I am sick and tired of people who use our religious symbols and pictures of our deities for commercial purposes, often inappropriately. Previously, Goddess Laxmi’s picture was used on a Bikini in Australia, which was withdrawn after protests. Someone used a picture of Goddess Kali in a night club in USA and even, Lord Ganesha was used for a sexual technique by a comedian in USA. Recently, Lord Ganesha was used in a satire in Australia, against which we ran a campaign. A Radio host in Sydney abused River Ganges for which we forced him to apologise last year.
If this was not enough, a brewery named, Burnside Brewery in Oregon, Portland, USA, used Goddess Kali in the promotion of its beer, calling it “Kali Ma” beer. The beer container even had the picture of Goddess Kali with 4 arms and severed heads of 3 men! It’s promotion used words like “Come worship the Black one, Kali, the ultimate reality of Brahma, this Tuesday”!
They have stopped this, only after, people protested against it vociferously. They will rename it shortly. They claimed to not know about the sentiments of the followers of Hinduism. How dumb were they? Did they expect that Hindus will “love” them for abusing our religion?
Goddess Kali, also called Ma Kali [Mother Kali] is a much revered deity of Hinduism and is worshipped by Hindus through India and overseas. I too worship “Ma Kali”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
Someone rightly asked whether any of such people would ever use the symbols/prophets of other religions in this manner.
On a separate but still relevant note, I also believe that India must ban the use of religious symbols, names or pictures of deities in any marketing material in India, where it is a common practice to use such symbols in anything from “Guthka” to Taxis!
Hindus are peace loving and tolerant people, but this does not mean they will tolerate such blatant and disrespectful use of pictures and symbols of deities of Hinduism.
Yadu Singh/Sydney/17th May, 2012
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I agree with you , first we should sort out our own house and than should take stand not to allow others to use our deities in thier business promotion.
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Thank you.
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I am not in favour of playing with someone’s religious sentiments whether those beliefs make sense to me or not . We all understand we are living in free society and everyone has the right to do rightful things which shouldn’t interfere with other’s interests,religious beliefs and obviously not clashing with other’s rights, legal system too. In every civilzed society,We need to draw some lines despite individual freedom to make sure respect to each other’s beliefs, religion , caste, skin colour, race and ethnicity is maintained otherwise we will be having too many conflicts everywhere in this world !!
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Totally agree with you. Regards Yadu Singh
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YOU are asking people to shut up, not me. The society cannot and should not be governed by what one section likes or dislikes. If you dislike it, ignore it. They are free to do what they ‘like’….be it making fun of Kali, Christ or Mohammed. In other words…..tolerance! Your attitude is quite classical of Mr Bush….preach peace and practice war!
Cheers
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Protesting something which I did not like is just a protest, not war!
Cheers!
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Yadu, I think we live in a very free and open society where nearly everyone and everything is capable of being made fun of or cartooned. I take your point re not offending people’s religious sensibilities but my question is if the so-called God’s are really so powerful why do they need your blog to come to their defence? Please let us not go down the way of fatwas against such ‘blasphemy’. If the Gods cannot defend themselves, how can they protect us?
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That same “freedom” allows me to protest if someone is doing something I do not like.
Cheers, Manmit Bhai.
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