From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI: The committee inquiring the controversy over Jainsem at an elite Delhi club has expressed reservations about the archaic dress code and restrictions on the entry of domestic helps in the club.
The findings, which were made public on Monday, came at a time when Delhi Golf Club (DGC) expressed regret for the alleged racial discrimination against Tailin Lyngdoh for wearing Jainsem and said there was no intention to disrespect her attire.
In a half-hearted apology that came around two months after the incident (June 25) on August 4, the club said it objected to the round neck T-shirt of the nine-year old son of Nivedita Barthakur Sondhi as the rules stipulate that men wear collared shirts.
“There is certainly no concern about the dress you were wearing as some of our members do wear that unique dress and the club has never denied access to any person wearing that dress,” Siddharth Sriram, president of the club, said in a letter.
In what was largely viewed as a case of racial discrimination against the people of the North East, Lyngdoh was reportedly insulted and asked to leave the dining hall premises of the elite club because the staffer believed that her traditional Khasi attire looked like a “maid’s uniform”.
The committee headed by Justice Mukul Mugdal found that it was the round-neck T-shirt that was flagged by the staff of the Delhi Golf Club as ‘inappropriate’.
When the committee asked how the staffer came to the conclusion that Lyngdoh was a domestic help, the club explained that it was because she was sitting with a child and they could tell by looking at her “after so many years of working here”.
The obvious inference was that Lyngdoh was asked to leave because of her rustic looks and for accompanying an improperly dressed child but not for wearing her traditional dress.
The club instituted the three-member independent “committee under the former Chief Justice of the Haryana and Punjab High Court to investigate the controversial incident.
Lyngdoh, who works as a governess, was accompanying her employer Nivedita Barthakur Sondhi, who works as an adviser to the Assam government, and her son and other invitees.
The finding was based on the depositions of nine persons, including the host member and those seated in the dining hall at that time and the report recorded minute-by-minute events of the day from CCTV footage.
Club receptionist Sunita Thakur had specifically informed host member Ponamma Goyal about the dress code for children when she called in to book the table, the report claimed.
But when Sondhi arrived with her son and his governess, they were stopped at the reception and informed that the boy would not be allowed in the dining hall as he was “wearing a T-shirt without a collar”.
The host came out to the reception to sort it out.
The guests were allowed in the dining room after the “transgression of dress code” was recorded in the register. But once they were seated, another club employee, Ajit Pal, pointing at Lyngdoh told Goyal that domestic employees were not allowed in the dining hall.
Pal had intervened after the group sat down for lunch and already ordered their drinks.
The report said on overhearing the exchange between Pal and Goyal, Sondhi got agitated.
“Dr Nivedita Barthakur Sondhi threw her napkin, kicked her chair and proceeded to walk out of the dining hall to the lobby while speaking in a loud voice all the way in the presence of members and guests as witnessed by many guests,” the report recorded.
The report indicted Sondhi for “inappropriate” behaviour. It also questioned why she or Goyal did not register an official complaint either at the club or with the police.
Sondhi despite several attempts of the committee to contact her did not depose or record her version.
In its initial statement, the club had said the member who had hosted the lunch had “unconditionally” accepted its apology.
“It is unfortunate and regrettable that an undesirable attempt is being made to give the incident a political and cultural overtone,” the club had said.
It also told the three-member panel that the issue was being given a “cultural overtone”.
The club in its response to the committee said the staffer assumed that Lyngdoh was a domestic help for which rules are already in place.
Meanwhile, Lyngdoh reportedly said she was unsatisfied with the apology and found it “really sad” that the entire episode was being given a different colour to escape the debate around racial discrimination against people from the North East.
To buttress their claims the club showed photos and other records where people from the North East were participating in club events wearing Jainsem.