(Image source from: Twitter/Anna MM Vetticad)
Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey is facing backlash on social media for holding a placard that read 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy' on Monday.
The picture, posted on Twitter on Sunday by a journalist who was part of a group of women journalists, activists, writers whom Dorsey encountered during a visit to India earlier this week, had him holding a poster of a woman clutching a banner with the line that has displeased galore Indians.
Several prominent Indians, including TV Mohandas Pai, a former finance chief of software exporter Infosys, accused Dorsey of "hate mongering" against Brahmins.
As an Indian I am disappointed at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy' placard - will Minister @Ra_THORe pl take action for this hate mongering against an Indian community,spreading hatred? @PMOIndia @rsprasad https://t.co/TMae3DbNXa
— Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) November 19, 2018
"Tomorrow if @jack is given a poster with anti-Semitic messages in a meeting, will his team allow him to hold it up?" Pai tweeted. "Why is that any different? Inciting hate against any community is wrong."
Twitter India said the poster was handed to Dorsey by a Dalit activist - Dalits are at the bottom of the social hierarchy in Hinduism - when it hosted a closed-door discussion with a group of women to know more about their experience using Twitter.
Recently we hosted a closed door discussion with a group of women journalists and change makers from India to better understand their experience using Twitter. One of the participants, a Dalit activist, shared her personal experiences and gifted a poster to Jack. https://t.co/96gd3XmFgK
— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) November 19, 2018
It added the poster was a "tangible reflection of our company's efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations that happen on our service around the world".
Late on Monday, Vijaya Gadde, legal, policy and trust and safety lead at Twitter who accompanied Dorsey to India, apologized.
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"I'm very sorry for this. It's not reflective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us - we should have been more thoughtful," she said in a tweet. "Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India."
Twitter, whose monthly active users worldwide averaged 326 million in the July-September quarter, does not reveal the number of its users in India but its executives have said that the country was one of its fastest growing.
Its use is only expected to increase in India in the approaching months as political parties in the country of 1.3 billion try to expand their reach to voters ahead of a general election due by May.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with 44.4 million followers, is one of its biggest supporters.
"I enjoy being on this medium, where I've made great friends and see every day the creativity of people," Modi tweeted earlier this week after meeting Dorsey in New Delhi.
-Sowmya Sangam
