Sentence:  Among [Max] Le Blond's exhortations was the need for Singapore theatre to internalise "the conviction that our lives as Singaporeans possess the same theatrical validity, ... [as] the English literary tradition"nb.... This would involve ridding ourselves of a residual colonial consciousness, even at the subliminal level, and revising our perception of the vernacular idiom and local accents, hitherto regarded as non-<WSD>pukka</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Genuine or authentic; "hence" of behaviour: correct, socially acceptable or proper.