Surrey, February 13, 2022: Numerous community organizations, individuals, and temples gathered on Feb 5 and Feb 13, 2022, to protest against a BC business which has intentionally inflicted pain and has hurt and insulted the religious sentiments of the Hindu Community by using an image of Lord Ganesha in a demeaning and slanderous manner.
Coordinated by Vedic Hindu Cultural Society and Laxmi Narayan Temple, Surrey, general public and representatives from over forty societies and associations came together to express their anger and disappointment at the business ‘Big Dick Energy Coaching’ (Website: https://bigdickenergycoaching.com/) which is using Lord Ganesh’s image as its logo not only on the website but across al its digital media channels including podcast platforms like Anchor FM and Podbay.
Repeated requests to the business owner asking her to disassociate the image of Lord Ganesha from her business name (Big Dick Energy Coaching) has unfortunately not yielded any results. This business owner’s refusal to listen to the Hindu community’s pleas and pay heed, not only shows a blatant disregard of the Hindu culture but is also cultural appropriation. In addition to being extremely hurt and emotionally impacted, Hindu community is also outraged that in a multicultural and multiracial country like Canada, a person/ business can be so ill-informed and ill-intentioned as to appropriate identity of another religion to further its own monetary gains.
The Hindu community of Lower Mainland, British Columbia via this press release wants to share its concern with the local government, federal government, and media and declare that this act of the local business is a veiled attack on Hindu identity, it is racist and cultural appropriation.
Lord Ganesh or the Elephant headed God is the god of beginnings and is widely revered as the remover of obstacles in the Sanatan Dharam also known as Hinduism in The Western World. Hinduism is not only followed by Indian origin people living in Canada but is also followed and practised by immigrants from Nepal, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and many more. There are approximately, 497000 Hindus across Canada, who have been contributing to the nation building and it is the duty of the governments at all levels to ensure that Hindu community feels safe in living, working and raising their families in Canada.
This initiative in organized in support with The Hindu Temple Burnaby; Hindi Literary Society of Canada, Council of Heritage and International Peace, ICA, Global Hindu Foundation of Canada, CHF, Gurukul Canada, Tradesman Association of BC and Happyness Wellness Yoga.
https://www.change.org/p/stop-using-inappropriate-words-big-dick-with-the-image-of-lord-ganesha
