Godrej’s [Est 1897, Revenue $ 4.1 billion] strategy is that LGBTQ+ activists should become aggressive once they infiltrate the corporate system. Parmesh Shahani [Indian author and the head of Godrej India Cultural Lab, Yale World Fellow, Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum] brags about his success as an LGBTQ+ infiltrator inside the corporate world. Godrej has defined its human resource policies on LGBTQ+ issues and lobbies other companies to adopt them using corporate ESG ratings as a tool. By embedding aggressive demands for the LGBTQ+ community, their strategy is to pressure companies to follow the lead of Godrej.
Shahani has drafted A Manifesto for Trans Inclusion in the Indian Workplace in which he lists demands that include a variety of costly plastic surgeries that company insurance should cover, in order to be considered inclusive for trans people.
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While we agree that transgenders need restrooms that they are comfortable using, Shahani goes a step further by saying that women should be comfortable with transgenders (who usually have male genitalia) using women’s restrooms. He writes: “gender neutral washrooms are better as opposed to ‘third gender’ or ‘transgender’, because those would create an obvious divide. Trans employees that aren’t ‘out’ yet might not want to use a ‘third gender’ restroom, whereas gender neutral washrooms are open to everyone.”
Also, he wants every company to consider special transportation options for transgender inclusivity and help them find secure housing. On corporate recruitment, Shahani says that in order to be trans-friendly, companies ‘should relax their criteria and evaluate skills such as communication and presentation if they truly want to further inclusion in the company’.
During a talk at Yale, Shahani displayed his intolerance for anyone who disagreed with him. This is an imitation of American Wokeism’s Cancel Culture against all dissent. A report on his talk says that he wants to leave no room for doubters. “When someone in the room stands up and says, ‘let me play Devil’s advocate for a moment,’ say ‘No.’ If someone in the room can’t be an angel of hope, of good sense, then no. Shut up the naysayers,” Shahani said, smiling but serious. “We don’t want you at this moment. We don’t want you ever.”
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| Parmesh Shahani [Indian author and the head of Godrej India Cultural Lab, Yale World Fellow, Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum] |
While awareness, policies of equal opportunity, and non-harassment are noble pursuits, Shahani pushes his agenda aggressively in Godrej, and then uses the ‘Godrej vantage point’ to promote his activism to other corporations. His demands are steep and if an executive resists or wants to debate the proposals on LBGTQ+ within the corporation, he is simply bullied into silence. Shahani repeats the same points everywhere with increasing passion: “There is always some person at a meeting who, when you suggest anything radical or innovative, and this person tends to be a man and in my experience to be an older man, this person will. … the first thing that you should do when you encounter this person is put your hands up and say, ‘NO’, just ‘NO!’ Maybe you shouldn’t play devil’s advocate for a moment because you know the devil has many advocates…… that’s my light answer…because there are so many good ideas that have been sacrificed this altar of this devil’s advocate nonsense and this nonsense always comes from someone who is scared, someone who is older, who is scared, the world is changing around them, they don’t know, so they want to maintain the status.
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Shahani refuses to entertain questions even from executives who inherently have a right and responsibility to debate the HR policy. We find his demands unreasonable: It is one thing to expect that the workplace gives everyone equal opportunities, and is harassment- free, but totally another to demand that the LBGTQ+ community be represented in huge numbers within the business. Shahani even wants to tie business leaders’ compensation based on the queer and trans people they hire.
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A better approach in our view would be one based on Indian traditional ideas respecting the LGBTQ+ individuals without meddling with divisive politics.
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An example of the kind of activist that Godrej promotes is Anish Gawande, brand ambassador for the Godrej India Culture Lab. A close ally of Shahani, Gawande was a humanities student at Columbia University when he spent time on a fellowship at Godrej India Culture Lab and was moved by the experience. He is also a self-described anti- nationalist, founder of Pink List India, and the director of the Dara Shikoh Fellowship program, which is a partnership with the Harvard US-India Initiative.
In his speech to promote Godrej India Culture Lab, Gawande closed by asking people to escalate the Kashmir secessionist movement. He said that GICL is a place to know more about activism by combining digital humanities with the Kashmir cause. He also has a history of supporting rallies against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. One of his articles against India was quoted at the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on South Asia Human Rights on Kashmir. He has openly come out in support of persons responsible for inciting violence in Jawaharlal Nehru University as well as in support of those who openly make claims of wanting to break India. He has also spoken up against the Indian Army.
Gawande shames LGBTQ+ activists who are patriotic Indians and refuse to align with his brand of Breaking India activism. A media report featured how GICL selectively de-platforms and cancels LGBTQ+ activists who do not support an anti-Hindu and anti-India narrative. One such transgender activist is Gopi Shankar Madurai, who was de- platformed from a major event sponsored by Godrej. This, despite the fact that Godrej proudly claims to champion inclusivity and progressive policies.
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| Godrej headquarters in Mumbai |
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(to be continued)