.p.m., IST, on Tuesday, 7th October 1947, for the purpose of considering and deciding on the following Special Resolution, under Rule 3(e) of the a/m articles: That the Club Buildings, land and property, other than consumable stock, be offered for sale to the highest bidder in the open market, within a duly specified period as decided, with vacant possession at a date not earlier than 31st March, 1948.8

With advertisements placed in newspapers, the committee undertook a second long and arduous process of identifying all current members who could be notified directly by mail. Since most clubs had a variety of types of members, clubs had to determine which of those would be eligible for remuneration. The committee decided that they would consider only permanent members who had paid the entrance fee.9 Locating these permanent members was, however, not an easy task. By the mid-twentieth century, large numbers of Britons who had circulated through India were scattered around the world, serving in other colonial outposts or residing in newly independent countries. The committee was able to identify 562 members from the records, but only one-third of that number could be notified. Eighty-four circulars were returned to the club stating that the member was deceased or no trace could be found. Ninety-seven others came back, of which 42 had completed proxy forms that would allow their vote to be counted at the extraordinary meeting. This left 381 members with no address who could not be located. As the process continued, these untraceable members, as well as those whose whereabouts were known, would present a challenge to the liquidators left in charge of the closing, sale, and distribution of profits of the club. These logistical challenges dragged the whole affair out for over a decade after the club had actually been dissolved. Before seeing how the Jhansi Club finally closed, a brief survey of a few other clubs demonstrates similar processes occurring across the subcontinent. The United Services Club, Simla (USC), followed a comparable procedure. It convened an extraordinary meeting on 20 [ 168 ]

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December 1947 and made several critical decisions; paramount among these was the decision to wind up the club. At this time, the club had a debt of Rs. 10,040 that would be paid off, in part, through the sale of club buildings and other assets.10 The club appointed liquidators who would handle the details of the sale and payment to creditors as well as to members. In addition, the office of the club was permanently moved to New Delhi. Like the Jhansi Club, the USC faced a tremendous logistical challenge in tracking down its members. It was considerably larger than the Jhansi Club, with 2,125 names on the club register in 1947. Of these, 640 were removed because they had died, 926 members were sent notifications, and 559 individuals remained to be tracked down.11 At that time, the oldest member of the club was Major General Sir Gerald C. Kitson, elected to the club in 1889 and, in 1947, 92 years old.12 Like the rest of the remaining members, he was entitled to a share of the proceeds generated by the sale of the club. With its prime location in Bombay, the Byculla Club also elected to close and sell its assets. This was decided at a meeting held in midJanuary 1946; the vote was 37 to 7. At the time, the president of the club listed several reasons for the decision: some of the club’s property faced possible annexation by a new government; the income and property taxes were becoming increasingly difficult to pay; and the club building itself was in poor condition and required repairs beyond the means of the club to undertake.13 All this, combined with impending political changes, led to the decision. The club received an offer for its property of 45 lakhs, which meant that each of its 375 members would receive at most Rs. 12,000, an offer that almost no one could refuse. Thus, the Byculla Club, among India’s first and most prestigious clubs, closed its doors for the last time. It, however, like the USC and Jhansi Club, was an exception to the larger trend of clubs continuing through the transition to independence. To return to the Jhansi Club: on the evening of 7 October 1947, permanent members of the club gathered at an extraordinary meeting to vote on winding up the club. Bower, as chairman, addressed the gathering, recounting the club’s recent financial difficulties. As he concluded his remarks, in the moments before the vote, he added, ‘In view of other meetings of a similar nature held elsewhere in India, it is perhaps unnecessary to suggest to you that it would be greatly to our advantage if we could have a unanimous vote in favour [of selling the club].’14 The vote was unanimous. Bower may well have been aware of legal challenges tendered in other parts of north India (for instance, at Dehra Dun) where Indian members opposed their club’s closure – events which are explored below. In the gathering at the Jhansi Club, which totaled 25 attendees – a [ 169 ]

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surprisingly small number given the club’s efforts to contact members – was S.S. Lal, an Indian member who voted along with the others in favor of winding up the club. However, within a month Lal had changed his mind and filed an injunction in the Munsif’s Court, Jhansi, against the club’s sale. This brought all action toward the sale to a halt. At a meeting held the day after the filing, Bower reported: Everything was going well until 5 p.m. on 6 Nov 47, when the Munsif Court of Jhansi processed me with an injunction that no further business in the sale of the Club could proceed until permission was given by the Court. S.S. Lal is the plaintiff. He was present at the last meeting and had every opportunity of raising an objection then, but did not do so; in fact he voted in favour of the resolution that we should sell. I am unable to ascribe any reason for his objection and would like to have asked him; however, he hasn’t come to-night so I cannot do so. Immediately after the injunction was received legal advice was sought. I am in close touch with the lawyers and I will notify the Committee at the earliest possible date what they have advised me to do in the matter.15

Bower seems to have been genuinely dismayed by Lal’s apparent change of mind. By the beginning of December, Lal and the club had made some progress. On 1 December 1947, the chairman was informed that Lal had withdrawn his injunction. That same day, the club received notice from the Collector at Jhansi forbidding the club’s sale to a private buyer because the new local government wanted to buy the club for its own use. This was to be done under the Land Acquisition Act, which allowed the government, at a fair price, to acquire land deemed necessary for public purposes. In mid-February 1948, the Jhansi Club committee held its last meeting on club premises. From this point on, any business relating to the Jhansi Club would take place in New Delhi at a liquidators’ office. Among the last acts of the committee was a vote to amend the club’s name to include the suffix ‘in voluntary liquidation.’ This bit of legal language signified in any subsequent correspondence that the club as such no longer existed and was in the process of being liquidated. The phrase was ubiquitous among those few clubs closed and sold at that time. With the Jhansi Club now in the hands of liquidators, parts of the club were sold, and as revenue from the sales came in, the liquidators began the process of paying out dividends to members. The first payment, made in November of 1950, was for Rs. 580. Second and third payments came over the next few years: Rs. 25 was paid out in 1952, and Rs. 2 paid out in 1958. Thus, permanent members of the Jhansi Club received Rs. 607 as their share of the club’s net worth. Because the liquidation process took several years to complete (the sale of different parts of the club taking a long time), the liquidators faced a host of chal[ 170 ]

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lenges. Members who had been traced and were alive in 1947 became untraceable or had died in the intervening years. The liquidators sent a form letter, with only the name and address changing, for each member whom they were trying to locate. An example comes from June 1952: The Liquidators have been trying to trace your present whereabouts, so that the amounts due to you, as an ex-member of the Club, and lying to your credit, may be paid. The above address has been given to them by Major General J. Alfieri, C.I.E., and hence this letter is being written. If you claim to be the member we are looking for, please write to the undersigned with an affidavit of your identity and any other documentary proof of your having been a member of the Club.16

For the final payment, those members who could be traced had addresses that reflect the remains of an imperial world: England, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Canada, Malta, Egypt, Scotland, France, Nigeria, and Palestine. Because the liquidation process could take several years to complete, some members complained about the delay in their remuneration. A letter about delayed payment to members of the Nainital Club (1864) indicates something of this concern: I should be grateful if you would give me some explanation of the delay in the winding up of the affairs of the Nainital Club and in distributing the assets to the members which I can pass on to my numerous correspondents at home who keep writing me on the subject. Most of my correspondents feel that two years is more than ample time for the realization of the assets and they express apprehension that the Liquidators are deliberately drawing out matters for their own advantage. I am given to understand that a number of members at home are forming themselves into an association to enforce their rights but no doubt you will hear more on the subject when the association is formed.17

Thus, one new association was to be formed to address the death of another. The Nainital members shortly thereafter received an initial payment of Rs. 1,500, and no further correspondence from the ‘association’ is evident in the record. Over the next decade, the liquidators – who became the de facto managing committee – continued to hold regular meetings of the Jhansi Club. However, because no members attended, following the rules these meetings in New Delhi were postponed for one week, and at that time, if there still were no members, the meeting was declared ‘dissolved.’ Like a beacon sending its signal into the ether, the club continued to hold annual meetings that no one attended. The last annual general meeting was held at the liquidators’ office in New Delhi on 14 May 1959. Since no members attended, that meeting was postponed [ 171 ]

