The Raj-era private clubs where 'Englishness' remains a primary qualification for membership

The Raj is dead. Long live the Raj.

This rings true for most British-era clubs in India, 67 years after Independence.

These clubs no longer deny Indians membership, but 'Englishness' remains a primary qualification for getting an access to them. 

Anybody not fitting into this mould is 'undesirable', even if that person is M.F. Husain, who was barred from entering Mumbai's Willingdon Club in 1988, for being barefooted.

Or, the late communist patriarch Jyoti Basu, who met the same fate at Calcutta Swimming Club for arriving in dhoti a decade later

And now Madras High Court judge, Justice D. Hariparanthaman, has been turned away from Tamil Nadu Cricket Association for wearing the traditional south Indian dhoti.

Delhi Gymkhana Club founded in 1913, the club still pursues a strict dress code, incomprehensible to most outsiders, as a Buddhist monk would find out last year.

As it happened, Bhutan's second-highest ranking monk was barred from dining at the club, just because he was wearing sandals and the traditional lama attire.

Also, as a reminder to the old, feudal order, a notice at the entrance of the club prohibits "servants and drivers" from having food inside the premises -– just like it had barred the entry of "Indians and dogs" during the Raj.

Col. O.P. Malhotra (retd), Secretary of Delhi Gymkhana, however, insists that changes to the club's rules and regulations are made from time to time.

"Every room at the club has a different dress code," says he, recounting how one can now enter Dining Room in dhoti-kurta, salwar-kameez and pyjama-kurta preferably with Nehru jacket, among others.