TV Mohandas Pai, a former finance chief of software exporter Infosys, accused Dorsey of “hate mongering” against Brahmins
New Delhi:
Twitter
CEO Jack Dorsey has kicked up a social media storm in India after a picture of
him with a placard saying “smash Brahminical patriarchy”, referring to the
highest Hindu caste, went viral in one of the company’s fastest-growing
markets.
The picture, posted on Twitter on
Sunday by a journalist who was part of group of women journalists, activists,
writers whom Dorsey met during a visit to India last week, had him clutching a
poster of a woman holding up a banner with the line that has offended many
Indians.
Several prominent Indians,
including T.V. Mohandas Pai, a former finance chief of software exporter
Infosys, accused Dorsey of “hate mongering” against Brahmins.
“Tomorrow if @jack is given a
poster with anti Semitic messages in a meeting, will his team allow him to hold
it up?,” Pai tweeted. “Why is that any different? Inciting hate against any
community is wrong.”
Twitter India said the poster was
handed to Dorsey by a Dalit activist - Dalits are at the bottom of the social
hierarchy in Hinduism - when it hosted a closed-door discussion with a group of
women to know more about their experience using Twitter.
It added the poster was a
“tangible reflection of our company’s efforts to see, hear, and understand all
sides of important public conversations that happen on our service around the
world”.
Late on Monday, Vijaya Gadde,
legal, policy and trust and safety lead at Twitter who accompanied Dorsey to
India, apologised.
“I’m very sorry for this. It’s
not reflective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to
us - we should have been more thoughtful,” she said in a tweet. “Twitter
strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we
must do better to serve our customers in India.”
Twitter, whose monthly active
users globally averaged 326 million in the July-September quarter, does not
disclose the number of its users in India but its executives have said that the
country was one of its fastest growing.
Its use is only expected to grow
in India in the coming months as political parties in the country of 1.3
billion try to expand their reach to voters ahead of a general election due by
May.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
with 44.4 million followers, is one of its biggest supporters.
“I enjoy being on this medium,
where I’ve made great friends and see everyday the creativity of people,” Modi
tweeted last week after meeting Dorsey in New Delhi.
(This story has been published
from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline
has been changed)
No comments:
Post a Comment