By Syed Amir, PhD

While visiting Karachi in January this year, I was delighted to receive an invitation from my cousin, Khalid Hasan, to have lunch with him at the Sind Club, where he was staying. Khalid Bhai is among those lucky few who spend their winters in Pakistan and summers in England. When in Karachi, he has for years retained one of the residential suites at the Club. While his family members would like him to stay with them, his preference has always been to remain free and unencumbered. The venerated club, founded in 1871, offers an ideal setting to suit his temperament.

This was not my first visit to the Sind Club. On every visit, I have felt as if I was going back in time to the old colonial days when Britain ruled India, and a vast empire beyond where the sun never set, and when Englishmen created replicas of Victorian edifices at various outposts of their empire to make them feel at home. Karachi has inherited from those days some exquisite buildings, representing classic examples of colonial architecture of the nineteenth century. Perhaps, most prominent among these are Frere Hall, the Sind Club and the Chief Court building. It is gratifying that many of these historic sites in Pakistan have been largely preserved in their original style and have retained much of their structural elegance and colonial flavor. The Sind Club was declared part of Pakistan’s national heritage in 1986.

As my nephew Ashraf and I drove through the Club’s main entrance, the bustling city life and maddening traffic that perpetually plagues the Saddar area seemed to have entirely receded. The winter flowers were in full blossom and the colorful gardens dating back to the old empire days were lush in appearance. The exterior of the building and its vast open verandas are meticulously maintained and preserved in their original design, giving visitors the surreal feeling of being in a time long past. Our visit to the Club happened to be on one of those glorious, but rare, Karachi winter days when the city appears strangely attractive and deceptively peaceful. A gentle breeze blew through the tall palm trees outside and long corridors inside, while the temperature felt blissful. It was a perfect afternoon designed to spend leisurely time, lingering over a cup of tea and a newspaper. Some members were doing just that, sunk in comfortable chairs in the open outer terrace.

While British colonial administrators have long departed, the Club has gained many new patrons. The lunch-time buffet is especially popular and attracts a large clientele. The dining room offers its own quaint ambience, decorated with paintings, depicting old warriors and administrators, with trophies won in long-forgotten battles, and testaments of other achievements. It is unclear whether the current membership appreciates these relics of colonial past; they, nevertheless, were fascinating to me. We enjoyed a sumptuous meal, a blend of Pakistani and European cuisine, with family members. Curious, I asked my cousin if I could obtain some information about the Club’s past history. He bought for me a copy of the official publication of the Club, which covers the period from 1871-1991. Apparently, there has not been an update since. The book, however, is a storehouse of fascinating facts and historical anecdotes.

Sind Club was established in May 1871, at a meeting at Frere Hall, for the specific purpose of serving the Europeans of “Kurrachee.” The membership, restricted to Europeans until 1952, started with sixty-eight members who paid an admission fee of Rs.100 each, which at the time must have been a considerable sum. The city was a sleepy little town of only about 56,000 people, with vast open, uninhabited stretches. The British residents of the town were mostly civil servants or military officers. While attending an event at the Club, the members were required to observe strict protocol, including the dress code, modeled on the social practices of Victorian England. At the time, air conditioning or even electric fans were unheard of. Nevertheless, at dinners, men wore three piece suits and women multi-layered long dresses, braving the hot, sultry Karachi weather. When someone noticed in 1924 that members were getting relaxed in observing the dress code, a letter of admonition was promptly sent out by the Managing Committee. However, times were changing and with them the stifling rules. The Club, finally, had to settle on letting the members wear only dinner jackets, instead of full evening dresses, with tails and all, on formal occasions. Those in violation of the code were relegated to dine in what derisively was called the “dirty” room. Even the era of dinner jackets ended in the sixties, and no dress code is currently enforced.

The Club today is frequented by many ladies, every bit as educated and cultured as the men. However, this has not always been the case. Until 1915, women were not permitted inside the Club except on special occasions. In the teeth of bitter opposition, the rules in that year were amended, admission of ladies was permitted and a special section reserved for them. However, the progress seemingly stopped there. Among the office bearers who served until 1991, a list of whom is provided with the official book, no female names, western or Pakistani, can be readily recognized.

While the Club reluctantly opened its doors to female members in 1915, the admissions of non-whites and non-Europeans faced even greater opposition. Pakistanis were not admitted until 1952, years after Pakistan became an independent state. The story is related of Mr. Ramchandani, a prominent lawyer at the Karachi bar, who once urgently needed to reach a British judge residing in the Club to obtain his signature on some legal document. Being a native Indian, Mr. Ramchandani had to use the tradesman’s entrance to get inside the premise. Since the main building was out of bound for him, the magistrate had to come out into the parking lot, signing the documents by placing them on the hood of the lawyer’s car. This race-based admissions policy, curiously, even survived the country’s independence in 1947. Finally, some senior members of the Pakistan Government, General Iskander Mirza, then Defense Secretary, and Mr. J. A. Rahim, then Foreign Secretary, among others, applied pressure to the Club’s management to shelve the membership ban. They had to resort to threats, including that of seizing part of the Club’s property, before the Committee acceded to open the membership to non-Europeans.

The Sind Club survives today as an entirely Pakistani managed establishment and a historic monument dating back to our colonial past. Its existence for a vast majority of Karachi citizens is irrelevant. Nevertheless, for those few who can afford its membership, the Club offers a momentary window into the nineteenth century, and a glimpse into a simple, uncomplicated life-style that then prevailed.