New Delhi: Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal lashed out against 'wokeism' and said that all the big tech companies have become their own "sovereigns" and are setting the rules of the world in their own mind.
In an interview with ANI, Bhavish recalled the incident in May this year when Microsoft owned LinkedIn deleted his post when he spoke about "pronoun illness" when LinkedIn referred to him as 'they' on their platform.
Bhavish said, "They've (big-tech companies) become their own sovereigns. Their mindset is that we are setting the rules of the world. All these big tech companies, and I don't mind saying the names, Microsoft, Google, any of these, Meta, you know, they are setting the rules of the world in their own mind."
"So, what happened in this case, I'm a user of LinkedIn. I publish my thoughts on LinkedIn frequently and engage with people. I saw that LinkedIn Pay has made that if you don't enter your pronouns, it'll refer to you as "they". And I don't know when they moved from gender to pronouns. Whereas I'm a man. I mean, I want to be referred to myself as a "he", but I don't want to set my pronouns because they're forcing me to engage with this political philosophy of wokeism by making it sort of mandatory," the Ola CEO said.
The Ola CEO pointed out that the common person doesn't even know the political philosophy they are importing when they engage with such features on these platforms.
"If you don't set your pronouns, you're a "they". We don't even know the political philosophy we are importing when we engage with these features on these platforms. This debate is not an Indian debate. Why should this feature be here? And this is just a very innocent sounding thing. But it grows into a much deeper impact into our culture, society," Bhavish said.
He continued to say that these big tech companies control what a person sees on the Internet. "So, then I wrote a post on LinkedIn saying there's a pronoun illness here," he added.
Bhavish also talked about his visit to Ayodhya last year, when he learnt about the transgender community there. He also emphasized that the India's culture is truly accepting of any kind of diverse thoughts or physical difference.
"When I had gone to Ayodhya last year on Diwali with my wife... Just as normal Indians we went to see and get inspired by the place. We learnt about the transgender community there, which is a very deep part of the Ramayana. And that's our culture of truly accepting. It's acceptance of any kind of diverse thought or physical difference or whatever. That's why I wrote all of this on LinkedIn. And then they deleted it which also shows, if this can happen with me, then a normal young Indian professional, they don't even have a voice then," he added.
Aggarwal also asserted that India needs to build its own technology built on the value systems of our own. "We as an Indian ecosystem need to realize that these battles are actually not legal battles. These are technology battles. And we have to build our own technology built on the value systems of our own. For example, when I see this future of AI, we have a uniquely Indian idea called digital public infrastructure. UPI and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an example of that," Bhavish said.
