Raj relics? Yes. Economically viable? No. Future? Imperfect.

The big hope: there are signs of change.

Calcutta’s elite clubs came under scrutiny at one of Calcutta’s elite clubs on Thursday evening.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee, historian and chancellor at Ashoka University; Swapan Dasgupta, political commentator, columnist and Bengal’s new finance minister; and Aveek Sarkar, editor and a former club captain, were part of the 14th edition of The Bengal Club Annual Panel Discussion, held in association with The Telegraph. The panel discussed “Social Clubs: Colonial Relics or Living Institutions?”

Journalist-author-columnist and moderator Vir Sanghvi said being on the panel felt like being in an editorial meeting of the group that publishes The Telegraph. Mukherjee, Dasgupta and Sanghvi have all worked with the ABP Group. Dasgupta is a columnist with The Telegraph.

The recent eviction notice to the 113-year-old Delhi Gymkhana Club by the Centre has sparked a debate pitting modern India against colonial-era entitlement.

Mukherjee said it was an irrefutable fact that several clubs in Calcutta were colonial-era creations. He pointed out that at one time, natives were not allowed, and for a long time, these clubs were male bastions. He noted how they have since transformed.

He said the revival of Bengal’s lost glory, a narrative that gained traction in the Assembly elections, was linked to the revival of such clubs.

“For a long time there has been an aspiration… Thanks to people like Swapan, it is more marked now... That Bengal should aspire to restore its former glory. Nobody can fight that proposition... Some of these clubs were part of the making of that glory, of the elysian days of Bengal and Calcutta. We cannot think of reviving Calcutta by being indifferent to the kind of social life these clubs fostered,” Mukherjee said.

Dasgupta defended the crackdown on Gymkhana. “You can be a member only if your father is one. A hereditary institution that reeks of entitlement on government land... Gymkhana violated all the rules of the game. That is why the Gymkhana is under siege. Other clubs are not,” he said.

He also cited youth migration from Bengal and questioned whether enough potential members remained in Calcutta for its clubs.

“Calcutta’s irony is that it was at its peak during colonialism. Post-colonial Calcutta has never been the same. The challenge is how to make a post-colonial Calcutta a force in India... It has fallen off the map for a while. There was an exotic quality, but that also meant a decline. The question is whether there is a sufficient elite left in Calcutta. It is a difficult, awkward question,” he said.

Sarkar has many facets, but on Thursday, he was speaking “only as a club administrator”, Sanghvi said during introductions. Sarkar was the captain of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club from 2004 to 2014.

“The learning lesson here is that whatever enterprise you run, whether you run Bengal or Neeti Aayog in Delhi or even a club, you need expertise, competent professionals. You need to hire consultants for a fee, you need to earn money and all your efforts have to be profitable. At the end of the day, you must make money. Much of the problem is that all these clubs are uneconomic, unviable and excesses of self-vanity at the expense of the public,” Sarkar said.

The discussion broadened to Bengal, with speakers suggesting that the clubswere a microcosm of the state itself.

Dasgupta said the realisation that Bengal was in terminal decline had come “too late”. If things were to change, he would have much to do as finance minister.

Sanghvi asked for a show of hands to see if the audience believed Bengal had a future. It was hard to spot anyone who did not seem hopeful.