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until 22 August when, with no one present, the Jhansi Club forever concluded its affairs.18 The Jhansi, USC, Nainital, and Byculla clubs managed to wind up their operations, yet others chose a different path. One such was the Dehra Dun Club. The club had a British managing committee along with Indian regular members who participated in the vote to wind up the club. The committee took the decision at a meeting in May 1947, and like the Jhansi Club, proceeded to notify club members of a general meeting at which the decision would be voted on. That meeting was set for 21 August of the same year. Beforehand the committee explained why the club should close: the Dehra Dun Club had but a few Indian members and the club’s income would decrease with India’s independence as many Britons left the station. Thus, it was not a matter of membership or numbers of members that prompted the motion, but – as at other clubs – financial difficulties. Opening the club to more Indian members was not discussed, nor was any regret expressed that the club had not admitted more Indian members in its recent past. Had the political situation been different, the club would have continued to operate – even at a loss – hoping that it would see better financial times in the future. But India’s independence, and thus the end of an era for British citizens, gave the committee an excuse to begin the winding up process and sell the club’s assets. In a statement prepared for the general meeting, the committee explained the financial situation of the club: ‘there are no reasonable prospects of the Club working without continuing loss in future. The Committee is therefore of the opinion that it is advisable to wind up the Club Voluntarily, while it is still in a solvent condition.’19 Here, possible personal financial gain might have been at work. As the members were leaving India anyway, some might have felt that selling the club while it was still reasonably solvent would provide them with a cash bonus to enrich their departure. One week into India’s independence, on 21 August 1947, the general meeting voted unanimously to wind up the club. Among the voting members was Raja Shamsher Singh Bahadur.20 Throughout the fall of 1947, the club secretary and the liquidators dutifully carried out the legal and logistical work. During a committee meeting held on 1 December 1947, the members – not satisfied with offers made for the club property (valued at about 5 lakhs) – authorized the liquidators to sell the club on their behalf. Abstaining from the vote was Singh. He had changed his mind and subsequently filed a restraining order with the civil judge at Dehra Dun in an effort to keep the club from being sold. A few days later, the club received a letter from the local district magistrate stating that the government might requisition the club property for refugees, a reference to the flood of individuals leaving [ 172 ]

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Pakistan and settling in India.21 Singh’s action came just a month after S.S. Lal had done the same thing at Jhansi. While it is unclear if Singh was aware of Lal’s action, it is possible, given that Jhansi and Dehra Dun are both in north central India and word might have reached the latter. Unable to proceed, the committee members met with the district magistrate, one Mr. Banwal, to discuss the matter face-to-face. The meeting was held at the magistrate’s home on Christmas Eve, 1947. The committee minutes draw a picture of strained civility: the British members were eager to sell the club property, avoid further financial loss, and go home. The magistrate, for his part, expressed a desire to understand why the club was closing at all, and what exactly was the state of the club’s finances. ‘Mr. Banwal did not believe the reasons we gave for Liquidation for more than once he said he would like to look into our accounts which showed we were losing money.’22 The case proceeded to the high court, where Singh was successful in having the liquidation proceedings annulled and saving the Dehra Dun Club from closure.23 While the fate of the Dehra Dun Club was a contentious issue, ultimately resulting in its continuance, Dehra Dun had other clubs that quietly closed. One example was the Happy Valley Club. This club was created purely for amusement purposes in 1904 and closed in 1947. It peaked in its activities during the Second World War when it hosted a ‘pagal gymkhana’ to raise money for the Red Cross. Among its patrons were several notable Indians: the rajas of Kapurthala, Rampur, Rajpipla, and Palanpur.24

Pressure anew From the 1950s, the few remaining British clubs faced increased pressure to admit Indians, not only as guests – which as we have seen was widely practiced and accepted – but also as voting members, a more contentious issue. One case study of the international ramifications of club issues surrounding race comes from Calcutta and the prestigious Tollygunge Club. A major concern for Britons was the West Bengal government’s threat to annex, and thus close, the Tollygunge Club. Established in 1895 by Sir William Cruickshank, once head of the Bank of Bengal, the club was primarily devoted to equestrian activities. Shortly after it opened, the club added a golf course to its list of amenities.25 In the 1950s, the Tollygunge Club remained primarily a British club and was at the center of the British community’s sporting and social life in the city. Its social network overlapped with business and economic networks as well. If the club closed, those vital networks [ 173 ]

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would be damaged or destroyed, which would have repercussions across the city, the country, and at the level of international relations. The threatened closure gained the attention of certain high-ranking members of both India and Britain’s diplomatic core. On the Indian side, G.B. Pant, who was home minister at the time, had been an active member in the Indian nationalist movement, and after independence helped spearhead the movement to make Hindi India’s national language. On the British side, discreetly adding his weight to the scales of change was Malcolm MacDonald. MacDonald served as the United Kingdom’s high commissioner to India from 1955 to 1960. The issue of Indian membership at ‘exclusive clubs’ was in the spotlight at the club from September 1958 to May 1959. In an opening letter to Pant, writing on behalf of the club and its members, MacDonald outlined the situation. The issue was between the Tollygunge Club and the government of West Bengal. The state government wanted to acquire a narrow strip of land running alongside the club. This was to be used for widening a road. The club agreed to this request, only asking that the government take responsibility for rebuilding the fence that would be torn down in the process. Two months later, the government requested a much wider strip of land on which to build low-cost housing. If taken, this 70-foot-wide strip would have greatly encroached on the club’s grounds and activities. MacDonald noted that the Tollygunge Club maintained an exclusive and impressive collection of rare floral species that would be decimated if the West Bengal government proceeded as planned. The Tollygunge Club president then met personally with the chief of the West Bengal government, B.C. Roy, and offered an even larger piece of land for housing, but on a different side of the club’s property. This offer was refused and the matter escalated. The club was told that the government had now decided to acquire the club’s property in its entirety. This sparked local efforts to save the club, even including a plea by the local bishop to Roy, all to no avail. That MacDonald became involved is significant in itself. The high commissioner no doubt had many issues on his desk, and that the fate of the Tollygunge Club provoked his personal intervention demonstrates the importance of the club within the British community. In addition, the way in which MacDonald defended the club’s position is ironic. In early September 1958 he wrote to Pant, ‘The West Bengal Government’s policy, if carried out, will be extremely discouraging to the British community in Calcutta.’ He continued, ‘Many of them [Britons] at least will regard it as an act of discrimination against the British community. This feeling, and the withdrawal of recreational facilities, may well have effects on their willingness to continue living and working in Calcutta and on the general economic co-operation [ 174 ]

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between our two countries, which is so important to them both.’26 Clearly, MacDonald was unaware of, or chose to ignore, the cases of discouraged Indians who had been denied entrance to the club. He seems not to have recognized the irony of his fearing discrimination by the West Bengal government against members of the British community. Regardless, the closure had both economic and international implications as news of the move against the Tollygunge Club rippled outwards from Calcutta to New Delhi and to London. A few days later, in a second letter, this time between members of the British diplomatic corps, we learn a bit more about how MacDonald’s approach to Pant was received. Pant ‘did not like the decision to take over the club and agreed it might be resented by the British community, which would be unfortunate. Such things should not be done whether it was the British community or any other non-Indian community that was concerned.’27 Pant appeared to be sympathetic, and saw the logic in not allowing the West Bengal government to annex land without some form of due process, no matter whose land it was. In late September MacDonald pressed the issue at a higher level. Britain’s Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, was slated to attend a meeting in Montreal at which Morarji Desai (chief minister of Bombay state at the time) would also be present.28 MacDonald instructed his staff to inquire whether the secretary might take up the issue with Desai in Montreal. The reason for this high-level push was, again, the economic implications for the British and Indian community in Calcutta should the Tollygunge Club close. The correspondence stated that ‘we [the British government] are anxious, as he [Desai] knows, to encourage them [Britons in Calcutta] to continue to work there, in the interest of the level of British investment in India and the economic relations between our two countries.’29 Throughout the correspondence, MacDonald and members of the British government viewed the club as an important node in the business and economic networks of Calcutta and beyond. In early November, Pant replied to MacDonald, but with bad news. Pant explained that Calcutta faced a housing shortage, and that the club’s property could provide housing for nearly 16,000 low-income individuals. And so, Pant was siding with a new compromise proposal put forward by the West Bengal government to take all but ten acres of the club’s property. At that time, the club grounds spread over 131 acres; thus the proposal would preserve a mere rump of what was once the Tollygunge Club.30 Pant argued that the club’s racecourse was largely redundant since the Calcutta Turf Club also maintained a racecourse that would be unaffected by the decision.31 Pant’s response prompted a flurry of correspondence at lower diplomatic levels within [ 175 ]

