On October 22,2021, Shefali Vaidya, a popular figure on conservative social media posted a screenshot of an article in response to Shiv Sena politician Priyanka Chaturvedi’s tweet. Chaturvedi had commented on the recent backlash on brand FabIndia’s controversy over their Diwali ad campaign. Users took to social media to express their anger of the words “Jash-e-Riwaaz” used to describe a ‘Hindu’ festival.
Chaturvedi commented on the need for corporations to stick to their words and not buckle under pressure.
In response to this Shefali Vaidya tweeted a screenshot of an article taking a jab at Shiv Sena.
Fact-Check:
We performed a keyword search on the issue and found a 2021 article on Karachi Bakery by Scroll that gave us an update about the issue. Karachi Bakery, Mumbai branch shut down in March 2021 due to financial losses. Until its closure, its name remained Karachi Bakery. The article also covered aspects of the controversy that was mentioned by Vaidya stating that Shiv Sena refused to back the demand of the Shiv Sena leader who approached the bakery.
The owner himself then clarified that the closure had nothing to do with name changing.
Vaidiya posted the screenshot of the article without fully verifying the facts. Neither did Karachi Bakery change their name and nor was the Shiv Sena leader supported by his party when he made the request. Therefore, this claim is misleading. Shefali Vaidya has a history of posting misleading and fake claims. You can read our reports on previous claims here and here.
Analysis:
Shefali’s reply to this particular claim is not a stand alone comment on its own. She was particularly peeved by the fact that the FabIndia ad did not have women wearing Bindis and hence started the hashtag #NoBindiNoBusiness on twitter to condemn the company for not making their models wear bindis.
The hashtag gained quite a bit of popularity and then she began using the hashtag to highlight various businesses that left the bindi off their models. She has taken it upon herself to call out every brand that is not using Bindis in their Diwali campaigns.
Urdu happens to be one of the official languages of India but Vaidya deems this to be erasure of Hindu culture. Since every brand who did not make use of the bindi in their commercials have been boycotted by her, a question does need to be asked whether any woman who does wear a bindi on Diwali is less of a Hindu than those who do? Should a person’s faith and religion be brought down to one’s attire or is it to cancel culture yet again going too far?
