When Michelin-starred restaurateur Atul Kochhar sent out a tweet more than a week ago, little would he have imagined that he would get booted out of his restaurant for it.
Here’s the timeline: Quantico , a TV show starring Priyanka Chopra, televised a plot line about Hindu nationalists striking terror in the U.S. Some Hindus were offended. The television network and Ms. Chopra apologised on Twitter . Mr. Kochhar replied, “It’s sad to see that you have not respected the sentiments of Hindus who have been terrorised by Islam over 2000 years. Shame on you.”
The blowback was immediate. Mr. Kochhar’s first apology was vague. He seemed sorry that he got his facts wrong — Islam is less than 1,500 years old. In Dubai, Mr. Kochhar runs Rang Mahal, a restaurant in the JW Marriott Marquis. People tweeted that they wouldn’t eat there again. An online magazine removed his restaurants from their listing. He then wrote a more emphatic apology, but it wasn’t enough to contain the outrage. Three days later, JW Mariott Marquis terminated their relationship with Mr. Kochhar.
Outrage and punishments for social media offences can sometimes be disproportionate. Mr. Kochhar is hardly the first celebrity to see professional repercussions of a personal tweet. Recently, American TV personality Roseanne Barr’s show was cancelled by the network after she posted racist tweets. They were “2am Ambien”-induced tweets, she pleaded, to little avail. Last month, a HR professional was fired after he suggested violence against Kashmiris.
Many aspects of these episodes are worth noting. First, there is a tendency to lower the bar on political correctness when it comes to online discourse. The antidote to “too much political correctness” is apparently the ability to “speak things as you see”. In the U.S., for example, the rise of Donald Trump is to no small extent linked to his eschewing dignity and diplomacy on social media. Second, users may be lulled into thinking social media is a “safe space” where one can bravely speak “the truth”, but tweets are bereft of context and nuance. Therefore, it is safer to be neither ironical nor sarcastic on this platform. Had Mr. Kochhar said this to his friends, they probably would have had the context to understand whether this was a casual, throwaway remark or Islamophobia. Third, while the laws provide for freedom of expression, often the terms of employment do not. Corporates consider the projection of the values of their organisation more important than their employees’ opinions on politics and religion. Companies’ policies on social media use are usually strictly worded and provide enough ground to terminate employment, especially if employees encourage violence, make threats or get abusive. Twitter users often tag employers in response to offensive statements — real or perceived — and people have lost their jobs because of the venom they spewed online. Still, more people get away than get caught. Mr. Kochhar got caught.
The writer is an Associate Editor with The Hindu in New Delhi
