New Delhi: Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is suggesting Indians to refrain from using not only foreign products but even ‘foreign-sounding' Indian brands too.
Recently, it released a list of ‘videshi products' which included some top brands of the Indian apparel industry also.
The forum comes out with such lists on frequent basis sharing information of desi-videshi products through different social platforms in order to promote the home-made.
Not realizing that these foreign-look-alikes are actually India-borne, it included names of Aditya Birla Group owned Peter England, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Louis Phillipe, and Raymond owned ColorPlus as not-to-be-used ones.
Raymonds immediately responded to the mistake and e-mailed them with a reply, “We would like to clarify that ColorPlus is purely a homegrown Indian brand launched in the year 1993 in Chennai and was subsequently acquired by Raymond in 2002. We have taken up the issue with SJM and awaiting corrective action.” however, Aditya Group has declined to comment on the issue.
SJM's national co-convener, Ashwini Mahajan has admitted the mistake and assured that it will be rectified soon.
The pro-swadeshi group promotes ‘Swadeshi' by distributing leaflets throughout the country and urges people to adopt Indian products like Godrej soaps, Nirma detergents, Salora Television, or HMT watches and asks them to refrain from usage of items made by multinationals like Coke, Colgate, Samsung and Adidas.
Rumors are that the upcoming list will also ask people to not to buy from ecommerce firms like Amazon and eBay. It will also include foreign-funded homegrown online retailers such as Flipkart, Myntra, Snapdeal, Jabong in this list.
"According to our research, Flipkart turned out to be a foreign company. So is Snapdeal," Mahajan said.
Flipkart has declined to comment on the statement while Snapdeal and Jabong did not respond to the e-mails.
Interestingly, the Jagran Manch collates the data of brands with the help of outside experts and classifies a company local only if it has 50% equity held by Indians.
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