In yet another brazen act of discrimination in the Indian capital, a Meghalaya woman was asked to leave the Delhi Golf Club on Sunday because she was wearing a traditional Khasi dress, which staff said made her “look like a maid.” Her tweet about the humiliating incident went viral on Tuesday.
Tailin Lyngdoh, 51, who works as a governess for Dr Nivedita Barthakur Sondhi, an entrepreneur and honorary advisor to the Assam government, was an invited guest of the club.
The Times of India quoted Sondhi as saying, “Around 10-15 minutes after we arrived, the manager, Ajit Pal, accompanied by a woman named Sumita Thakur, asked Lyngdoh to leave the table and the room. When I asked them the reason, they said she looks like a maid. I asked them how they concluded that. They said she looks different, dresses like a servant and looks like a Nepalese. That was so humiliating! I wasn’t ready to accept such discrimination.”
Lyngdoh was quoted as saying, “I have been to the biggest restaurants and clubs in London, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. But before yesterday, no one had asked me to leave their premises.”
Sondhi took to the social media platform Twitter to express her anger and frustration over the growing discrimination against Indians by their own countrymen. She wrote, “An example of North Indian bigotry, chauvinism and ignorance: many of us have been slighted in the capital of India for being from [the] northeast part of the country and have lived to tell our tales.”
The post soon went viral on social media, sparking widespread outrage over the racist policies of the city’s private clubs and general discrimination against citizens from northeastern states.