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the British government. The West Bengal government’s offer to leave the club with ten acres was called ‘derisory,’ and Pant was criticized for not even considering several other sites the club had proposed for development.32 In early 1959 circumstances surrounding the proposed annexation of the Tollygunge Club changed dramatically. Douglas-Home was briefed on the issue in a memorandum reiterating the position that if the grounds were annexed, the British community would consider it an act of discrimination against them. A further supplementary memo suggested that the West Bengal government, not having pursued the matter further, might have been in the process of dropping its plans for annexation altogether. A second development took place within the club itself. The Tollygunge Club committee voted – in a preemptive move – to change the name of the club to the ‘British Gymkhana Club.’ This decision required the approval of the club’s full membership in a vote scheduled for March. It also meant shifting admissions and membership away from race and toward nationality. Thus Indians, as members of the British Commonwealth, would be admitted.33 In April, affairs at the Tollygunge Club once again took a dramatic turn. At the general meeting held in March, members voted on rule changes to restrict membership to ‘citizens of the U.K. of British antecedents.’ This complicated the earlier moves toward membership based on nationality by restricting it to people of British ancestry. In polite terms, this was a way of once again shaping the membership rules for (white) Britons only. At the same time, the club also voted to admit 100 men of non-British origin. These would be Indians who would be admitted under a new membership category: associate member. An associate member would have full access to the club’s amenities, but would not be asked to pay the Rs. 500 entrance fee and would not have voting rights. An explanation of this decision suggests that the Tollygunge Club sought to attract younger members – men who enjoyed sports and would play alongside current members of the club. By attracting a different generational cohort, while simultaneously limiting their rights as members, the club hoped to make the threatened closure go away.34 For unknown reasons, the effort to change the club’s name stalled at the Registrar of Companies’ Office, leaving the old name intact. Membership thus continued to be a malleable category. It was born with original or founding members, and grew and changed over time as clubs adjusted to local Indian realities. These realities remained fluid well into India’s independence period. As the Tollygunge Club was struggling to preserve itself, other clubs adopted different strategies in their adjustment to a postcolonial world. The Bengal Club chose to admit a select group of Indians as full [ 176 ]

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members. These men were from Calcutta’s elite, and the club felt that offering them anything less than full membership would be uncivil. The matter passed by a vote of 161 to 28. The Bengal Club chose this path for several reasons. By the late 1950s, the number of Britons residing in Calcutta and India generally was in decline. This decline in turn led to financial strain, prompting the managing committee to seek new members. Women were granted membership at this time, further aiding their integration into civil society, and so too were ‘nonBritish’ members, almost all of whom were Indian. These first Indian members – Indians had been accepted as guests for many years – were drawn from the ‘burra sahibhood’ of Bengal.35 Additional pressure on the Tollygunge and Bengal clubs also came from the government’s threat to deny liquor licenses to clubs with no Indian members.36 Other clubs elsewhere in India felt pressure to change their policies. The Breach Candy Swimming Club in Bombay and the Calcutta Swimming Club both found their exclusively British memberships challenged. Spearheading this effort was Indian swimmer Mihir Sen (1930–97). Sen was a Bengali-born lawyer who in his youth was known for his swimming feats. In September 1958 he was the first Indian to swim the English Channel. He went on to swim across the Palk Strait, the Panama Canal, and other bodies of water. Upon his return to India after swimming the English Channel, he successfully took up the cause of opening up to Indians the Breach Candy Swimming Club and others. In late April 1959, the issue of British clubs in India once again percolated up to the higher echelons of the British diplomatic corps. MacDonald sent a lengthy memo to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations outlining the situation as it stood. His summary of clubs in postcolonial India and within the broader commonwealth network of nation-states illustrates how clubs in India came to hold dual identities as both relics of a colonial past and also as social space for a newly emerging Indian club class. MacDonald began by recognizing the role that clubs had played for countless Britons during the colonial period. He described them as the ‘refuge of the expatriate European’ and the ‘stronghold of his conservatism in inter-racial contacts.’ In this, MacDonald accepted the stereotype of the British club in India rather than a more complex reality. With independence, MacDonald noted that there was no ‘overnight change’ in the clubs, yet they evoked ‘little vindictiveness’ from the Indian community. MacDonald attributes this to a perceived sense that for Indians, clubs were ‘relics,’ but in fact, by 1947, many clubs had sizeable Indian memberships and were thus part of India’s own civil society.37 MacDonald suggests that the few clubs still maintaining British memberships had in fact become targets. [ 177 ]

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Another problem was that many clubs had names that implied their membership was based on a geographical area, rather than a particular racial background. The Madras Club, the Bengal Club, etc. all suggest a membership from and for residents of those areas, which was not in fact the case. With the admission of Americans, Russians, and other Europeans to these clubs, their racial, rather than geographical or national orientation, became obvious and an irritant.38 MacDonald made clear his own position: ‘I believe that to maintain a colour bar in clubs is not only morally indefensible but politically short-sighted.’39 But MacDonald also recognized a downside to changing membership rules. He voiced the opinion that ‘admission of Indians does lead in due course to a lowering of certain standards.’ This sentiment was fleetingly expressed throughout the correspondence, in particular with reference to the Marwari community.40 The Marwaris of Calcutta competed at the upper echelons of the business community. More generally, Marwaris are a community known for their mercantile abilities. MacDonald felt that for a British member of an Indian-owned firm, it would be difficult if not impossible to resist pressure to nominate his superiors for membership. ‘This is an objection particularly strongly felt in Calcutta, where the Marwari community is strong and ambitious.’41 While concerns over a shift from majority British membership to Indian remained, MacDonald was a staunch supporter of opening all clubs to joint membership, perhaps realizing that within a decade or two the Britons who remained in India would dwindle to a tiny minority and then disappear altogether. By May of 1959, the whole affair in Calcutta seems to have faded from view. The West Bengal government, perhaps seeing the changes occurring at clubs in Calcutta – in part due to their proposed action – seems to have dismissed plans for annexing the Tollygunge land.42 The matter also faded from diplomatic correspondence. However, the Tollygunge Club continued to face pressure from the West Bengal government to cede some of its land. In 1973 the club’s property was considered for the location of a new stadium, eventually emerging as Salt Lake Stadium. And in 1982, the government annexed a portion of the club’s land, forcing a redesign of the golf course and putting an end to horse racing. By the beginning of 1960, the remaining ‘exclusive’ clubs had given way to mixed membership formats. In Calcutta, only the Saturday Club and the Calcutta Swimming Club remained exclusively British in membership – a membership based on nationality, not race.43 The Saturday Club was primarily for junior business members within the British community. The Calcutta ‘boxwallahs’ and Calcutta Light Horse Regiment had founded the club in 1875. It took its name from the gathering of the former on Saturdays to read incoming overseas [ 178 ]

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mail. In 1963, the members debated changing its membership rules to admit Indians. A small minority of the members wanted to incorporate ‘safeguards’ into the changes that would in some way limit or restrict membership (the exact details are not available). Yet the club’s vicepresident, L.R. Bury, argued that ‘Our feeling is that such “safeguard” can only be expressed in terms that would be offensive to potential members, and moreover the existing Articles give the Committees sufficiently wide powers to enable them to deal adequately with any changes in the situation which may occur.’44 The club voted to admit Indians on 12 November 1963, the first individuals being put up for membership on 13 June 1964. By 1960 Bombay, perhaps the most socially liberal of the three former presidency capitals, had no exclusive clubs. The Bombay Club (1862), the last British club, had closed its doors in May 1959.45 In Madras, other holdouts – the Madras Club and the Adyar Club – both changed their membership rules to admit Indians as full members, though as we have seen, Indians had participated in these and other clubs, as guests or in other ways, since their inception.46 Initially, there was no rush to join these clubs, but by the end of the decade, most of the exclusive clubs had shifted to predominantly Indian membership.

The nation and nostalgia As India celebrated fifty years of independence in 1997, many clubs pursued a dual strategy of embracing independence and also celebrating a form of colonial nostalgia.47 While much has changed in postcolonial India, its clubs offer continuity with the past rather than a break or rupture. Literature produced by the clubs did not embrace a return to colonial rule, but rather conjured up the sentiment of days gone by, of a civil past that was beyond the memories of most, but could be imagined and momentarily experienced through a visit to the club. This phenomenon extends into other arenas where reviving the Raj merges with transnational business.48 Once more, the club served as an alternative center of belonging. In a newspaper interview, one member of the Madras Club put it simply: ‘That’s the thing about a club – you develop a sense of belonging.’49 Ironically, as these histories, brochures, and pamphlets tout the benefits of a particular club, many of their selling points are the same as when clubs first opened in India nearly 150 years earlier, under very different conditions. Not only do some clubs market nostalgia and offer the club as a way to recapture the past, but on a practical level, clubs offer members access to social networks as well as logistical convenience. Clubs serve as a talisman of both the nostalgia for, and continuity [ 179 ]

