Bharti Airtel embroiled themselves in controversy as one of their customers denied talking to a Muslim representative because of his religion. Further, she asked Airtel to provide her with a Hindu representative to resolve her problem. After which another Airtel representative took the Twitter thread forward. This reaction of Airtel generated anger in many, as they accused Airtel of not standing up for discrimination on the religious lines. More than airtel’s wrong handling, we need to see this case as where a citizen is flaunting her bigot behavior. 

What happened

On Monday evening, a woman named Pooja, who is a Direct-to-Home (DTH) customer of Airtel expressed her displeasure on the Airtel’s Twitter handle about the problem she faced and how badly one of Airtel representative behaved with her.

After which the Airtel telecom service providers generated a standard response. The Airtel Bharti representative assured her of proper assistance and told her that the company would take a closer look at the matter.

A resident of Lucknow, Pooja was dissatisfied with Airtel’s response as it was sent by a ‘Muslim’ Representative Shoaib. Further, she asked for a ‘Hindu’ representative as she did not believe in the work ethics of Muslims.

In response to her above complaint, Airtel responded with another Airtel customer representative named Gaganjot.

Hi Pooja! As discussed, please let me know what days & time frames work best for you so we can talk. Further, please share an alternate number so that I can assist you further with this. Thank you, Gaganjot

— Bharti Airtel India (@Airtel_Presence) June 18, 2018

This response of Airtel gathered a lot of negative attention from the people. Subsequently, a lot of people started accusing Airtel Bharti of not standing against ‘bigotry.’ Some threatened Airtel of giving up their Airtel connection.

Hey @DoT_India can you take action against @Airtel_Presence for openly endorsing religious hatred and communalism?

— Happucrat (@AreeDada__) June 18, 2018

Jammu and Kashmir minister Omar Abdullah, was among many other people who expressed their anger, tweeted:

Dear @Airtel_Presence this conversation is genuine (I’ve seen the timeline myself). I refuse to pay another penny to a company that condones such blatant bigotry. I’m beginning the process of porting my number to another service provider & canceling my DTH & Broadband. pic.twitter.com/BZxJOaEsN6

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 18, 2018

Hours later, by the time damage was done and Airtel had already gained a lot of criticism, it responded saying that they don’t encourage discrimination.

Dear Pooja, at Airtel, we absolutely do not differentiate between customers, employees and partners on the basis of caste or religion. We would urge you to do the same. Both Shoaib and Gaganjot are part of our customer resolution team. (cont) https://t.co/lbwhRE95vm

— Bharti Airtel India (@Airtel_Presence) June 18, 2018

“The first tweet (posted by Shoaib) was a standard response. As per procedure, if a customer is not happy with a resolution officer, another person takes over. We are not pandering to anyone’s religious biases,” said an Airtel spokesperson, while speaking to the First Post.

However, many see Airtel response as a reaction to the backlash they received on Twitter.

1. How @Airtel_Presence responded to bigotry at 3.25pm.
2. How @Airtel_Presence responded to bigotry at 8.18pm after twitter backlash.
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Happy that @TwitterIndia spoke out, disappointed that I share my Nation / Religion / Service Provider with poison pills like @pooja303singh. pic.twitter.com/dPhgMPzA0E

— Akash Banerjee (@akashbanerjee) June 18, 2018

The Logical Indian Take

While many have criticised Airtel’s handling of the customer request, it is still disheartening to see how the hatred against one community has seeped so much into the public conscience.  A citizen asking a corporate company to provide a representative of a certain religion can be called ‘bigotry on full display’. We as a nation should be proud of the diversity and should respect every human being irrespective of his/her religion. We cannot ascertain if the customer representative was changed intentionally or it was just providing representatives on first come first serve basis but it can be said that the Airtel customer representative who handled the request may not have understood the full implications of his decision.