Following a tri-colored doormat row wherein e-commerce giant Amazon had to withdraw the product that was offensive to Indian sensitivities from its Canadian platform after facing warnings from external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, the e-commerce platform has now also pulled out flip-flops bearing the picture of Mahatma Gandhi.
“We have been in touch with Amazon both in Washington as well as in Delhi and we have had constructive conversations,” said external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup. “I am happy to report that the offending item has since been pulled by Amazon and we hope that our engagement will continue to be fruitful,” he added.
While lashing out at e-commerce giant, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das had said in a tweet on Sunday that the company must stop “being flippant about Indian symbols and icons”, as images of flip-flops surfaced with Mahatma Gandhi’s picture on it for sale.
Later, the top official clarified that he had commented,” as a citizen of India.
Recently, Amazon removed flag doormats from its Canadian website after an enraged Sushma Swaraj sought an apology and threatened to cancel visas of Amazon officials after her attention was drawn to the issue thorough tweets.
“As a follow up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments,” foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
Amazon then wrote a letter to Swaraj expressing regrets at hurting Indian sensibilities.
“A third-party seller, not Amazon, had listed these products for sale in Canada. These products were not available in India. After learning of the product’s listing, we immediately removed them from the Canadian website and implemented measures to ensure that these products could not be sold on any of our other marketplace or websites,” the letter said.
