So yeah, Indian govt bureaucrats are after Amazon – first Amazon Canada for selling Indian flag doormats and now Amazon India for selling Gandhi chappals.
The bureaucrats have publicly threatened the company and if Amazon fails to fix the issue, the company will face some serious consequence.
Face the consequence.
Amazon,better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril.
— Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017
Amazon must tender unconditional apology. They must withdraw all products insulting our national flag immediately. /1
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) January 11, 2017
If this is not done forthwith, we will not grant Indian Visa to any Amazon official. We will also rescind the Visas issued earlier.
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) January 11, 2017
This ‘loose talk’ reminds me of the typical gunda talks that one used to (and still) does over any fight during college days (like : tere ko pata hai mera baap kaun hai ? ).
No decorum. No respect for the process. No respect for the position.
But they are all trying to send a message that ‘hey! We own the country and we are too serious to have a conversation’.
“Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.” – Eric Sevareid
And Guess What! PM Modi Calls For Humour
And in between this ‘intolerance’ by the bureaucrats, Prime Minister has called for a little bit of humour.
I think we need more satire and humour. Humour brings happiness in our lives. Humour is the best healer: PM @narendramodi
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 14, 2017
The power of a smile or the power of laughter is more than the power of abuse or any other weapon: PM @narendramodi
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 14, 2017
Humour builds bridges instead of breaking them. And this is exactly what we require today: PM @narendramodi
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 14, 2017
Sweet irony ?
For a country where people are jailed because of an ‘offensive’ tweet and companies are threatened because of actions from their global counterparts, we probably need a bilateral agreement on sarcasm and humour with other countries.
Note that Indian ecommerce players like Flipkart are selling US flag products and that’s all the right reason for Trump to ban any investment from a US company to India?
Where do we stop ? And where do we begin ? Aren’t politicians down to street-fight-styled-cheap-talks, with no respect to the position?
Is this what will move the needle for “Doing Business in India” ? Forget about business, why are we becoming such a serious country which can’t take satire / humour (remember that AIB video which was banned) ?
Aren’t we too serious for no serious reason?
Mixing humour and harsh reality is a very human behaviour, it’s the way people stay sane in their daily lives. [Jorge Garcia]
While we are at it, take a look at some of these funny moments by this dude called Obama. Time for us to go easy and focus on things that are really important.
“When humor goes, there goes civilization.” – Erma Bombeck
