Fortune magazine has been criticised by a Hindu group for depicting Amazon boss Jeff Bezos as Lord Vishnu to illustrate the cover story of its January international edition.
The story is about Amazon’s ambitions to succeed in India, and features the cover line ‘Amazon invades India’.
US-based Hindu rights campaigner Rajan Zed said the cover trivialises a venerated deity and requested that the Time Inc-owned magazine publish a disclaimer on its website and the next issue with a an explanation about Lord Vishnu and Hinduism.
Zed asked for an apology from Time Inc. chairman Joseph A. Ripp; Fortune publisher Eric Danetz, magazine editor Alan Murray, creative director Michael Lawton and art director Michael Solita.
He said that Hindus while “understood that the purpose of Fortune in this case apparently was not to denigrate Hinduism, but casual flirting like this sometimes resulted in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols and hurting the devotees.”
Zed, who is a member of the Indo-American Leadership Confederation, has complained about Western brands using Hindu symbols to sell products in the past. A year ago, his group took issue with Australian craft brewery Brookvale Union using Lord Ganesha on its beer bottles, and an American brewer using teetotal peace icon Mahatma Gandhi on its beer cans.
