Hyundai India buckles under pressure, issues an unconditional apology

Losing customers’ support is one of the worst fears of any company. Hyundai is not different. This is the reason why they have issued an unconditional apology to Indians.

Hyundai offers a wishy-washy apology

Hyundai has disassociated from the Kashmir liberation agenda of Pakistan. In their apologetic tweet, Hyundai said that it’s not in their company’s policy to comment on political and religious issues in any specific country or region.

Hyundai claimed that the tweet sent in support of Pakistan’s Kashmir agenda was not an authorised one. They said that it was sent by some independently-owned distributor.

Read more: Liberal media brands the killed Hindu worker in Kashmir as “non-native”

Hyundai claims that India and Pakistan business arms are different

Stating that the distributor had removed the social media post, the statement said, “Once the situation was brought to our attention, we made the distributor acutely aware of the inappropriateness of the action. We have since taken measures to ensure the distributor, which misused Hyundai brand identity, has removed the social media posts.”

The company also cleverly seperated its businesses in India and Pakistan. If Hyundai’s apology letter is to be believed then Hyundai India is their subsidiary while the company’s Pakistan operations are being run by a distributor. Additionally, according to them, the said distributor was not authorised by the company to post the controversial content.

Piyush Goyal asks for more

Meanwhile, India has asserted that Hyundai’s apology is mere formality and need to be more ‘forceful’.  Piyush Goyal, India’s Union Commerce and industry minister, said, “They [Hyundai] have already issued a clarification yesterday. We have also asked them to be more forceful in their unequivocal apology on this issue”

The controversy

Hyundai Pakistan marked ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’ on Saturday and urged people to remember the ‘sacrifice’ of Kashmiri brothers and sisters. Posting an image from Kashmir, the caption read, “Let us remember the sacrifices of our Kashmiri brothers and stand in support as they continue to struggle for freedom.”

On Instagram, the message for Kashmir which Hyundai Pakistan had was this: “Praying for the liberation of our eternally beautiful Kashmir today and always.”

Read more: What’s cooking Hyundai India?

When it came, to Indians’ notice, the company started to face flaks. People started questioning both Hyundai as well as Hyundai India and whether they support Hyundai Pakistan’s social media posts. In response to the criticism, Hyundai started to block individual account holders who questioned them. Later #BoycottHundai had started to trend, which resulted in removal of social media posts and now this apology letter.

Other companies fall in line as well

After Hyundai was caught red-handed, people started to point out that various other multinational brands had done similar stunts of challenging India’s  sovereignty. They were also threatened with boycott by Indians. Obviously, no one wants to lose 1.4 billion customers, so companies like KFC and Pizza Hut have also offered unconditional apologies for the same.

If you watch closely, news bulletins are filled with apologies by big brands wishing to run their stores in India. This shows our increasing strength in economic domain which later ultimately transpires into increased strategic power.

Read more: Fab India is not the first. Brands love negative ad campaigns because they work best until they backfire

We are simply telling big brands to either respect us or leave us alone, as they need us rather than the other way around. We won’t let you make money by compromising our national integrity.