Fight to save Wilson College Gymkhana intensifies
The collector cancelled the lease on the grounds that UCNI had been flouting its conditions by using it for commercial purposes over the permitted 45 days a year but had not been using it for the sporting and educational purposes it was meant for
MUMBAI: The alumni association of Wilson College is the latest entrant in the fight to preserve the Wilson College gymkhana for the college’s future students and local population. The confrontation began after the state cabinet on March 16 approved the collector’s decision to cancel the college’s lease of the gymkhana and its grounds, and give it to the Jain International Organisation (JITO).

Rajan Jayakar, president of the alumni association, said the association would file an intervention application in the Bombay high court. This will, if admitted, make the association a party to the petition filed by the United Church of North Indian Trust Association (UCNI), opposing the decision of the collector to cancel the lease. Wilson College held the lease for the gymkhana under UCNI.
The collector cancelled the lease on the grounds that UCNI had been flouting its conditions by using it for commercial purposes over the permitted 45 days a year but had not been using it for the sporting and educational purposes it was meant for.
“As lovers of the college, we will fight for the ground to continue to be available to the institutions under the John Wilson Education Society (JWES) for sporting activities,” said Jayakar. “Although the trust may have misused the gymkhana and its grounds, we come from the perspective of the students.”
In the last few years, the Wilson College gymkhana has very rarely been used by the college and its students. Sudhakar Solomon Raj, retired HOD of the political science department and currently an adjunct professor, explained that this had been happening since 2012-13. “Before 2012, we would use the ground for sports practice and annual Sports Days,” he said. “After that year, we rarely got to use it despite requesting the college. In 2014, our Sports Day was held outside. The ground had started being used for commercial reasons on a lot of days.”
Raj added that the ground was shut off for the local population at the same time. “Children from poor families in Girgaon would play cricket and other sports, and only the pitch would be cordoned off so that it did not get spoilt,” he said. “In recent years, however, it has become more of a gated ground.”
Jayakar has very different memories of the ground. “I was a student at Wilson High School from 1956 to 1962, and then a student at the college from 1961 to 1963, both of which are part of the John Wilson Education Society,” he said. “I was on the cricket team, and I’ve played carrom and table tennis in the gymkhana.”
The alumni association has a WhatsApp group called ‘Save Wilson College Gymkhana’ with 900 members comprising faculty, former faculty and alumni. “We are fighting to revert the gymkhana ground to how it used to be,” said Raj. “Just because the gymkhana was misused for 10 years in its 100-year history doesn’t mean that future generations of students and the local population should be deprived of it.”
On March 27, the Christian Reform United People Association (CRUPA) too had written to the collector, chief minister Eknath Shinde and revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, opposing the decision to cancel the college’s lease.
Lalbahadur Kamble, the newly appointed managing director of UCNI, said, “From what I know, students were not stopped from using the gymkhana ground for sports. It was used commercially to be able to afford the lease and taxes. We suspect there may be some prejudice driving the decision.”
When asked about the collector’s claims of misuse of the lease conditions, Kamble said, “Even if the gymkhana was misused, the collector should have levied a penalty, sent a notice, given us time and rectified it instead of abruptly cancelling the lease and giving it to another organisation. He did this despite us paying the rent till the end.”

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