“So when people used to call me 'chinki' I thought that okay maybe my mother is Chinese so they are calling me that. It was only in my 20s, when I travelled to the north-east that I realised that it was racist and that the north-easterners were called this and they were not considered Indians just because of the way they look.”

Indian badminton player

Jwala Gutta is an Indian badminton player who began representing India in international competition in the late 1990s. She competed in both mixed and women’s doubles, and remains known for her results on the world stage. Gutta has 316 match wins across those two disciplines, the most by any Indian player, and reached a career-high ranking of No. 6 in the world. On the BWF circuit, she won medals at several events, including silver at the 2009 Superseries Masters Finals and bronze at the 2011 World Championships.