After pressure from international groups Gujarat’s ‘Hitler’ Clothing Store to Be Renamed

From: The New York Times September 4, 2012

Gujarat’s ‘Hitler’ Clothing Store to Be Renamed

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

Rajesh Shah, the co-owner of a store named "Hitler" prepared a bill for a customer in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on Aug. 29, 2012.Ajit Solanki/Associated PressRajesh Shah, the co-owner of a store named “Hitler” prepared a bill for a customer in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on Aug. 29, 2012.

The owners of a men’s clothing store in Ahmedabad named Hitler say they have decided to rename the shop after receiving hundreds of phone calls and pressure from international groups.

“I receive almost a hundred calls daily,” a co-owner, Rajesh Shah, said by telephone on Tuesday. They included calls from “ordinary people and organizations all over the world,” nearly all of whom wanted him to change the store’s name, he said. He said local news media had also been coming to the shop frequently. “It was becoming a headache,” Mr. Shah said.

The store’s owners are getting help to decide their new name. “We have thinking of four or five names now, but we have also approached a consultancy,” Mr. Shah said. “We want a name that is as powerful as the last one, but one that has a more positive association that negative.”

The owners were widely criticized in local and international media, and appeals to change the store’s name came from as far away as the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, as well as members of the local Jewish community in Ahmedabad.

The shop is one of a handful of businesses in India named after the Nazi dictator.

Mr. Shah had said earlier that the name was chosen because it had been the nickname of his business partner Manish Chandani’s grandfather. Mr. Shah stressed Tuesday that the name was being changed to avoid offending the Jewish community. He had said earlier that if Jews did not like the store’s name, they should not visit it.

Mr. Shah said the last straw was when two local officials told him his license would be revoked unless he renamed the shop. That happened after Israel’s consul general in Mumbai, Orna Sagiv, held meetings with Gujarat state government officials Monday. Ms. Sagiv said last week that she planned to tell Gujarat officials, including Chief Minister Narendra Modi, that the shop’s name was “unacceptable and insulting.”

Esther David, a well-known Jewish Indian author who was part of a group that met with Mr. Shah, said she was happy that their protests had been heard and surprised that he had agreed to change the name so quickly. “We were very dejected after meeting Mr. Shah” last month, she said. “It was clear to us that he knew what Hitler stood for and was adamant on not changing the name when we met him.”

Mr. Shah said he would cover the costs of rebranding his store, though he had said earlier that he should receive compensation to do so. He said business had been good since the store opened. “All my customers, all of them said they liked the name. A man even called from Assam, to tell me the name was good and that I should not change it.”

What new name should Mr. Shah and Mr. Chandani give to their clothing store? India Ink welcomes your suggestions in the comments below. Our nominee for the best name will receive a copy of Gandhi’s “The Story of My Experiments With Truth,” and we will send the suggestion to Mr. Shah and Mr. Chandani.