Indians Are Angry As Amazon Sells Toilet Seat Covers With Images Of Hindu Gods

When will Amazon learn the lesson of selling items hurting religious and patriotic sentiments? Sometimes, it didn’t sell directly but third parties did. Another question is why Amazon doesn’t know what products are on sale across its platform. The one possible answer is that Amazon’s blinders may be overworked.

You should know these past events

In 2017, Amazon Canada sold India’s national flag online. The Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj sent a curt warning to the company about not granting any of its officials Indian Visa, causing the e-commerce giant to quickly solve the matter. The minister also went on Twitter to demand an unconditional apology from Amazon as well as the product to be removed.

Not long after, in the same year, Amazon India began selling skateboards that had a picture of Lord Ganesha. Advocate Ajay Jagga then sent a request to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to remove the product. In his request, the minister also sought an apology as well as a first information report (FIR) if necessary. He said:

In 2018, December, Amazon faced a strong reaction for selling toilet seat covers, rugs, and doormats featuring a picture of Golden Temple. Sim Singh, Senior Manager of Advocacy & Policy at the Sikh Coalition expressed his knowledge of several sellers posting products on Amazon's platform, which appropriated the imagery of the Golden Temple in particular and the spiritual imagery of the eastern culture in general. He wrote to Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, and David Zapolsky, Senior VP & General Counsel. The company removed the products shortly, but people had already been pissed.

More recently, in January 2019, Amazon did it again. It was found selling floor mats and toilet seat covers featuring Islamic scripture. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) then asked the company to remove these items.

And now...

It was discovered that the company is selling toilet seat covers, rugs, and shoes with pictures of Hindu gods. Not long after, on May 16, the hashtag #BoycottAmazon got popular on Twitter.

Thousands of Twitter users tagged Sushma Swaraj, urging her to do something about this company. Indian people across the world have shown their rages over the incident.

And many more if you search the hashtag on Twitter. Amazon really needs to improve the situation because just like social media, people require other online platforms to be responsible for communal discord too.