Delhi Gymkhana survived empire and Independence. Can it survive govt’s eviction order?
- Rajesh SharmaDevyani Mohan
- TIMESOFINDIA.COMUpdated: May 26, 2026, 11:22 IST IST
For more than a century, the Delhi Gymkhana Club has sat on 27.3 acres of prime Safdarjung Road land, outlasting empire, Independence, Partition, shifting politics and repeated internal battles. It has been a club, certainly – with tennis courts, a ballroom, billiards tables, squash courts, a swimming pool, gravel paths and sprawling lawns. But it has also been a map of power in the capital.
Behind its white colonial facades and guarded gates, former presidents, generals, judges, diplomats, bureaucrats, ministers, industrialists and their families mingled in a world that was intimate, discreet, and, according to some, deeply hierarchical.
Behind its white colonial facades and guarded gates, former presidents, generals, judges, diplomats, bureaucrats, ministers, industrialists and their families mingled in a world that was intimate, discreet, and, according to some, deeply hierarchical.