Los Angeles-based jewellery company 'Haati Chai', which is touted to be an inclusive brand, has sparked outrage for selling $2,000 'Dalit rings'. The brand that recently expressed solidarity towards the Black Lives Matter movement got called out for romanticizing the atrocities faced by the Dalit community in India.
Haati Chai's website described the 'Dalit Ring' as: "The Dalit ring has raw, unfinished stones, which many don’t find beautiful because they want “perfectly” finished diamonds. Just like the Dalit caste, the Dalit ring is very unique and extremely beautiful.”
After the brand received flak for capitilasing from the struggles of the Dalit community and tokenism, it issued an apology and changed the name of the product to 'Devi Ring'.
The brand's statement read: "This ring is meant to bring attention to the struggle of marginalized groups. My intent was not executed well at all. Rather than make excuses the piece has been renamed to the Devi Ring in honour of Uda devi - a Dalit woman warrior, one of the "Dalit Veerangas", and an anti-imperialist rebel who defied convention and fought for Indian Independence from British Colonial Rule. This renaming is more in line with our mission and our intention. My intention was always to bring awareness to the marginalized groups in our collective South Asian Community, and I cannot bow away from that mission, but I can make sure I am effective and clear."
Stella Simona added, "We will also be changing the caption of the ring to a more in depth explanation of how important and in my opinion, beautiful community is. The reason I have not been able to donate to a specific grassroots organization is because it is hard to vet them, our company is based in Los Angeles. We have given to small grassroots organizations here in LA that serve victims of violence specifically withing South Asian communities."
The new title and it's description on the website reads: "Uda Devi is an inspiration and an example of how we must be bold and channel our inner Devi."
Haathi Chai's apology received mixed reactions on social media. While some appreciated that the brand has addressed the issue and taken a step in the right direction, others lashed out at the brand.
Reacting to the company's statement, a user commented, "There’s a huge difference between intent and impact. Shining a spotlight on a particular community without figuring out paths to help that specific community is disingenuous irrespective of the change in copy. Dalits have had a long history of oppression and exploitation and this doesn’t help them at all. If you looked into their history, you could’ve looked into resources to help them prior to selling your product. You can’t deny the appropriation for profit here. Untouchable India, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, Dalit Solidarity are all organisations you can support and simple research and outreach to these organisations would’ve got you that. Do better."
"You say you hear us but you’re still not listening! This self-serving, hasty and reactive attempt of an apology makes it worse! Commodifying Dalit lives and histories and profiting off of it with performative “good intention” is far more harmful. You are still not listening! As someone also suggested in the comments - you could rename the ring as “Savarna Violence”, bring more awareness on the issue of oppression of Dalits and donate ALL PROFITS from it to organisations fighting for Dalits’ freedom.
But before you do anything, please pause and take time to learn more about Dalits and oppressive systemic state sanctioned form of social stratification," read another comment.
