WE HAVE STAYED in the guest accommodation at Calcutta’s Tollygunge Club several times. On our most recent visit, I spent a few minutes looking at the boards on which the names of the Club’s past Presidents are listed.

Between the year in which the Club was founded – 1895 – and 1968 – twenty-one years after Indian Independence- all of the Presidents had British surnames.
In 1969, the post was held by Brigadier RB Chopra. His surname is Indian. He was succeeded in 1970 by HA Whittle – someone with a British surname. Mr SP Achary, who was the next President (in 1971) had an Indian surname.

Mr Achary was followed by CJN Will CBE in 1973. Thereafter, most, but not all, of the Presidents had Indian sounding surnames. An exception was the President in 1979, who was AWG Macintyre, CBE. He was a senior executive in the Dunlop tyre company.

Seeing all of these Presidents with British surnames holding their positions so long after India became independent got me wondering. Already I knew that even after independence, some private clubs and other institutions in India restricted admission to Europeans and refused entry to all but a very few Indians. I became curious to know when the Tollygunge Club began welcoming Indians as members. The answer is that the colour bar was lifted in 1961. Indians were then admitted as “Associate Members”. They had no voting rights. The first non-white Associate Member was the then Japanese consul. In 1967, the first batch of 30 Associate Members (I.e., Indians) were made Permanent Members. The first Indian President, Brig. Chopra was amongst this batch.

Various factors must have swayed the Club towards admitting Indians. One of these might have been the slowly declining British presence in Calcutta. Another was more serious. Cutting a long story short, in the late 1950s, the West Bengal government, acting to some extent on guidelines from Central government, began to question the future of the elite clubs of India.

The government of West Bengal drew up a plan to construct a housing estate on the extensive grounds of the Tollygunge Club golf course. The clubhouse would have then been converted to some kind of communal amenity. These plans caused great concern to Calcutta’s British community. This plan was aborted. I have heard one explanation of why this happened, but it would be best if I do not reveal it.

Declining Club revenues and increased taxation must have also led to the Club enlarging its membership by accepting Indians as full members. During the very early 1970s, my father-in-law, a senior executive in a large company, was offered membership by the Tollygunge Club. He turned down the offer because he was reluctant to join a club that had refused membership to Indians for so many years after India became independent.

It is fortunate that the Tollygunge Club with its lovely grounds has survived because, although still quite exclusive, it is a wonderful place to relax and make new friends.