After eyewear retailer Lenskart faced public backlash for a style guide banning bindis, Air India is facing the heat for issuing similar employee guidelines. Air India’s internal grooming guidelines for its cabin crew surfaced online earlier this week, sparking outrage over rules prohibiting crew from wearing sindoor, tikka or bindis.
“Tikkas, sindoor of any colour on the forehead is not permitted,” the cabin crew handbook said.
While it did not ban bindis outright, Air India issued strict guidelines on when and how they could be worn. It specified that a 5mm bindi can be worn optionally with the saree. “However bindi is not permitted with the IndoWestern uniform,” the guidelines stated.
Air India reacts
An Air India spokesperson told HT.com that airline crew is allowed to wear bindis, and the document circulating online is from an “outdated manual.”
{{/usCountry}}An Air India spokesperson told HT.com that airline crew is allowed to wear bindis, and the document circulating online is from an “outdated manual.”
{{/usCountry}}“Air India would like to clarify that its employees have the choice to wear bindi. The images being circulated online are from an older manual that is no longer in use,” the spokesperson said.
Earlier, Lenskart had provided a similar argument after facing the heat for its policy which allowed in-store employees to wear hijab on duty, but forbade bindis or kalawa.
The Lenskart row
Lenskart issued an updated style guide after the religious discrimination row erupted, while claiming that an older document circulating online does not reflect the company’s current policy. The company’s founder and CEO Peyush Bansal, also took to social media to apologise.
Bansal disowned the document as an older version that does not reflect the company’s current stance. Lenskart has “no restrictions on any form of religious expression, including bindi and tilak,” he said.
(Also read: Lenskart under fire for ‘hijab allowed, bindi banned’ rule; Peyush Bansal reacts)
“The document currently circulating is an outdated internal training document. It is not an HR policy,” Bansal had clarified on X.
“That said, it contained an incorrect line about bindi/tilak that should never have been written and does not reflect our values or actual practice. When we discovered this on February 17, well before this became a public conversation, we immediately removed it,” he noted.
Lenskart issued an updated and standardized style guide for all in-store employees on April 18 which greenlit “religious, cultural or family marks (such as bindi, tilak, sindoor or any other)”.
(Also read: Lenskart releases new style guide after ‘bindi banned, hijab allowed’ row. What it says)