Gorkha community files petition against Flipkart's 'racist' ad

E-commerce website Flipkart’s latest advertisement featuring children as Gorkhas has drawn criticism from the Gorkha community, who reportedly called it “simply racist”. Gorkha Youth and Students’ Association of India (GYASA) has filed an official complaint with the Delhi police, CNN-News18 reported. “Their advertisement makes a mockery of the Gorkha community, and stereotypes us as being c_howkidars_, with overly-exaggerated and highly offensive Hindi accent,” the complaint read. On Tuesday, Flipkart reworked a group of ads but the petitioners said that they won’t stop till the “racist” promotion campaign gets withdrawn, according to The Telegraph. Members of the community have also filed a petition against the company and co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in a Delhi court. It has been filed under Section 154 (A) and (B) for criminally conspiring with each other for defamation and hurting the religious sentiment of the Nepali/Gorkhali community, The Business Standard reported. The petitioners allege that they were compelled to take this step after the company failed to respond to their pleas. The petition has also accused Mullen Lintas, the creative agency behind Flipkart ad, and Virat Tandon, chief executive at Mullen Lintas, the report further added. Flipkart uploaded the ad on 19 August but the video has been taken down from YouTube. Binny Bansal’s tweet about the ad remains unavailable as well.

The kids are back :) https://t.co/8WXY2NP8Vx

— binnybansal (@binnybansal) August 19, 2016

Rajan Chhetri, one of the petitioners, said that Flipkart has been very “cold” towards the community’s requests. However, the online retailer responded for the first time on Monday with “a note to our Gorkha brothers and sisters”. [caption id=“attachment_2984798” align=“alignleft” width=“825”] Screengrab from Flipkart website[/caption] It acknowledged that “We (Flipkart) may have unintentionally hurt” sentiments “through the depiction of one of the characters in the advertisement, namely the security guard”. [caption id=“attachment_2984974” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Screengrab from Flipkart website.[/caption] You can read the full letter here. The company also urged the Gorkha community to “enjoy the innocent humour of the communication” while maintaining that their intention was never to typecast any community. The ad for “Flipkart Assured” features a child dressed up as a Gorkha guard, distinguished by his “Bhadgaule Topi” and a “Khukri badge”. Khukri is a traditional Nepali knife. You can watch the ad here: