An ad by the jewellery brand in a leading daily depicted the Indian flag without the Ashoka Chakra.
At a time when e-commerce giants like Amazon are scampering to make sure that the national flag isn’t depicted wrongly on any of its products, Kerala-based jewellery brand Joylukkas seems to be playing with fire. In an ad that appeared in various leading dailies, the Ashok Chakra has gone missing from the flag.
The ad seems to be boasting about Joylukkas presence across 14 countries and has flags of a host of countries other than India. Indians were quick to notice the discrepancy and vented their ire on Twitter, demanding an apology from the jewellery brand.
Here’s how Twitter reacted:
The Flag Code of India 2002 has a set of stringent rules against displaying the national flag wrongly, and according to the code the term ‘Indian Nation Flag’ includes ‘any picture. painting, drawing or photograph, or other visible representation of the Indian National Flag, or of any part or parts thereof, made of any substance or represented on any substance’.
For the uninitiated, the Ashoka Chakra is a depiction of the Buddhist Dharmachakra represented with 24 stokes. The symbol appears in a number of edicts including the Lion Capital of Sarnath which has been adopted as the National Emblem of India.
In fact, there’s a school of thought that Ashoka Chakra should have had 32 stokes instead of 24, since it is based on the Buddhist principles of 4 truths and 8 ways of life (4x8=32). Radha Kumud Mukherjee and his fellow MPs had written to Nehru about this mix-up.
He had written to former PM Nehru: “We are concerned to find that our state emblem, known as Ashoka Chakra, is not an accurate replica of the Sarnath pillar, and what is more important, distorts the significance originally sought to be conveyed.” Nehru had replied to Mukherjee: “I rather doubt if it is worthwhile raising this question now and changing the emblem.”
Earlier, Amazon faced a barrage of criticism for its role in the products such as doormats and flipflops with Mahatma Gandhi’s face on them. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had in January threatened to withdraw visas of Amazon officials if the firm failed to make amends, and Amazon had told the Indian government that it had carried out a global audit to ensure such products were not listed on its website.
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