Who’s the Sexist ‘Uncle Please Sit’ Indian CEO Of Twitter?

He joined Twitter's misogyny party in 2017, confident that he would be better than his contemporaries.

Until recently, the first thing that came to mind when you thought about this industrialist was his impressive art collection. The pink papers are full of gushy articles about it. ‘He has so many paintings that he has lost count,’ declared Business Standard about this CEO who is in his 60s. Not to be outdone, The Economic Times reported that he buys art for pleasure, not investment. I have no idea what the rest of the article says because it’s behind a paywall and thankfully, my days of reading what masquerades as business journalism in this country are over.

In this interview from 2017, you can hear this CEO drone on about why he’s on Snapchat (‘millennials’); why he thinks he’s cooler than his contemporaries on Twitter (‘most are pushing their brand or praising politicians whom they want to please’). People advised him not use emojis or he wouldn’t be taken seriously. He ignored their advice because, apparently, ‘90% of the time on Twitter, he is Harsh Goenka the human being’.

Well, Harsh Goenka the human being is now everyone’s least favourite sexist CEO uncle on Twitter who has outed himself as a sharer of wife jokes—that most despicable category of forwards on Indian WhatsApp groups—and overall, an extremely tone deaf individual. Also, one has to wonder whether or not he understands that what one finds funny shines a sharp light on one’s prejudices, right?

Sample the chronology of his wife humour. Only the bits I found in 5 mins flat because I couldn’t bear to waste more time on this search.

2018 @hvgoenka here are two kinds of wives: The first type is obedient to her husband, is understanding, is always smiling and happily accepts the remote control with the husband.The second type..........is the one that everyone has.

2021 @hvgoenka I asked Swami Harshanand, “Where did the word ‘wife’ come from?”He replied, “It is derived by taking the first two and last two alphabets from ‘WILDLIFE’. #gurupoornima advice

2021, deleted @hvgoenka “Bill Gates divorced. Jeff Bezos divorced. Moral: Don’t earn so much money that the wife finds divorce alimony more appealing than the husband. Keep spending money on yourself."

2022 @hvgoenka I told my wife “You are cute when you are mute.” My wife replied “You are honey when you give me money!”

Today, he shared this tired meme which he later deleted. I got this image from Rituparna Chatterjee’s Twitter handle @MasalaBai.

Goenka thinks he’s being SO funny. But he’s just indulging in Twitter’s favourite global pastime: misogyny. It’s a social media platform run by a misogynist where Indian men feel comfortable showing their true colours and get cheered on by fellow Indian men who endorse their Stone Age views. And who block any irritating feminists—male or female—who call them out.

I have to say this meme really pisses me off because just last week when I went to the neighbourhood store to ask if he had any peeled garlic, the store owner who was hanging with his friend laughed scornfully and told the other gent: ‘In 18 years nobody has asked me for peeled garlic!’ Right. Sorry to bust your 16th century life where women laboured for hours in the kitchen with no option available to them.

Goenka has blocked this filmmaker, this award winning journalist, this feminist who calls him out repeatedly and a zillion other people. Homework: Do a Twitter search for Goenka + blocked, you’ll thank me.

Goenka should read this Swaddle piece on sexist spouse jokes which quotes Falguni Vasavada, a professor of marketing.

“I feel sick on how gendered and rooted in stereotypes these jokes on women, especially on wives are. They are rooted in classical conditioning that society has towards gender and gender roles. Most jokes laugh at women; demean the role of wives; firmly establish the wife as the homemaker; strongly advocate the wife as the kitchen manager. There are many jokes that laugh at women going to their parents’ home and ‘giving freedom’ to their husbands. Jokes like these further endorse the fact that a woman has no value-added role to play in a marriage or family.

Then again, his response will probably be: It’s just a joke.

I don’t know if Harsh Goenka has figured out millennials in his years on social media, but they certainly know him now—and for much more than his art collection. And all they want to tell him is in that line immortalised by Sansa Stark in GoT: Uncle, Please Sit.