In our culture, character, not the dress makes a gentleman, said Swami Vivekananda to a Britisher who had asked him to wear proper clothes to be a gentleman. But decades down the line we as Indians are struggling to internalise this tenet.

Tailin Lyngdoh, a middle-aged woman from Meghalaya has become a symbol of not just racism but also of the ‘classist’ mindset prevalent among India’s rich. Lyngdoh dressed in the traditional Khasi attire, Jainsem, was shown the door at the Delhi Golf Club because she looked like a ‘maid’ – even though she was a guest of a member. She was asked to leave the table mid lunch and the club saying the dress (Jainsem) she was wearing was a "maid's uniform" and also allegedly hurled racial abuse quote ‘that she looked like a dustbin’.

Following media uproar, the Delhi Golf Club on Tuesday apologised and said that disciplinary action against the erring staff "is in process". The club maintained that the guest had not been asked to leave the club premises and that "an undesirable attempt" was being made to give the incident a "political and cultural overtone".

This incident held up for us what most educated, moneyed, well-placed Indians are – unapologetically classist. Dignity of labour can go take a hike because  – ‘servants’ are not to be served food with their ‘masters’.  

The insulting incident once again brings to the fore not just a racist streak but also an appalling fact that ‘mainstream’ India is out and out ignorant about the North East part of the country. Just weeks ago Tubelight child star, Matin Rey Tangu from Arunachal Pradesh was asked by a journalist at a press conference—If it was his first visit to India, thinking that he belonged to China. If the casting of Tubelight is anything to go by, a Chinese person and an Arunachali are identical. This casting is problematic not just because of how the rest of the country sees and treats North-Easterners but also because China has been slowly but steadily upping its claim on Arunachal Pradesh.

But the larger part of India couldn’t care less.