Complaint Filed Against Amazon India For Hurting Religious Sentiments

Amazon India has landed in controversy once again as a Bengaluru-based seller on the ecommerce platform has been accused of selling an obscene image of Radha-Krishna on the occasion of Janamashtmi.

A complaint was filed against the seller and the ecommerce giant in Bengaluru by the Hindu Janajagruthi Samithi.

In the complaint, the outfit said that the picture being sold on the ecommerce platform under the title ‘INKOLOGIE Hindu Gods Fine Arts painting’ hurt the religious sentiments of hundreds of millions of Hindus in the country. The poster was also being sold on a separate ecommerce website called Exotic India Art.

Inkologie, the Bengaluru-based seller, has been delisted by Amazon India, as per Inc42’s investigation. However, there are calls for an unconditional apology by Amazon India, and #Boycott_Amazon is trending on Twitter.

This is not the first time that Amazon has landed in such a controversy. In 2019, two separate occasions saw the #BoycottAmazon trend on Twitter. The first one involved shorts and briefs being sold with the print of Shri Ganesha on them, causing mass outrage.

The same year, Amazon India again came under fire for allowing the sale of toilet seat covers and doormats with images of Hindu deities printed on them.

Amazon’s OTT platform, Amazon Prime Video, was also accused of Hinduphobia last year. Several religious and political organisations alleged that the drama ‘Tandav’ deliberately mocked Hindu gods. Its competitor Netflix was also accused of Hinduphobia in 2020 over a Telugu feature film titled ‘Krishna and His Leela’ and a Hindi TV show ‘Bulbul’.

Besides, Amazon India has also been accused of disrespecting India’s national flag on two occasions.

In 2017 and 2022, Amazon India was accused of allowing the sale of products which defamed India’s national flag and were in violation of the Flag Code of India. In 2017, the product in question was a doormat resembling the Tricolour, while in 2022, there were face masks, clothes, keychains and so on.

Amazon follows a largely automated process for listings, allowing bulk listings. The algorithms used to check the listings check image attributes such as resolution and density per square inch (DPI) and not the contents of the images, which causes such products to pop up regularly.

Though Amazon took down all of the sellers and products within hours after the outrage, it raises questions about the listing process and how such instances continue to happen.