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with, the past. For instance, in 1905, a group of ‘gentleman planters’ established the High Range Club at Munnar, in modern-day Kerala. The club – which began as the Gymkhana Club but by 1909–10 was known by its current name – had a bar, a library, some residential accommodation, and an emerald green golf course, the latter its main attraction. As originally conceived, the club served the British planter community. A recent promotional pamphlet claims: ‘Very little has changed over the years, with the High Range Club retaining its original character and ambience.’50 This claim must refer to the physical character of the club, which retains the décor of its colonial past, rather than its character and ambience as an all-white British club. Nowhere are the décor and the past so intertwined as in the Gentlemen’s Lounge. The High Range Club literature highlights these symbols of its past: ‘The distinguished Gentlemen’s Lounge transports the visitor back in time to re-live an era long since past of swirling cigar smoke, dimly lit corners, period furniture surrounded by the hats of the pioneering planters who painstakingly fashioned Munnar and its plantations into what they are today.’51 Here, the admission policies and club connection with British rule in India go unmentioned. Instead, today’s Munnar seems to owe a debt of thanks rather than scorn to those Britons who established the area’s plantation economy and its club. As clubs celebrated their centenary, these celebrations provided the occasion to craft club histories, and for current members to take pride in a club’s contributions to individual growth, the community, and the nation. They provide a window on to how clubs have, in more recent times, viewed themselves as positive contributors to civil society and not simply as social relics. When the Sind Club in Karachi celebrated its centenary in 1971, the club published a short history of itself. Although it had been established by a small community of military and civilian officials for the British community, the creation of Pakistan ‘presented an opportunity to the Club to enlarge its role and make its contribution to the new nation.’52 In Bangladesh, the Dhaka Club celebrated ninety years of existence in 2001. Like the Sind Club, it was seen as not only a social center within Dhaka and its environs, but also an important contributor to the nation. In his remarks opening its celebratory publication, club president Towhid Samad noted, ‘Having just celebrated the 90th anniversary we are reminded of our commitment to posterity. We must ensure that we pass this club on to our future generation in glory and magnificence as we inherited from our predecessors. This, we owe to our club, to our city, to our Nation.’53 That Bangladesh and Pakistan were once a single nation, and that those countries and India were once one imperial territory, were facts both relegated to the past. The role and survival of the club through traumatic moments of rupture [ 180 ]

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was a point of pride: ‘With the Imperial and the Pakistan legacy buried under the debris of history, esteemed members, old and new, have been steadfastly upholding this great institution in its strength, resilience, quality and tradition.’54 The club remained a center of continuity for its members in an otherwise changing and even traumatic world. The Mahableshwar Club’s historian, after recounting the club’s lengthy past in some detail, covers the period from 1947 to 1981 in a single paragraph. The stated reason for this was that the club’s most recent history was simply not interesting, but an unstated reason was perhaps that some of it might include embarrassing accounts of living members, and thus was not to be written. The author takes a gentle poke at the club’s recent past: With the coming of Independence, there was no question but that Indians of all shades and hues (of skin, not character) were eligible for the Club’s membership. Eligibility no longer depended on the colour of the applicant’s skin. Which may perhaps indicate why the history of The Club, Mahabaleshwar, is more entertaining between 1881 and 1947 than between 1947 and 1981. So, on to 2081.55

It appears that matters of race, for the club’s historian at least, made for more ‘entertaining’ history. In 2007, the Calcutta Club celebrated its centenary by producing a two-volume club history. This centenary provided an occasion for the club to take stock of its contributions, past, present, and future. Like other clubs, it sees itself as serving the nation, not just the immediate community. In his ‘Foreword’ to the history, club president D.K. Mukherjee notes that the ‘Calcutta Club transcended barriers to become not only an exclusive facility for the elite but also an embodiment of national pride and heritage.’56 In their moment of anniversary celebration, the historical reflections offered by club histories locate their own contribution to nation-building as a central role in their pasts. As noted, clubs once offered Britons safe and comfortable lodging when they were visiting a new town or city. The benefits of club lodging have remained an important facet of club economies, and in some clubs, those amenities present members and visitors with a chance to relive the past. The very rooms that weary Britons refreshed themselves in are now offered to Indians. The High Range Club advertises rooms in the main club building, which dates back to the club’s creation: ‘5 cozy period double rooms in the Club’s main building for those who wish to experience the ambience and comfort of years past.’57 Membership of the club is now limited to ‘corporate planters in Munnar,’ so while racial restrictions are gone, others based on location [ 181 ]

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and occupation remain. Beyond its own amenities and buildings, the High Range Club – like those of the colonial period – is linked by affiliation to other clubs. The club boasts of its affiliations to 41 other clubs within India and two overseas. Within this network, clubs offer affiliated members reciprocal amenities. As part of its self-promotion, the club boasts further the attractions of Munnar itself, proclaiming that this beautiful part of the Nilgiri hills offers ‘something … for everyone, from the retired senior citizen to the youngest of the young.’58 Unlike its past membership, limited to adult British males, the marketing of today’s High Range Club suggests a willingness to cater to the broader community. The Cochin Club invokes a similar sense of nostalgia. It, like many other clubs, impresses the visitor or member with a sense of being able to experience what was once forbidden. The British bastion of the past is open to the Indian of today. This club, originally called the ‘English Club,’ became known as the Cochin Club in 1913. Like the High Range Club, it initially catered to a largely British clientele. The club then, and now, has a bar, library, billiards, dining, lodging rooms, and other amenities. As part of its promotional materials, the club pamphlet, entitled It’s Yesterday Once More, peddles nostalgia. After describing the club’s lush grounds, the pamphlet suggests ‘In your mind’s eye you probably see a picture frame from the past. You’re absolutely right. Because here is a mansion that’s almost a hundred years old, with trappings that still exude the aura of a colonial past. Come, enter its portals.’59 The suggestion is that now Indians have access to what was once forbidden. And, compared to an earlier era when clubs hissed ‘Keep out!’, the club remains the same but attitudes toward admission have markedly changed.60 The version of the colonial past being sold here is one that omits any uneasy or unpleasant aspects, but rather offers a safe if not sanitized version of the Raj that is easily consumed. Like the High Range Club, the Cochin Club offers the member or guest the ambience of the colonial past. That past is not to be erased or critiqued, but rather has become a positive attribute of the club: ‘Once restricted to the British and men only, the club today lets you take a peek into an era that’s almost a century old.’61 The club offers the visitor an opportunity to participate in historical voyeurism – participating in club life that was once forbidden. Nostalgia for the past is also evident among those clubs whose character and membership have remained largely unchanged since their inception. The Willingdon Club of Bombay – created by Lord Willingdon to help integrate the British and Indian communities – upon celebrating its sixtieth anniversary in 1977, noted that a visitor ‘would settle down on the verandah and relax with a sense of well-being and [ 182 ]

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reflect on the past activities of the Club and its members and think of the day when Lord Willingdon decided to build a club on the old Tardeo flats.’62 Down the road, the Ripon Club, which celebrated its centenary in 1984, also marked the event with the publication of a club history, beginning with the recognition that – in many ways – very little has changed, and at the same time, a great deal has changed. ‘The Ripon Club has undergone considerable changes since those early days, as any institution is bound to, over a passage of a hundred years, but much remains the same. The baronets and knights, the old Parsi peerage, has gone, but the present members are equally distinguished, captains of industry and business.’63 In other words, one class (or caste) has been replaced by another, and the club carries on. Preserving the past was a theme common to many club histories as they marked 100, 125, or even 150 years of existence. The Bangalore Club, established in 1868, marked its 125th anniversary in 1993. On that occasion, M. Bhaktavatsala crafted a rollicking account of the club’s history drawn from its minutes. At the time of publication, club president B.R. Pai commented, ‘The chequered history of our Club symbolizes both continuity and change. The underlying theme of our 125th Anniversary celebrations is that we must make every effort to preserve the tradition, culture and ethos of our Club.’64 While the club embraced both trivial and serious changes over the years – the use of electricity, the acceptance of motor vehicles, the admission of Indians, the admission of women – it also protected those ‘traditions’ that Pai refers to. For instance, it retained an all-male bar, and continued to be among the most desirable clubs in south India with a multi-year waiting list for membership.65 A more modern club with similar nostalgia for the past is New Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC). The IIC dates from 1962 and serves multiple functions – many of those that a club serves, but with an added international flair. The IIC’s founding fathers were S. Radhakrishnan and C.D. Deshmukh, who laid the groundwork for an organization that would be both social and intellectual. On the social side, the IIC has a managing committee, membership processes, and offers members and guests alike all the amenities of a club: bar, library, lodging, and dining. On the intellectual side, however, the IIC has no sporting component and replaced the usual billiards room with conference rooms; it has built up an impressive library rather than a golf course. The IIC is a regular host to international conferences and, unlike other clubs, allows non-Indians to apply for membership. While the IIC is a modern type of club, it projects itself as offering amenities similar to those of clubs with an extensive past. It represents continuity with the past rather than rupture in the sense that [ 183 ]

