Malta retailer withdraws ‘Ganesha’ socks on complaint of Hindu campaigner

A Maltese retailer owned by the former Nationalist MP David Thake has apologised to the American religious campaigner Rajan Zed for marketing the sale of socks depicting the Hindu deity Ganesha.

One-man ‘outrage machine’ Rajan Zed – who regularly issues press releases from Reno alleging discrimination for Hindus in Malta – claimed Hindus took offence at Maltashopper’s sale of the socks.

In the past, Zed has take the Maltese state and local Catholic archdiocese to task over various issues, such as the lack of a crematorium for Hindu worshippers. Billing himself a Hindu ‘statesman’, Zed’s apology from Thake’s maltashopper.com is a rare victory.

“Recognising the significance of Lord Ganesh in Hinduism and understanding the inappropriateness of depicting such a revered figure on socks, we are taking immediate and decisive action,” Thake told Zed in an email.

“We do not hesitate to issue an apology to you and the Hindu community, and any others affected by this oversight… we are committed to learning from this incident and making the necessary adjustments to our operations.”

The €6.95 socks were removed from Maltashopper’s website in the wake of Zed’s statement.

Zed, an American, is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, an NGO he started in 2011, after making national headlines in 2007 when a Nevada senator invited him to read a prayer to the US Senate. Zed has since then promoted himself over various causes in which he expressed outrage on behalf of Hindus: as of the 2021 census, there are 6,411 Hindus in Malta that constituted 1.42% of its population.

Zed complained that Lord Ganesha was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to adorn one’s feet-ankles-legs, “keep your feet cosy and dry” or “prevent sweat and odour”.

“Inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols or icons for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees,” Zed said, arguing that such trivialisation of Hindu deities was disturbing to Hindus world over.

“Hindus are for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivialising it was painful for the followers,” he added.

In Hinduism, Lord Ganesha is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking.