Upset Hindus are urging Haverfordwest (Pembrokeshire, Wales) based online gift-shop “Wisdom Wares” to immediately withdraw socks carrying images of Hindu deity Lord Ganesha; calling it highly inappropriate.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that Lord Ganesha was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to adorn one’s legs/feet/ankles/calves or absorb sweat.
Inappropriate usage of sacred Hindu deities or concepts or symbols or icons for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged “Wisdom Wares” to offer a formal apology, besides withdrawing Lord Ganesha socks.
Online retailers should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, and ridiculing entire communities. It was deeply trivializing of the immensely venerated Lord Ganesha to be treated like this; Rajan Zed emphasized.
Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.2 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Zed noted.
Rajan Zed further said that Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it hurt the followers.
“Wisdom Wares”, whose tagline is “Gifts from around the world, Handmade with love.”, states that “Our socks refer to mysticism, beliefs, traditions and experiences.” Its “Hop Hare Bamboo Socks – Ganesha” was priced at £7.95.
In Hinduism, Lord Ganesha is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking.
