FabIndia, the ‘traditional’ clothing brand was accused of defacing the Hindu festival of Diwali owing to new promo, where it supposedly named its festive collection as Jashn-e-Riwaaz (celebration of tradition).
The company’s clothing is a favourite among people for their ‘ethnic-printed’ kurtas.
Many online viewers called out FabIndia for unnecessarily trying to infuse religions, and trying to impose a ‘secular’ world view on a Hindu festival. The post featured men and women adorning festive, Indian ethnic clothing in a vibrant shade of red.
FabIndia had tweeted out the collection on October 9, with the post , As we welcome the festival of love and light, Jashn-e-Riwaaz, by FabIndia is a collection that beautifully pays homage to Indian culture .
After it put out the promo on Twitter, some social media users called for a boycott of the brand, making the campaign one of the top trending pieces.
While the company insisted that this was not a Diwali collection in particular, alluding to another line soon to be launched under another campaign, it was trolled on social media for what some said was unnecessarily uplifting secularism and Muslim ideologies in a Hindu festival, saying that it hurt their religious sentiments.
Both the tweet and ad campaign were pulled by FabIndia on Monday, following the uproar.