‘Clothing companies should not appropriate religion, sacrilege and ridicule entire communities’: Hindu leader demands Brazilian brand to remove image of Lord Ganesh from shorts

An Indian religious leader has asked a Brazilian fashion clothes brand to remove the image of Hindu deity Lord Ganesh from one of its lines of shorts for men and women. He said, “Lord Ganesh was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to adorn one’s thighs, hips, groin, buttocks, genitals and pelvis.”

An Indian religious leader has asked a Brazilian fashion clothes brand to remove the image of Hindu deity Lord Ganesh from one of its lines of shorts for men and women. Hindu cleric Rajan Zed demanded that clothes maker Jon Cotre offer an apology for “deeply trivializing” one of the most revered gods of Hinduism, the world’s third largest religion with about 1.2 billion followers. “Lord Ganesh was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to adorn one’s thighs, hips, groin, buttocks, genitals and pelvis,” Zed, who is based in the U.S. state of Nevada, said in a statement.

The shorts by John Cotre

It was not possible to contact the company located in Sao Paulo on Friday due to a holiday in the state.

Zed said the inappropriate use of Hindu deities, symbols or icons for commercial purposes hurt devotees.

“Clothing companies should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege and ridiculing entire communities,” Zed said.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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