New York (USA) based “Mara Hoffman” has removed swimwear collection carrying image of Hindu Lord Ganesh from its website within 24 hours after Hindus protested, calling it inappropriate.
Product search with “Ganesh” on its website returned no results this evening. “Neiman Marcus” and Amazon.com, who also carried ?Mara Hoffman? swimwear with Lord Ganesh image, also seem to have removed it from their respective websites.
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, who spearheaded this protest, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, thanked “Mara Hoffman”, “Neiman Marcus” and Amazon.com for understanding the concerns of Hindu community, which thought Lord Ganesh’s image on swimwear was inappropriate.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and “Saks Fifth Avenue”; who were still carrying “Mara Hoffman” Lord Ganesh image swimwear on their respective websites; to withdraw it. Zed asked “Mara Hoffman” to urge these companies to also recall this swimwear, one of which was priced for $275.
He suggested corporations to send their senior executives for training in religious and cultural sensitivity so that they had an understanding of the feelings of customers and communities when creating new products or launching advertising campaigns.
Zed had earlier said that Lord Ganesh was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not for pushing swimwear for mercantile greed. Inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.
He had also pointed out that such trivialization of Lord Ganesh was disturbing to the Hindus world over. 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, Zed added.
Mara Hoffman, who launched her first collection in 2000, is usually heavily focused on prints.
In Hinduism, Lord Ganesh is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking. There are about three million Hindus in USA and moksh (liberation) is the ultimate goal of Hinduism.