CHENNAI: A US-based multinational company, PayPal, which has its office on the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), was forced to produce a written apology here on Wednesday after a group of activists protested, outside the firm’s premises, against usage of caste titles along with State names on the banners promoting the company’s annual day event.
Activists from the ‘Save Tamil’ organisation, a forum consisting of IT professionals, who organixed the protest, said the banner promoting the celebrations, was erected sometime last week announcing the bifurcation of employees into teams on the basis of their State origin for a thematic annual day celebration.
The banner carried names of groups such as “Iyers of Tamil Nadu” and “Banerjees of Bengal,” which the activists, as well as some employees within the firm, found to be “offensive” and “stereotypical,” activists said.
The issue was raised with upper management of the company in the United States through e-mails by Save Tamil activists as well as city-based environment activist Nityanand Jayaraman. Elangovan, a member of the group, said that following the mail, the banners, as well as the a website put up for the celebrations, was brought down sometime on Tuesday. However, no communication was made to the people who brought the issue to the management’s notice, he said.
Following this, a protest was staged on Wednesday morning outside the PayPal office on OMR after which the company produced an apology statement which claimed that the names given to the teams were “aimed to reflect the diversity of the employees.”
The statement further clarified that the names chosen “unintentionally referred to higher castes within individual Indian communities” and added that it “did not represent the true diversity that they wished to express.”
The protest was given up following the release of the statement.