The enduring charm of the Bangalore Derby

 Bangalore Turf Club Caught in a No-Win Race

 

By Sharan Kumar

 

The Bangalore Turf Club’s upcoming Extraordinary General Meeting on Saturday, November 29 is being hailed as a turning point in its long and tangled history. On paper, it is an exercise in unity.  In reality, it is a plea for trust in a government that has, for decades, kept the Club suspended between eviction notices, extensions, “final warnings,” and assurances that vanish faster than a short-priced favourite caught flat-footed at the start.

 

The resolutions also authorise the Chairman to act on behalf of the Club, execute all necessary documents, engage with the government, implement the decisions taken at the meeting, and even withdraw the case currently pending before the Supreme Court regarding the ownership of the existing land. A routine clause at first glance, yet when placed at the end of resolutions that rely entirely on government assurances without a single binding safeguard, it becomes the lever that could either guide the Club into a secure future or tip it into uncertainty.

 

Members are effectively being asked to trust the government completely and vote yes to every resolution. The question that echoes is simple: Can they?

 

Trust is a noble virtue but when applied to a government with a fluctuating political spine, it becomes hazardous. Successive Karnataka governments have treated BTC less like an institution managing 100 years of sporting heritage and more like an inconvenient occupier of prime land, too rooted to dislodge and too valuable to ignore. Assurances have come in every form: verbal, informal, tentative, reinterpreted, revoked, and resurrected. It is a cycle the members know all too well.

 

Now, the government has once again offered alternative land. On the face of it, the gesture appears generous. But nowhere is there a written guarantee, no gazette notification, no registered documentation, no timeline, and certainly no fail-safe clause if the political climate shifts.

 

And with Karnataka politics currently resembling a pressure cooker, complete with the deputy Chief minister restless over a promised elevation, the future of any administrative assurance is as stable as a three-legged stool.

 

If this fragile political arrangement collapses, government files connected to BTC won’t merely move slowly; they will stop moving altogether. Fresh committees, fresh priorities, fresh “reviews.” BTC’s relocation file will be yet another dusty victim of political reshuffles.

 

That is where the fear lies. What happens if BTC votes yes and the government quietly backtracks? What happens if the promised land never materialises? What happens if the Club finds itself in the worst-case scenario: evicted here, and empty-handed there?

 

At present, the answer is chillingly simple: nothing happens. BTC has no protection, no fallback, no contractual shield. It hands the government full leverage the moment these resolutions are passed.

 

Yet, rejecting the resolutions is equally fraught. Karnataka is not Tamil Nadu, where the government brusquely cancelled the lease of the Chennai racecourse despite 15 years remaining. Here, the State has kept BTC alive, barely, occasionally irritably, but undeniably alive. The Club has been given multiple extensions and opportunities, something members are acutely aware of. To antagonise the government now, after enjoying relative indulgence compared to Chennai’s fate, carries its own risks.

 

More urgently, the Club’s license to run racing from December 1 hangs in the balance. Without passing these resolutions, the process could stall. The government could easily interpret a “No” vote as non-cooperation, prompting administrative retaliation. And though BTC has survived many storms, few have had the potential to halt racing immediately.

 

This is the true Catch-22:

If the members vote yes, they hand over their bargaining power and pray that the government; whichever government emerges from the political churn keeps its word.
If they vote no, they risk provoking the very authority that controls their racing license.

 

It is a choice between prudence and survival, between principle and practicality, between caution and necessity. The rational mind says the Club should not approve anything until clear title, physical possession, and binding documentation are secured. The pragmatic mind says the government is the only landlord in this story, and landlords do not take kindly to being defied.

 

So what should the members do?

 

It may be unfair, unreasonable, and downright risky, but under the present circumstances, the members may feel compelled to swallow their misgivings and approve the resolutions, hoping, perhaps praying, that whichever government holds power tomorrow will honour the promises made today.

 

In the end, the EGM is not merely about land.

It is about the existential question of whether BTC dares to demand guarantees or must surrender to the uncertainties of political benevolence.

A wrong step could cost the Club its present; a hesitant step could cost it its future.

 

In a race where every path is treacherous, BTC’s members must choose the one that offers the better odds of survival, even if it means trusting a system that has never fully earned that trust.