Traders’ Body to Burn Effigies of Amazon, Flipkart on This Holi to Demand Stronger FDI Rules

Traders in India say they will burn effigies of Amazon and (Walmart-owned) Facebook as a protest against deep discounting and pricing tactics they say are hurting local businesses. Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Tuesday announced that traders would burn effigies of Amazon and Flipkart on this Holi (March 28) to protest against the alleged ill practices of foreign companies in the e-commerce sector. The domestic traders’ body also planned an “E-commerce Democracy Day” on March 25 and urged traders to conduct rallies throughout the country to put pressure on the government to bring tough changes in the existing e-commerce foreign direct investment (FDI) policy. The new move by CAIT comes just in a week after meeting with the officials of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

CAIT Secretary General Parveen Khandelwal told Gadgets 360 that the aim of the planned protest was to demand the government to issue a new press note in place of the press note number 2 of the present FDI policy.

“We feel that the present e-commerce business of India is totally hijacked by Amazon, Flipkart, and some other companies, and they are doing all kinds of malpractices which include predatory pricing and deep discounting that are not allowed under the FDI policy press note number 2,” he said.

CAIT had a meeting with the government officials in which the concerns over the growing “malpractices” of foreign e-commerce companies were raised. The traders’ body also urged commerce minister Piyush Goyal to set up a regulatory authority to look after the violation in the e-commerce business of the country.

“Because we treat Amazon and Flipkart as demons, we have advised trade associations to burn effigies of both to vent out their anger and resentment,” Khandelwal said.

He added that CAIT wanted Amazon and Flipkart to follow all the rules and regulations laid by the government.

“We want stringent laws for all those companies who are into e-commerce business… so that there has to be an even level playing field for all,” he said. “If they follow all the rules and regulations, we have nothing against them. Let them do business.”

Amazon and Flipkart both did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned protest.

Should the government explain why Chinese apps were banned? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.