Upset Hindus are urging San Francisco headquartered “global e-commerce platform” Wish for the immediate withdrawal of shorts/swim-trunks carrying an image of Hindu deity Lord Ganesha; calling it highly inappropriate. 

Hindu leader from Reno, Nevada, Rajan Zed in a statement, said that Lord Ganesha was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to adorn one’s thighs, groin, genitals, and pelvis for mercantile greed. Inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols or icons for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees. 

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged Wish CEO Peter Szulczewski to offer a formal apology; besides withdrawing Lord Ganesha shorts/swim trunks.  

Wish and its parent ContextLogic Inc. should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, and ridiculing entire communities. It was deeply trivializing of immensely venerated Hindu deity Lord Ganesha to be displayed on shorts/swim-trunks, Rajan Zed emphasized. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled; Zed noted. 

Rajan Zed further said that such trivialization of Hindu deities was disturbing to the Hindus world over. Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it hurt the followers, Zed added. 

In Hinduism, Lord Ganesha is worshipped as a god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking.

Objectionable Ganesha Mens Shorts/Swim-Trunks at Wish were described as “stylish” and “breathable”.