Shaktikanta Das, India’s Economic Affairs Secretary, is a touchy man, by his own admission. Despite being one of the country’s top bureaucrats and being somewhat in charge of running India’s economy, Das still appears prone to rather undiplomatic outbursts. On Sunday, he put out a tweet telling e-commerce giant that it “better behave” or face consequences at its “own peril”.
That’s not ordinary language from a bureaucrat, especially when aimed at a foreign company that, as far as is publicly known, has not flouted any Indian laws. Although he didn’t quite make it clear what he was referring to, one can presume this was about the doormat dust-up – a few days earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took to Twitter threatening Amazon that it wouldn’t get Indian visas unless it immediately took down the listing of a doormat with the Indian flag, being sold on its Canadian site.
Amazon apologised for the offended Indian sensibilities and removed the listing, to much Indian nationalist joy, but naturally that was not the end of it. The offence-taking sweepstakes had been declared open.
Immediately after, Twitter warriors policing Indian culture in places that don’t even count as Akhand Bharat, found chappals with Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi’s image printed on them. Again, the products were not on sale in India – this was the Amazon US site – but the outrage was nevertheless there.
Das didn’t specifically mention the flip-flops, unless using ‘flippant’ in his tweet was a reference to that, but the product nevertheless disappeared from Amazon’s site on Sunday, per some reports (although there were other versions of the same thing still available). However you look at it, that’s a business intervention, naturally guided by the fact that a big nation’s top bureaucrat has promised “peril” if the company doesn’t behave.
National icons
But Das seemed to realise how his headmasterly threat might be taken.
In the doormat dust-up, the Ministry of External Affairs followed up Swaraj’s comment and communicated directly with Amazon, since she did tweet a specific request and a rather bellicose threat if it were not adhered to. In Das’ case, things were vaguer, since he didn’t say what he was complaining about and afterwards insisted that he was tweeting “as a citizen” so nothing more should be read into it.
Naturally there was plenty of reaction online.
Unclear communication from government is what creates uncertain business environments and turns companies off from entering new markets. Firms that are unfamiliar with India are still expected to follow the rules laid down by the government.
Indian officials are making it clear that above and beyond the laws, foreigners will have to start respecting something that doesn’t come with simple guidelines: that nebulous creature known as “Indian sentiments”.
With the doormat it was pretty easy to understand what was going on, and again the flip-flops have someone’s feet touching a picture of Gandhi’s face, which would be offensive to most Indians. But what of all the other things that these companies sell in markets that aren’t Indian?
What’s offensive?
Does a pin calling Gandhi a skinhead count as offensive? Does a hat with a picture of him next to the word ‘iLota’ need to be taken down? Is Gandhi’s face permitted on leggings? Is the Indian flag on a skull inappropriate? And what of maps? Amazon sells lots of maps that don’t exactly put the borders where India puts them. Shouldn’t those come down as well?
The question is not whether the doormat or the flip-flops were offensive. Naturally, for many people, they clearly were. Taking offence also isn’t new. The concern, however, is that Indian authorities at the highest level decided to take offence and make public threats about them. Public grandstanding is tempting to politicians, as US President-Elect Donald Trump has shown, and it’s not likely to go away.
As an Indian, I would be within my rights to ask of my ministers and bureaucrats, if they were willing to make threats for one offensive item being sold somewhere else in the world, why just that one? Why not all these others? And if I were an international company, or even an Indian one, trying to make it in this market, I might just have to be prepared to face the ire of Indian authorities anytime the “Indian sentiment” creature decides to wake up and be offended.
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