‘Be more forceful in apology’, Piyush Goyal asks Hyundai over Kashmir posts

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has asked automaker Hyundai to be more forceful in its unequivocal apology over social media posts by Hyundai’s Pakistan partner on Kashmir. “Government has asked company to be more forceful in unequivocal apology,” Goyal told the Rajya Sabha in the ongoing Budget session.
 
Hyundai Pakistan’s social media handles posted, “Let us remember the sacrifices of our Kashmiri brothers and stand in support as they continue to struggle for freedom.” They used the hashtag #KashmirFreedomDay. While the posts were deleted later, Internet users shared screenshots of the same and demanded a complete boycott of Hyundai vehicles in the Indian market.
 
Soon after this, Hyundai India issued an apology statement on its official Twitter handle on Monday. Hyundai said in its statement that the “unsolicited social media post linking Hyundai Motor India is offending our unparalleled commitment and service to this great country.”

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“Hyundai Motor India has been committed to Indian market for more than 25 years now and we stand firmly for our strong ethos of respecting nationalism. The unsolicited social media post linking Hyundai Motor India is offending our unparalleled commitment and service to this great country. India is second home to the Hyundai brand and we have zero tolerance policy towards insensitive communication and we strongly condemn any such view. As part of our commitment to India, we will continue our efforts towards the betterment of the country as well as its citizens,” the statement read.
 
The auto major issued another statement wherein it said that an independently-owned distributor in Kashmir made these social media posts and that they were unauthorised. The auto major said in this statement that Hyundai Motor does not comment on political or religious issues in any specific region as a business policy.
 
It added, “Therefore, it is clearly against Hyundai Motor’s policy that the independently-owned distributor in Pakistan made unauthorised Kashmir-related social media posts from their own accounts.” Hyundai further said that they made the distributor “acutely aware of the inappropriateness of the action” once the situation was brought to their notice.
 
“We have since taken measures to ensure the distributor which misused the Hyundai brand identity has removed the social media posts and we have put in place processes to prevent a future recurrence,” it said. It clarified further that Hyundai Motor India is not associated with the Pakistan distributor. The company said, “We strongly reject the distributor’s unauthorised non business related social media activity.”