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it ­positions itself as retaining aspects of civility that have been lost. Instead of relying on ambience, the IIC claims that by participating in its activities and culture, members can relive and rekindle something that is almost gone. As part of its promotion, it claims to be ‘one of the few institutions that retain, to a significant degree, civility, serenity and grace.’66 Civility not only gestures to ideas of civil society, but also refers to the interaction between members, guests, and staff. Serenity recognizes the beautiful grounds that the IIC occupies, and grace alludes to an overall sense of style and elevation above the riff-raff. Such civility is squarely targeted at an Indian middle and upper class that would appreciate the ambience and amenities, in addition to the IIC’s international guests and activities. The IIC and other clubs of the postcolonial period face uniquely modern problems as well. As noted, specific spaces within a club come with their own implicit or explicit rules and codes of conduct. Among the modern problems faced by the IIC was members using their cell phones in places such as the dining area, where this disturbed other members. The club’s management urged members to switch their phones to vibrate and take calls elsewhere. While cell phone use is a problem that began in the late 1990s, the IIC faced two additional problems identical to those of the colonial past. Members were found to be conversing loudly in the lounge and dining areas, which violated understood norms of conduct inside the club. Of course, this had long been a problem faced by other clubs across India – recall Lieutenant Pym whistling and talking loudly just outside the doors of the Madras Club reading room. Further, the IIC management lamented that some members practiced ‘harshness in dealing with the staff.’ The treatment of staff and servants was specified in club rules from the very earliest: no servant or staff member was to be abused in any way. By way of warning the IIC management reminded its members that ‘Members are requested to abide by the rules, regulations, circulars and guidelines of the Centre, and at all times, conduct themselves in a manner befitting being a Member of an institution which is nationally and internationally known for the unique ambience it provides.’67 The IIC, like clubs of South Asia’s colonial past, relies upon an undergirding set of rules and aspirations to civility to which members are referred. Club membership in more recent times, while having its privileges, can also be hotly contested when members run afoul of club rules. In 1988, several celebrities made national and international news for being expelled from some of India’s most prestigious clubs. The Madras Club removed writer Khushwant Singh from its premises for wearing sandals rather than closed-toed shoes; the Calcutta Swimming Club expelled musician Anand Shankar for wearing traditional Indian dress [ 184 ]

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rather than a shirt and trousers; and finally, Bombay’s Willingdon Club asked artist M.F. Hussain to leave the club when he arrived barefoot.68 The dhoti was once considered an outward marker of national pride, and during the early 1990s it again became a point of contention. Bharatiya Janata Party member Daudayal Joshi, an MP, was refused entrance to the Delhi Gymkhana Club because he was wearing a dhoti. He raised the issue in India’s parliament, demanding changes in the rules.69 While the matter drew some attention and sympathy, many of India’s MPs were themselves club members, and the parliament took no action.70 These examples illustrate the ways in which clubs today project a modern middle-class set of norms. Gatekeepers, literally guards at the front door, are the first in a series of checks on members and guests to be sure that they conform to ‘proper’ or civil dress codes. Shoes and dress are the beginning of a process in which other norms of behavior are checked, all with the aim of creating a modern middleclass membership, clubbable from head to foot.

Reformulating the past In the decades since independence, clubs have evolved to accommodate changes in the society around them, while at the same time upholding some traditions or ideals (civility, sociability, etc.) from their past.71 A copy of the rules and bylaws is still given to every new member, and the basic categories of club regulations remain consistent, although the rules themselves have expanded with the passage of time. Once simple documents, the articles of association have now become lengthy, complex treatises on club legalities. The opening passages of rules and bylaws today are much the same as they were in the early nineteenth century. They begin by naming the club, setting membership numbers, and stating the club’s aims and objects. In addition to listing its physical address, the rules and bylaws of the Cosmopolitan Club of Mysore list its purpose as the promotion of literary, social, cultural, and recreational activities.72 Less common among clubs in the postcolonial period, the Cosmopolitan Club also lists a patron, Sri Srikantadatta Narasimha Raja Wadiyar, the head of the former princely state of Mysore. The Delhi Gymkhana Club in its articles of association reprints the original Memorandum of Association first composed in 1913. All subsequent updates to the original memorandum appear thereafter. As of 1996, the updates include an increase in the club’s allowable number of permanent members to a huge 5,600.73 Like the Mysore Club, the Delhi Gymkhana Club, in a nod to India’s modern political structure, states that only the president of India will automatically be a club patron. [ 185 ]

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In the postcolonial period, while restrictions along race lines have disappeared, new types of membership have continued to proliferate. The Cochin Club lists no fewer than seven different types of members: permanent, corporate, short-term, temporary, honorary, lady, and life members.74 As clubs have maintained or grown in prestige, because they typically occupy prize real estate in the heart of many Indian cities, and since they often provide food and spirits as well as lodging and meeting areas at rates cheaper than five-star hotels, they have increasingly found favor in India’s fast-developing business world. Large companies purchase corporate membership so that their employees can occasionally make use of a club’s facilities. These clubs, first established to keep tradesmen out, now have businessmen as a major portion of their clientele. The physical composition of clubs also reflects greater changes taking place. Many clubs occupy premier locales within crowded urban environments – the Bangalore Club, Secunderabad Club, and the Delhi Gymkhana Club are just a few of these. These clubs have fought to preserve their valuable real estate, raising fences, building new gates, evicting squatters, and so forth. Within the club walls, the basic amenities are still recognizable (the bar, dining room, lodging), but many have grown in their offerings to compete with the urban scene that surrounds them. Where clubs once had a single dining room for members, many now boast two or three dining areas, one specializing in Chinese foods, another in Punjabi fare, and a third the more traditional ‘butler’ cuisine. Clubs retain their typical physical spaces, but these too have changed. In a few clubs, one of the bars remains for men alone – ­preserved like a museum dedicated to the Raj of the nineteenth century; but others have added mixed bars, ladies’ bars, cyber cafés, discos, and other modern facilities. In 1966, the Sind Club of Karachi revamped what was once the ballroom and Ladies’ Lounge into an air-conditioned Ladies’ Bar and Grill. Blue shag carpeting, wood-paneled walls, and tastefully upholstered club chairs and couches welcomed the women of the club. A full-service bar graced the corner of the room and invited them to tipple and relax.75 This, of course, all changed after 1977 when alcohol was heavily restricted in Pakistan during the administration of Zia-ulHaq. Across the border in New Delhi, in 1982 members of the Delhi Gymkhana Club celebrated the end of prohibition, which had been in place since 1978.76 This social restriction had brought hard times to this and other clubs where drinking was central not only to their existence, but also to their economic bottom line. Other changes are also evident. India’s role in high-tech industries is reflected in the clubs’ increasing computerization of accounts and club records, and has led to the opening of in-club internet cafés; yet [ 186 ]

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many clubs retain the chit system and members are asked for their signature before leaving. Members can check e-mail, surf the net, and access high-speed connections at their club rather than incurring the expense at home. Ballrooms that were once the social epicenter of the British community in many Indian towns and cities have been converted to other uses. On weekends, residents of Hyderabad are more likely to hear disco music pulsating from the Nizam’s Club than orchestral suites. Disco nights, jazz nights, and Punjabi bhangra (folk music) nights are all now common musical events in clubs. As women and children are now part of club membership, amenities that appeal to these groups have been added to the facilities. In 2006, the Bombay Gymkhana Club added to its hairdressing salon a unisex manicure and pedicure facility, increasing the already impressive list of amenities offered by the club.77 Clubs have continued to build upon their global affiliations. Where many networks of affiliation once followed important imperial destinations, now club affiliations have become more diverse and diffuse around the world. As air travel links India to the world, and as Indian political and business members forge contacts well beyond their national boundaries, India’s clubs are responding by forging affiliations with other clubs around the world. The Delhi Gymkhana Club is now affiliated with clubs in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and East Asia. Particularly interesting is that club’s affiliation with the Lahore Gymkhana Club in Pakistan. Despite the sometimes tense relationship between India and Pakistan, this club link between them remains.78 South Asian cities and towns continue to boast a wide variety of clubs. Not only are most of the colonial era clubs still surviving and thriving, but new clubs continue to open to serve evolving associational needs. Examples from Pakistan illustrate the variety of clubs that now operate in South Asia’s urban centers. Karachi remains home to the venerable Sind Club, but over time has added a gymkhana, an auto club, a boat club, a yacht club, and a press club. Lahore maintains its gymkhana, but has added a flying club, as has the city of Multan, while Peshawar boasts a golf club, and Quetta has no fewer than four snooker clubs.79 Clubs have also redefined themselves to better accommodate the modern family. In the decades since independence, the traditional joint family structure has given way – especially in urban areas – to nuclear families that often live far from their ancestral homes. This has created a sense of loss and feelings of dislocation.80 At the same time, the middle class continues to value the idea of the family and turns to itself as a location for socializing.81 This tendency toward family [ 187 ]

