E-commerce giant Amazon landed into soup after Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) on Friday submitted a memorandum requesting action against Amazon India for selling an “obscene painting of Lord Krishna with Radha” on their website.
The group had submitted the memorandum to Bengaluru’s Subramanya Nagar police station.
As part of their Janmashtami sale, the painting was being sold at Exotic India website. Bengaluru-based seller Inkologie was selling the painting on Amazon.
Later, Exotic India tweeted out an apology, and said that, “It was brought to our notice that an inappropriate image was uploaded on our website. The same was brought down immediately. We sincerely apologise, Pls dont #Boycott_ExoticIndia #boycott_exoticlndia… Hare Krsna [sic]”.
Replying to the tweet by Exotic India, HJS said, “Thank you for your prompt action. We appreciate that you have deleted the paintings and have issued an unconditional apologies. We hope that you will curate the items on your site to safeguard Hindu sensibilities.(sic)”
Amazon has not yet released any statement about the incident.
After the items were taken down, HJS tweeted saying that “Amazon and Exotic India must tender unconditional apology and pledge not to hurt sentiments of Hindus ever again.”
This is not the first time that Amazon has courted controversy for hurting “religious sentiments”. In 2019, a case was registered against its US website after it was found that toilet seat covers and other items with images of Hindu gods were being sold on the website.
Twitter users had called for a boycott of the e-commerce website, with some even tagging India’s then Foreign Minister late Sushma Swaraj, requesting action against the world’s biggest online retailer.
Again, in 2017, New Delhi took the Seattle, Washington-based company to task after the company’s Canadian website was spotted selling doormats resembling India’s flag. Swaraj had then threatened to rescind visas of Amazon employees if the items were not removed or taken down from the website.