January edition of magazine stokes controversy
By Sreekanth A Nair
Fortune Magazine has stoked a controversy with their depiction of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as Lord Vishnu on the cover of their January 2016 edition, drawing outrage from Hindu community members across the US.
The January edition of the magazine features a story titled ‘Amazon Invades India’, which is about the growth of Amazon in India and the efforts of Bezos to conquer the next trillion dollar market. On the cover page, Bezos is seen with a lotus in one hand and the Amazon logo in the other.
“Lord Vishnu is a highly revered major deity in Hinduism meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be used indecorously or thrown around loosely in re-imagined versions for dramatic effects,” Nevada-based Hindu statesman Rajan Zed said, in a statement.
“Ok, cool @FortuneMagazine now do one with Bezos as Jesus in honor of Black Friday?” tweeted American technologist and blogger Anil Dash. “Also, many Indian people (like my dad) were born under colonial rule. So a headline discussing a corporate ‘invasion’ is probably not ideal,” he said in another tweet.
Patrick Collison, CEO of technology firm Stripe said that Fortune wasn’t the only publication that had used religious figures as CEOs and he posted the image of the cover page of the Economist magazine showing Steve Jobs as Moses presenting the iPad.
“Inappropriate usage of Hinduism concepts and symbols for pushing selfish agenda or mercantile greed was not okay,” Zed said. “Humour is a part and parcel of Hindu society, but there were certain convictions in every tradition, which were venerable and not meant to be taken lightly,” he added.
The cover page was designed by Sydney-based illustrator Nigel Buchanan.
However, after outrage on Twitter, Fortune Editor-In-Chief Alan Murray came up with an apology: “Fair point, Anil. Apologies to those offended,” he tweeted.
Amazon has emerged as a leading e-commerce company in India within three years of its entry.
“With only two years and nine months of operations in the country, Amazon.in has emerged as the largest store, with over 40 million products, of which one million are in-stock and available for immediate shipment. Amazon.in also has the largest fulfilment and storage capacity in India, enabling it to offer premium services of morning delivery, same day delivery and Sunday delivery, all over and above the next day and two-day delivery,” Amazon said recently.
The controversy came a few days after a court in Andhra Pradesh issued a non-bailable warrant against Indian limited overs cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for a case alleging offending the feelings of Hindu community by posing as Lord Vishnu on the cover page of a magazine.