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socializing, and socializing within one’s caste community, has created a class of non-joiners, that is, people who do not actively participate in broader associational life. Clubs are, perhaps, the exception to this trend. They have begun marketing themselves as family destinations with something for everyone. Most clubs now have some form of play area to accommodate toddlers and tots.82 Where clubs once feared the ‘mewling and puking’ of babes in their mothers’ arms, they have now transformed into spaces that cater to the middle-class family. Such was the sentiment at the Dhaka Club, celebrating its ninety-year anniversary. It hosted a week of festivities, each day and night having its own special theme. The grand finale included a ‘Mega-Bar-B-Q’ that specifically targeted families. The club president recounted, ‘On this concluding evening we are having a family night so that our children can also participate and enjoy the evening with us.’83 In addition to anniversary celebrations, the regular calendar also features family and children’s events. At the Bombay Gymkhana, the club hosts annual ‘Children’s Diwali’ functions as well as Christmas parties. In its report for 2005–06, the club reported that members had a ‘rollicking time’ at these and other seasonal events.84 Clubs across India have not only participated in and formed a variety of networks, but have remained players in India’s growing and vibrant associational life and, as such, have played a role in forming its civil society. Members not only belong to ‘their’ club, but to many others through affiliations, and in the process become enmeshed in club politics and practice. Membership and participation in associational life have deep and lasting effects on individuals.85 Whether in a colonial or postcolonial setting, such associational life is an important part of forging a civil society. It inculcates critical skills that are beneficial to individuals, associations, and nations. These skills undoubtedly prepared many for the practice of democracy and participation in civil society well beyond the club gates.

Notes  1 India’s prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru participated in a bit of international club diplomacy when, for instance, he was present at the opening of the India Club in London. That club, created for Indians and Britons, provided a few lodging rooms, and offered both Indian and British cuisine. The Times, 13 January 1951, p. 4.  2 D.J. Banerjea, ‘A Short History of the Calcutta Club Limited’ (Calcutta Club, 2005), p. 6.  3 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 24 May 1946, Private Papers, NAI.  4 Jhansi Club extraordinary meeting, 7 October 1947, Private Papers, NAI.  5 Jhansi Club committee meeting, 30 September 1946, Private Papers, NAI.  6 The role of the liquidator was established by the Indian Companies Act of 1866. ‘He or they [the Official Liquidator] shall take into his or their custody, or under his or their control, all the property, effects and things in action to which the Company is

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12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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or appears to be entitled, and shall perform such duties in reference to the winding up of the Company as may be imposed by the Court.’ Act No. X of 1866, V/8/40, OIOC. Jhansi Club committee meeting, 9 July 1947, Private Papers, NAI. Jhansi Club special committee meeting, 18 July 1947, Private Papers, NAI. Jhansi Club committee meeting, 4 October 1947, Private Papers, NAI. ‘Report of the liquidators of the United Service Club of Simla, Limited (In Voluntary Liquidation) To the Members on the Progress of the Liquidation from 20th December, 1947, to 19th December, 1948.’ IOR Mss Eur F206/428, OIOC. ‘Information Notice to Members of the United Service Club of Simla (Limited) In Voluntary Liquidation.’ 15 January 1948, IOR Mss Eur F206/428, OIOC. The liquidators were remarkably efficient; by January 1949 only 25 individuals of the initial 2,125 were unaccounted for. ‘United Service Club of Simla, Ltd. (In Voluntary Liquidation) Information Notice No. 2.’ 8 January 1949, IOR Mss Eur F206/428, OIOC. President of Byculla Club, 1 August 1946, IOR Mss Eur F253/50. Jhansi Club extraordinary meeting, 7 October 1947, Private Papers, NAI. Jhansi Club extraordinary meeting, 8 November 1947, Private Papers, NAI. Jhansi Club, 16 June 1952, Private Papers, NAI. Conlin to de Gray, 23 April 1949, Nainital Club, Private Papers, NAI. Jhansi Club, annual general meeting, 14 May 1959, Private Papers, NAI. Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 2 July 1947, Dehra Dun Club Records. Grandson of Raja Lal Singh. Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 12 December 1947, Dehra Dun Club Records. Dehra Dun Club committee meeting, 24 December 1947, Dehra Dun Club Records. Some account of this is given in Lal, The Doon Valley Down the Ages, p. 218. Ibid., p. 217. Banerjee and Nayak, Calcutta 200 Years, pp. 8, 134–61. The club is known, among other things, for its flora. See The Trees of Tollygunge Club. MacDonald to Pant, 5 September 1958, 35/9012, PRO. Smedley to Twist, 9 September 1958, 35/9012, PRO. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations was a position that existed from 1947 to 1966. It was eventually collapsed into the position of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Douglas-Home served in the position from 1955–60. [illegible] to Lintott, 23 September 1958, 35/9012, PRO. The current club sits upon 110 acres. Pant to MacDonald, 3 November 1958, 35/9012, PRO. Smedley to Twist, 17 December 1958, 35/9012, PRO. ‘Supplementary Brief for the Secretary of State. Tollygunge Club, Calcutta.’ 35/9012, PRO. Smedley to Twist, 6 April 1959, 35/9012, PRO. Smedley to Twist, 6 April 1959, 35/9012, PRO. By 1970, the club faced further financial difficulties and sold off part of its property. For a description of the items and the event, see Moorhouse, Calcutta, p. 248. Burra is Hindi for big or large, and sahib is a gentleman, or Sir. The Times, 13 March 1959, p. 11. MacDonald to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 25 April 1959, 35/9012, PRO. MacDonald to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 25 April 1959, 35/9012, PRO. MacDonald to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 25 April 1959, 35/9012, PRO. For a lengthy treatment of the Marwaris in Calcutta, see Anne Hardgrove, Community and Public Culture: The Marwaris in Calcutta, c. 1897–1997 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). MacDonald to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, 25 April 1959,

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I N TH E C LU B 35/9012, PRO. In earlier correspondence, Smedley wrote that the members of the Tollygunge Club were particularly concerned about ‘Marwari penetration’ if Indians were granted voting rights within the club. Smedley to Twist, 6 April 1959, 35/9012, PRO. 42 Bhageria and Malhotra, Elite Clubs of India, p. 45. 43 Memo from L.R. Bury to Saturday Club members, 12 November 1963, IOR Mss Eur F334/11, OIOC. See also ibid., p. 36. 44 Memo from L.R. Bury to Saturday Club members, 12 November 1963, IOR Mss Eur F334/11, OIOC. 45 The Times, 19 May 1959, p. 8. Much of its contents were shifted to the Bombay Yacht Club, including a half-ton gong that had summoned members of the Bombay Club to dinner for nearly a century. 46 ‘Visit of Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations to South India. Madras. Note on “Exclusive Clubs.”’ No date, probably late 1959. 35/9012, PRO. 47 The 1980s were a highpoint of such sentiment, fueled in part by the success of Paul Scott’s Jewel in the Crown TV series. For one nostalgic look at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, see Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘The Genteel Remnant of the Raj; The Enduring Appeal of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club,’ The Washington Post, 18 March 1985. 48 Piya Chatterjee, A Time for Tea: Women, Labor, and Post/Colonial Politics on an Indian Plantation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 86. 49 V. Shoba, ‘Are You a Member? Does it Matter?,’ Indian Express, 20 November 2010. 50 ‘High Range Club,’ p. 2. Munnar, Kerala. [Undated brochure, but probably from the late 1990s or early 2000s.] 51 Ibid., p. 3. 52 Sind Club 1871–1971 (Karachi: Elite Publishers, 1971), p. 20. 53 ‘A Message from the President,’ in A Celebration to Remember 90 Years of Dhaka Club. 54 ‘Dhaka Club Past and Present,’ in ibid. 55 Bharucha, Mahabaleshwar. The Club, p. 90. 56 Mukherjee, One Hundred Years of Calcutta Club, I, p. 7. 57 ‘High Range Club,’ p. 2. Munnar, Kerala [undated brochure]. 58 Ibid. 59 It’s Yesterday Once More. The Cochin Club, Cochin [undated pamphlet]. 60 On this attitude and reference, see Chapter 2. 61 It’s Yesterday Once More. The Cochin Club, Cochin [undated pamphlet]. 62 Contractor, A Commemorative Volume, p. 36. 63 A Hundred Years of Ripon Club, p. 4. 64 Bhaktavatsala, A Club’s World, foreword. 65 On the difficulties of becoming a member at some of India’s elite clubs, see for instance Devanshi Seth, ‘Right of Admission Reserved,’ The Times of India, 18 July 2004; ‘Members Only,’ Financial Express, 27 November 2004. 66 ‘Note From the Management,’ Diary. India International Centre xvii, no. 6 (2003), p. 12. 67 Ibid., p. 12. 68 Bryan Johnson, ‘Exclusive Indian Club Ousts Famed Artist Diner in Bare Feet,’ The Globe and Mail, 26 October 1988. 69 Parliament of India, Lok Sabha, 9 December 1991. 70 Tim McGirk, ‘Indian MPs Prove Dhoti Fighters over Club’s “Improper Dress” Ban,’ The Independent, 1 October 1991. 71 Piya Chatterjee recounts how a new generation sporting Levis jeans and Nike shoes mill about the tea clubs of Assam. See Chatterjee, A Time for Tea, p. 123. 72 The Cosmopolitan Club (Regd.) Rules and Bye-Laws (Mysore, 1994), p. 1. 73 Delhi Gymkhana Club Ltd. Articles of Association (Delhi: Kapur Electric Press, 1996), p. 4. 74 Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Cochin Club (Cochin: Balalakshmi Offset Printers, 2003), p. i. 75 Sind Club 1871–1971, p. 16.

