'I Was Thrown Out': Shashi Tharoor Exposes Breach Candy Club's 'Racist' Europeans-Only Provision
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor was thrown out of Breach Candy Club in the 1960's, adding that there was no place for such 'racist' provision'.
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- Breach Candy Club restricts Trust membership to European passport holders only
- Shashi Tharoor shared his 1960s experience of being thrown out from the club
- The club was founded in 1878 as a European-only enclave, Indians admitted in 1960s
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Mumbai's ultra-exclusive Breach Candy Club is facing heavy scrutiny over a controversial 'racist' policy that restricts trust membership solely to European passport holders. Amid rising public backlash, an old blog post by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has resurfaced online. In the post, the former diplomat recalls a deeply discriminatory experience from the 1960s, detailing exactly how he was abruptly thrown out of the elite venue.
"I myself was thrown out of Breach Candy Club in Bombay in the mid '60s when an American classmate hoped he could ignore the whites and take an Indian friend along. That was India 20 years after Independence," wrote Tharoor.
Founded in 1878 as a European-only enclave in Bombay, the Breach Candy Club did not admit Indian members until the 1960s. Despite this shift, governance remained unequal. Today, the club's constitution still restricts Trust Committee membership exclusively to European residents of Mumbai, barring Indians from leadership roles.
As the tale of Tharoor's exclusion went viral, the Thiruvanathapuram MP, in a social media post, highlighted that there was no 'justification' for such a racist provision in India, especially on government land.
"There is absolutely no acceptable justification for a racist provision to survive on government land. To say the club's constitution requires it is ridiculous. What about our country's constitution?" wrote Tharoor on X (formerly Twitter).
Check The Viral Post Here:
'Such A Club Needs To Be Closed'
Social media users reacted angrily to the decades-old incident, which highlighted a long history of institutional exclusion, sparking fierce debate about colonial-era biases surviving in modern India.
"If a club refuses entry to Shashi Tharoor, that club should be banned. One of the most civilised and eloquent people in the country. These clubs are a joke," said one user, while another added: "Such a club needs to be closed, let them run their show somewhere in Europe."
A third commented: "There can be no club in India, except within the premises of an embassy of a foreign country, which is not Indian, does not permit Indian Membership, does not have Indian management and ownership."
A fourth said: "The Constitution is supreme in our country, and institutions that refuse to respect it have no right to function here."
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Breach Candy Club, Shashi Tharoor, Racism In India