Delhi Dispatch As India Erases Its Colonial Past, Delhi’s Elite Feel Targeted

“The word ‘elite’ is being bandied about,” said Abhishek Tankha, 42, a businessman who frequents the club for its squash courts and social scene. When he hears Mr. Modi and his followers use it to describe people like him, Mr. Tankha said he understands the cultural subtext: “It’s a specific type of westernized Indian who never bought Modi’s rhetoric, who Modi thinks never accepted him.”

A former member of the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Tankha said he believes the membership of the Gymkhana is being shamed and scorned. But, he asked, “Why shouldn’t we be proud of our own clubs?”

The stereotypical Gymkhana member, who sometimes had to wait

“The word ‘elite’ is being bandied about,” said Abhishek Tankha, 42, a businessman who frequents the club for its squash courts and social scene. When he hears Mr. Modi and his followers use it to describe people like him, Mr. Tankha said he understands the cultural subtext: “It’s a specific type of westernized Indian who never bought Modi’s rhetoric, who Modi thinks never accepted him.”

A former member of the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Tankha said he believes the membership of the Gymkhana is being shamed and scorned. But, he asked, “Why shouldn’t we be proud of our own clubs?”

The stereotypical Gymkhana member, who sometimes had to wait

The escalating battles over institutions like the Gymkhana are raising complex questions about identity and heritage in this vast country of 1.4 billion people, where a hybrid culture has evolved since Indians won independence in 1947. Indians have adapted many British imports to suit their tastes, from their love of cricket to their tea culture.

Yet the racial subjugation that was so fundamental to British rule left scars that may not ever heal. Mr. Modi, who is now serving his third term as prime minister, has displayed a powerful instinct for connecting past injustices to the present, speaking to the anxiety among the Indian masses for whom membership of a private club is unthinkable.

Across Delhi, examples of Mr. Modi’s colonial erasure are

everywhere — in gleaming new government buildings that have replaced turn-of-the-century sandstone palaces, and on street signs with Hindi and Sanskrit names where Englishmen’s used to be.

Within the last few weeks, the Modi government has stepped up its efforts to seize two other colonial era landmarks in Delhi, including the Jaipur Polo Ground, where King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, once played.