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Postcolonial clubbing 76 Stuart Auerbach, ‘End of Prohibition Brings New Life to Indian Clubs,’ The Washington Post, 14 February 1982 77 ‘Bombay Gymkhana Limited Annual Report and Accounts 2005–06’ (Mumbai: Bombay Gymkhana 2006), p. 11. 78 Delhi Gymkhana Club: Club’s Reciprocal Arrangements in India and Abroad (New Delhi: Delhi Gymkhana Club), p. 3. 79 Jamal’s Yellow Pages of Pakistan, 18th ed. (2001), p. 566. 80 Pavan K. Varma, The Great Indian Middle Class (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 167. 81 Gurcharan Das, India Unbound (New York: First Anchor Books, 2002), p. 81. 82 ‘Members Only.’ 83 A Celebration to Remember 90 Years of Dhaka Club. 84 ‘Bombay Gymkhana Limited Annual Report and Accounts 2005–06,’ p. 11. 85 Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, p. 265.

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GL OS S AR Y

water-bearer, usually referring to indoor potable water or drinks adda an intellectual gathering of friends nursemaid ayah bahadur hero; champion bhangra folk music and dance from Punjab bhisti water-bearer, usually referring to water drawn from a well or an outdoor source chaprasi a messenger or courier; a public servant charas a device used to pull water up from a well using oxen and a leather bag; charsawala the individual who worked with such a device seeing darshan dhobi a washerman dhoti loin cloth durbar royal court gosha seclusion halad kunku women’s rituals hundi bill of exchange khadi home-spun cloth khansama manservant; butler or cook kirtan song; religious debate kitmutgar ‘one rendering service’ and usually refers to a Muslim employed in serving individuals at meal times lakh 100,000 ma-baap mother-father mali gardener masalchi a domestic; one who mixes spices mufassal countryside mulligatawny a spicy south Indian soup munshi a local language teacher, writer, or secretary sabha council samaj society shikari hunter; one who does shikar (hunting) the lowest caste within Hinduism sudra tehsil district tiffin lunch or a light meal

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abdar

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Glossary

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I have used H.H. Wilson’s A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms and Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell’s Hobson-Jobson as sources for these definitions.

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B IB L IOGR A PH Y

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Unpublished records Cochin Club Records, Cochin Cosmopolitan Club Records, Chennai Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge, UK   Bagnall Collection   Haig Collection   Hawkes Collection   Masterman Collection   Stokes Collection Dehra Dun Club Records, Dehra Dun London Metropolitan Archive, London   Oriental Club Records Mahabaleshwar Club Records, Mahabaleshwar National Archive of India, New Delhi   Jhansi Club Records   Nainital Club Records Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library, London Ootacamund Club Records, Udagamandalam Public Records Office, London Simla Amateur Dramatic Club Records, Simla

Periodicals The Advocate of India The Asiatic Journal The Belfast News-Letter The Daily News The Deccan Budget The Financial Express The Friend of India The Globe and Mail The Independent (London) The Indian Express Jackson’s Oxford Journal Oriental Observer and Literary Chronicle The Statesman The Times The Washington Post

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INDE X

adda 8, 9 Adyar Club 66, 68, 179 affiliation 6, 9, 26, 31–2, 34, 39, 47, 48, 67–8, 71, 89, 124, 132–3, 150, 182, 187, 188 Agra 48 Agra Club 87 All-India Women’s Conference 2, 150 Allahabad Club 132 Anamalai Club 67 army 28, 32, 49, 87, 89, 91, 123, 129, 137, 156, 159 Arya Women’s Society 149 Asiatic Society 9 associational life 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 14, 15, 43, 47, 50, 76 memorandum of association 19, 43, 80, 90, 185 origins 7–8 Bahadur, Raja Shamsher Singh 172 Balasore Club 126 Bamboo Club 67 Banga Mahila Samaj 148 Bangalore Club 37, 40, 64, 67, 81, 82, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 108, 118, 136, 138, 183, 186 Bangladesh 180 bar 15, 27, 41, 54, 57, 61–2, 65, 86, 91, 92, 93, 107, 117, 180, 182, 186 see also drink Bareilly Club 71 Baroda Gymkhana Club 151 beer see drink Begum, Sultan Jehan 152, 156, 160 Bengal 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 15, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 70 Bengal Club 48, 49, 51, 57, 66, 68, 71, 79, 81, 83, 89, 95, 105, 114, 115, 124, 125, 126, 130, 176–7, 178 Bhopal see Princess of Wales Club Bikaner 66

billiards 3, 41, 42, 47, 55, 83, 88, 93, 109, 139, 182, 183 black ball see voting Bobbili, Rani of 152, 159 Bombay 4, 5, 48, 49, 57, 70, 94, 124, 138, 140 Bombay Association 5 Bombay Club (London) 8 Bombay Club 70, 179 Bombay Gymkhana Club 4, 133, 187, 188 Bombay Yacht Club 131 bonding, social 12, 49, 56, 124, 151 Brahmika Samaj 148 Brahmo Samaj 9 Breach Candy Swimming Club 177 bridging, social 6, 12, 125, 131, 139, 140, 143, 147, 151, 152 Britain 4, 7, 8, 106 British Indian Association 5 British Women’s Association 153 British Women’s Club 156 Burmese Days 62, 122 butler see steward Byculla Club 1, 3, 4, 29, 49, 50, 51, 54, 56, 68, 70, 71, 83, 93, 94, 106, 117, 131, 134, 135, 138, 169 bylaws see rules Calcutta 10, 33, 48, 57, 66, 94, 140, 157 Calcutta Club (London) 8, 28 Calcutta Club 10, 31, 101, 125, 126, 141, 166, 181 Calcutta Cricket and Football Club 9 Calcutta Swimming Club 156, 177, 184 Calcutta Tent Club 60 Calcutta Turf Club 175 Calcutta, Marwaris of 178 Campbell, Sir John 36 Cawnpore Club 48, 71 Century Club 142 Ceylon see Sri Lanka Chariar, V.C.D. 95

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I N D EX

chef 100, 105, 106, 108, 112, 118 see also food Chettiar, Rani Lady Annamalai 151 children 32, 39, 65, 149, 156, 187, 188 see also family China Club (London) 8 Churchill, Sir Winston 86 civil society 2, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 26, 43, 63, 72, 76, 96, 100, 101, 102, 107, 112, 114, 125, 128, 138, 143, 147, 152–3, 157–8, 160, 161, 165, 167, 179, 184, 185, 188 civility see civil society class 2, 6, 16, 19–20, 30, 63, 64, 83, 101, 125–6, 151, 157 Club of Western India 31, 39, 42, 93, 127 Cochin Club 65, 80, 87, 89–90, 91, 92 103, 109, 114, 116–17, 132, 182, 186 Coconada Club 142 Coimbatore Club 55, 64, 87, 91, 93, 96, 137 Colombo Club 30, 71 complaint book 37, 43, 55, 60, 61, 64, 65, 110 Conoor Club 67 Cosmopolitan Club (Madras) 5, 12, 29, 43, 52, 53, 82, 95, 102, 105, 106, 108, 117, 185 Cosmopolitan Club (Mysore) 141 Curzon, Lord 50, 51 Dacca Club see Dhaka Club Darjeeling Club 71 Darrawella Club 65 Darwin Fatehabad Club 141 De, Raja Baikunthanath 126 debenture 39, 55, 82–5, 103 Deccan Club 142 Dehra Dun Club 38, 71, 90, 93, 105, 116, 172–3 Delhi Gymkhana Club 185, 186 Delhi Tent Club 117, 118 Desai, Morarji 175 Dhaka Club 9, 71, 180, 188 Dharma Sabha 9 Douglas-Home, Alexander Frederick 175–6 drink 18, 37, 42, 55, 61–5, 91–6, 115

