Globes in Canada depict wrong map of Indian borders

TORONTO A country can now freely engage in a veiled war ... by influencing young minds with longterm consequences. The manipulation of a map is but an example of this new kind of war through business...

AZAD KAUSHIK, , NAIC president

: On New Year’s Eve, as Sandeep Deswal visited a store in a mall in Malton, a suburb of Toronto where he purchased a small globe for his daughter, sixyear-old Ashmita.

She had written a letter to Santa asking for a globe. However, once he returned home and examined the item closely the family discovered that Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) was separated from India.

Deswal said he would raise the matter with the store.

But he was concerned over how the erroneous depiction of Indian territory would influence children of Indian origin like his daughter: “If we don’t tell her Kashmir is an integral part of the country, she will get a different image of India. The next generation will believe something else,” he said.

This is the third such reported instance since December to have been highlighted by concerned Indo-Canadians.

Two of these globes were manufactured in China and sold at mainstream Canadian outlets.

Sadhna Joshi, a professor at the University of Toronto, encountered a similar globe with all of J&K depicted as a ‘disputed area’.

“I think it’s very important that we don’t let our country be divided into pieces. Action must be taken and these must be withdrawn everywhere,” she said.

Earlier, another retailer had a globe, made in China, that omitted both J&K and Arunachal Pradesh from India.

Aghast at the availability of these globes, an Indo-Canadian organisation is making efforts to have stores pull back these items and become aware of the sensitivities involved.

Azad Kaushik, president of the National Alliance of Indo-Canadians or NAIC, said, “An inaccurate depiction of map on the globe defeats its educational purpose for a student.”

Without naming China, he criticised the making of such globes, “A country can now freely engage in a veiled war through business and trade practices by influencing young minds with long-term consequences. The manipulation of a map on an educational globe is but an example of this new kind of war through business in a globalized world.”

He said the NAIC was “using the power of social media; directly raising the matter with the concerned business and raising the matter in the corridors of power.”

While one of the retailers, a major corporation has withdrawn the product, another has sent NAIC’s complaint to its product compliance department for a review.