Ola's Bhavish: ‘India Respects All, No Need For New Gender Pronouns’

Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal was met with pushback on social media platform X for his strong views on controversial gender politics.

He termed it “pronouns illness”, and thinks the trend must be rejected as there's no need for new gender pronouns.

Why?

According to Agarwal, the Indian culture inherently respects all individuals so adding the complexity of gender pronouns doesn’t serve any purpose.

His post on X included a screenshot of a response from an AI chatbot gender-correcting him as ‘they’ in his bio description.

“Most of us in India have no clue about politics of this pronouns illness. People do it because it’s become expected in our corporate culture, especially MNCs

Better to send this illness back where it came from. Our culture has always had respect for all. No need for new pronouns”: Aggarwal wrote in his X post.

Notably, Aggarwal has recently launched his homegrown chatbot called Krutrim AI against Altman’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Although the use of pronouns in the corporate world has been a global topic of debate. Some believe that it shows respect for individual identities, while others consider it confusing or unnecessary. 

Aggarwal believes that the adoption of such practices in India is due to external influence rather than a genuine understanding or need within the country's corporate culture.

However, one can also derive from the drama that it’s a part of Aggarwal’s larger campaign against Western tech giants trying to establish a foothold in India.

Social Media Reaction:

Aggarwal’s post has produced strong reactions from X users.

One user wrote: “What rock have you been living under? They/them/their aren't new pronouns or unusual. I guess the need to display your transphobia overrides pretty much everything.”

Another user wrote: “100% I am seeing people using gender pronouns on their linkedin profiles. Why?”

While one user wrote: “Hi @Olacabs @ola_supports with this Homophobic and Genderphobic tweet from your CEO where he calls pronouns as “illness”, are we to Understand that Ola is ANTI-LGBTQIA?“