East India Association 5 East India Company (British) 4, 5, 9, 18, 28, 32, 33, 38, 78, 79, 104, 126 Ellerthorpe, John 130–1 Elphinstone Club 124 English Club 67 exclusive; exclusivity 17, 104, 122–5, 130–3, 134, 136, 138, 140, 143, 155, 161, 165, 174, 177–9, 181 family 105, 107, 118, 187, 188 see also children flying clubs 4 food 59–60, 61, 71, 85 France 7, 8, 106 fraternities 8 fraud 36, 82, 86–7 Freemasons 4 Frere, Sir Bartle 1–2, 13, 15, 20, 31, 35, 43, 142 Galle Club 52 Gandhi, M.K. 52, 130–1, 166 Garden Club 124 gender 2, 6, 16, 63, 83, 88, 125, 150 Germany 7, 92 Ghafur, Abdul 77 gilds 8 guest 133–6 Gulbarga Club 3, 17 Gwalior Club 57 gymkhana 4, 11, 124 see also gymkhana clubs by name Haileybury 1, 48–9, 126 Happy Valley Club 173 Hidayatallah, Ghulam Hussain 87, 138 High Range Club 180, 181, 182 Hill Club of Nuwara Eliya 35 Himalaya Club 36, 48, 49, 90 Hindus Ladies’ Social Club 149 home, clubs as 55–60, 69, 149 Hong Kong Club 68, 71 hotel 7, 10, 68, 70, 71, 107, 186 Humanistic Club 143 Hyderabad 3, 10–11, 12, 28, 78, 140 Hyderabad Boat Club 140 Hyderabad Club 140

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ice 92, 93–4 Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club 133, 166 India International Center 183–4 Indian Companies Act 5, 26, 79, 80 Indian National Congress 5 Indian Navy Club 49 Iyer, Sir T. Muthuswami 30 Iyer, Subramania 5 Jacobin Club 4 Jah, Mir Humayun Bahadur 30 Jhansi Club 53, 86, 89, 90, 92, 95, 104, 107, 108, 113, 114, 116, 118, 114, 133, 136, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali 115, 166 Joint Stock Companies Act 79 joint-stock 76, 77–8, 80 Junior United Service Club 5 Kandy Club 34, 42 Kipling, Rudyard 37, 69 Ladies’ Recreation Club 11, 149, 150, 153, 160, 161 library 3, 15, 29, 53, 55, 65, 70, 92, 107, 142, 180, 182, 183 Lions Club 4 London 7, 8, 25, 147 Lucknow 12, 48 Lyceum Club 160 Lynedoch, Lord 7 Macaulay, T.B. 66, 134 MacDonald, Malcolm 174–5, 177, 178 Madras 5, 11, 28, 48, 57, 66, 67, 70, 94, 140 Madras Club (London) 8, 28 Madras Club 3, 7, 29, 30, 33, 35, 36, 39, 40, 41, 49, 50, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 68, 70, 83, 88, 103, 104, 105, 106, 110, 112, 122, 129, 133, 134, 138, 178, 179, 184 Madras Gymkhana Club 132 Madras Mahajana Sabha 5 Madras Native Association 5 Madura Club 127

Mahableshwar Club 57, 87, 88, 90, 91, 105, 111, 113, 135, 136, 138, 181 Maharashtra 149, 159 Malabar Club 34, 40 Malcolm, Sir John 28 managing committee 32, 38–41, 53, 54, 65, 82–3, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 102, 104, 109, 111, 113, 114–15, 127, 134–6, 141, 142, 171, 172, 177, 183 marker 55, 109–10, 117, 118, 185 Masterman, C.P.H. 122, 125, 128–9 Meerut Tent Club 62, 117 Mehta, Sir Pherozeshah 123–4, 132 membership 3, 5, 6, 9, 30–1, 32–5, 83–4, 136–9 Mookerjee, Rajendra Nath 10, 141 Murray, John 69 Murray’s Guide to India 69–72 Murree Club 115 Mysore Club 185 Mysore 28, 91 Naidu, Sarojini 160 Nainital Club 171 nation; nationalist movement 2, 10, 30, 132, 141, 142, 147, 148, 156–61, 174, 176, 179–83, 188 National Council of Women in India 150 Nawaz, Begum Shah 2 Nehru, Jawaharlal 52, 159, 160, 166 Nehru, Motilal 132 Netherlands 7 network(s) 3, 6, 18, 25, 37, 76, 77, 81, 88, 96, 100, 101, 112, 119, 132, 147, 173–4 Nilgiri Ladies’ Club 2, 11, 102, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161 Nizam’s Club 11, 140, 187 Ootacamund Club 34, 42, 55, 69, 85, 87, 113, 135, 136 Orient Club 124 (Sri Lanka), 131 (Bombay) Oriental Club (London) 27, 28, 68 Pakistan 72, 166, 173, 180, 181, 186, 187

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Palamcottah Club 34, 135 Panckridge, H.R. 48, 126 Pant, G.B. 174–5 patrons 50, 123, 133–36, 138, 141–3, 151, 153, 156, 173, 185 peon 110–12 pig-sticking 8, 62–3 pig-sticking Agra, Delhi, Calcutta 4 Pillai, G.P. 95 political society 13, 14 Poona Club 32, 33, 39, 95 president 27, 38, 88, 102–3 princely states 3, 140 Princess of Wales Ladies’ Club 6, 11, 149, 152, 153, 154, 156, 160 public 13, 14, 15, 16, 71, 142, 148, 149, 157 Punjab Club 69, 130 purdah 129, 137, 147, 154–5 Putnam, Robert 12, 22 race 2, 3, 6, 16, 17, 19, 26, 30, 56, 70, 71–2, 101, 127–30, 147, 150–3, 157, 166, 176 Red Cross 160 Reform Club 106 Ripon Club 123–4, 183 Ripon, Lord 5 Rotary 4 Round Table Conferences 2, 152, 157, 166 Roy, Raja Rammohun 10 Royal Bombay Yacht Club 127–8 Royal Calcutta Turf Club 49 Royal Western India Turf Club 9 rules 6, 19, 25, 26, 27, 41–3, 61, 63, 95, 125, 127, 155, 168, 185 sabha 8, 9 samaj 8, 9 Saturday Club 178 Scoble, Andrew Richard 1 scotch see drink secretary 19, 27, 36, 38, 49, 69, 87, 103–4, 113 Secunderabad Club 11, 67, 140, 186 servants 19, 107–12 Setalvad, Motilal 131–2 Seth, Jagat 77 Shadwell, L.J. 27, 43, 53, 84, 103, 112

Shahjahanpore Club 48 Shanghai Club 68, 71 Shikar Club (London) 8 Simla Amateur Dramatic Club 4, 84 Simla Purdah Club 149, 154, 155 Simla Winter Amusement Club 4 Sind Club 31, 37, 50, 52, 64, 65, 71, 92, 95, 104, 111, 115, 180, 186, 187 Singh, Maharaja Ganga 67 Societies Act 5 soldier see army Sorabji, Cornelia 160 space 6, 14, 15, 19, 26, 29, 34, 42, 43, 47, 50, 51, 52, 54–7, 61, 63–6, 72, 101, 106, 107, 127, 131, 139, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157, 184, 186, 188 Sri Lanka 11, 17, 30, 35, 52, 65, 124, 128, 171 steward 19, 91, 93, 100, 105, 106, 109, 113, 115, 117 Striyancha Sabha 149 Subbarayan, K. Radhabai 2, 11, 13, 15, 142, 150–2, 157, 158, 160 Tagore, Debendranath 139 Tamil Ladies’ Association 150 Thoreau, Henry David 94 Tollygunge Club 31, 57, 173–6, 178 Tudor, Frederick 93 Tuticorn Club 127 Unceremonials Club 10 Union Club 10, 139 United Service Club (London) 7, 68 United Service Clubs 4, 5, 7, 27, 28, 114, 126, 168, 169 United States 7, 89, 94, 138 uprising (1857) 9, 10, 22, 29, 47–50, 115, 139 Urs, Lieutenant Colonel Desaraj 91 Victoria Memorial Club 67 visitors 32, 42, 52, 64, 68–72, 127, 155, 180, 181, 182 Vivesvaraya, Mokshagundam 142 voting 35–8 whiskey see drink Willingdon Club 132, 182, 185

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women 15, 18, 20, 54–5, 64, 65, 82, 90, 91, 134, 137 Women’s India Association 2, 150 Woolf, Leonard 61 YMCA 4 YWCA 4

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Willingdon, Lord 113, 131–2 winding up 79, 80, 165–7, 169–72 wine see drink World Wars First 32, 88–92, 137–8, 156 Second 32, 87, 88–92, 154, 156, 158–9, 160, 173

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