Below Chennai’s iconic Anna Flyover, which was the longest in India when it was opened in 1973, stand two identical equestrian statues on both sides of its arm. They are among the many statues that stand in Tamil Nadu’s capital commemorating historic events. But these two are peculiar. Unlike most other statues that testify to the events that left an indelible mark, the historic announcement that these two statues commemorate, in fact, turned out to be erasable. The plaque on one of them reads, “The memorial commemorating the announcement by the Tamil Nadu government on August 14, 1974, to ban horse racing happening [in the city] for two centuries”.
A year after the government announced the decision and passed a piece of legislation to implement it, the court stayed it. Horse racing has continued ever since, except for a brief period of another legislative intervention in the 1980s. From the early 1970s to 1996, however, marked an uncertain period, with the sword of Damocles hanging over horse racing, which dates back to 1777, when the first horse races were held in the city. The Madras Race Club (MRC) was formed in 1896.
A temporary threat
Except when Arbuthnot & Co collapsed, threatening to bankrupt the club because the majority of its money was deposited in the bank, the existence of the club and the horse racing it had organised were not threatened until 1949 when the government enacted the Madras City Police and Gaming (Amendment) Act, 1949. This amendment enabled the government to ban horse racing through a notification announcing the date when the ban would come into force. This notification was never issued and no one expected such a ban to be enforced.
The status quo was disturbed after the DMK came to power in 1967. One of its election promises was to ban horse racing as it argued that betting severely affected the poor and middle-income families. However, the DMK did not take any proactive action, despite the Opposition parties questioning it about this promise.
The DMK, in fact, appeared to have had a change of mind at least until 1972. The party argued such a ban should be considered nationwide since banning horse racing only in Tamil Nadu would lead to the tax revenue going to the neighbouring States. The direct revenue from entertainment tax and taxes on betting alone was ₹2 crore, a significant amount then.
Andhra Pradesh’s plan
In 1969, Minister for Revenue and Finance K.A. Mathialagan shared an anecdote in the Assembly. According to him, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh reportedly told his Tamil Nadu counterpart C.N. Annadurai that if the latter banned horse racing, the Andhra Pradesh government would open a race course in Tirupati (near Chennai) to grab the tax revenue.
However, in 1974, besides reintroducing prohibition, the DMK government decided to ban horse racing in the State by introducing the Tamil Nadu Horse Races (Abolition of Wagering or Betting) Act, which, in fact, invoked the 1949 Act to enforce the ban from April 1, 1975.
The government threw out representations against the decision from the MRC, its members and others who loved the sport and were concerned about the loss of tax revenue. The Madras High Court refused to stay the ban, but suggested that the government consider other means of addressing the consequences of betting.
Supreme Court stays the ban
The relief to the MRC came in November that year from the Supreme Court, which stayed the ban. The Tamil Nadu government’s plea to vacate the stay was rejected by a two-judge Bench, headed by the legendary Justice H.R. Khanna, who would go into history later for his dissenting judgment in the ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla case during the Emergency.
With DMK rule coming to an end in 1976 and no further steps taken to vacate the stay, horse racing continued until 1986 when the AIADMK government, in an unprecedented decision, took over the control of the MRC through the Madras Race Club (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertaking) Act.
With the MRC in the government control, it successfully moved the Supreme Court to vacate the stay on the 1974 legislation to ban the sport. The ban came into effect in 1986. After a fierce legal battle, the Supreme Court provided temporary relief and horse racing resumed in 1988.
The MRC, however, had to wait till 1996 for permanent relief when the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment, ruled that horse racing was a game of skill and involved no gambling. Consequently, all the legislative measures to ban horse racing were nullified.
The inscriptions on the equestrian statues are a reminder to this uncertain period. Interestingly, the Minister for Public Works in the DMK government from 1971 to 1976, P.U. Shanmugam, said during an Assembly debate that there was no connection between the installation of the statues and the inscriptions about the decision to ban horse racing. He said the inscriptions were added after the installation.
(This article is based on reports from The Hindu Archives.)
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