- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
AMERICAN e-commerce giant Amazon on Monday (24) faced flak from a section of Indian social media users over merchandising some products, including apparel and food items, that feature the Indian Tricolour, with some saying that using the national asset in such way was an insult and violation of the country’s flag code.
The incident happened two days ahead of India’s 73rd Republic Day on January 26.
Irked netizens shared pictures of items such as apparel, cups, keychains and chocolates that feature images or imprint of the Tricolour on Amazon.in website and sought a ban on the items.
Hashtags such as #AmazonInsultsNationalFlag were also trending on Twitter.
Amazon did not respond to emailed queries seeking comments, the Press Trust of India reported.
Some social media users noted that using the Tricolour on products is against the Flag Code Of India, 2002.
Some netizens said such usage is an insult to the national flag while others pointed out that it was a cheap method of increasing sales and that this will not increase the patriotism of Indian citizens.
“The flag shall not be used as a portion of costume or uniform of any description. It shall not be embroidered or printed upon cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins or boxes,” as per the code.
This is not the first time that Amazon has faced such a backlash. In 2017, the company was forced to remove doormats depicting the Tricolour that were listed on its Canadian website after a strong protest from India.
