Anna posted earlier about the IIPM affair, where a degree mill in India has pressured a blogger into leaving his job by threatening his employer, simply because they didn’t like a site he linked to.
One thing has been bothering me about this kerfuffle: we have long called for commercial boycotts, e.g. of advertisers with racist radio stations, as preferable to government regulation. At first blush it seems like the IIPM, however false their case and however toady and odious their tactics, were within their rights to threaten to protest at IBM/Lenovo.
But here’s the key difference. When we called for a boycott to get a racist DJ fired, we weren’t going after the DJ’s personal hobbies or his family. We were calling for it because of actions directly in the course of business, actively supported by the DJ’s employer.
In this case, the IIPM didn’t respond to the original article in JAM magazine directly. It didn’t talk with Gaurav Sabnis, the hobbyist blogger who merely cross-linked. It didn’t post a comment with a point by point refutation of the article. That’s what a credible response looks like.
It didn’t, in fact, backing up its assertions in any way whatsoever. Instead it went stalker by going after a completely unrelated party, his day job, his employer, and issuing filmi, melodramatic threats. Burning laptops? Please. That’s like the Indian college students who threaten self-immolation over a minor fee hike. The more nuclear and disproportionate the threat, the less credible, and IBM/Lenovo knows it.
Where does that stop? If someone doesn’t like a site you linked to, do they start calling up and threatening your wife and kids? It’s straight-up blackmail and political thuggery. It’s like the saffronist goon squads who intimidate local candidates and fix elections. It’s like Plamegate, where American politicians who disliked a man’s political opinions treasonously blew his wife’s C.I.A. cover.
It is, in fact, the last refuge of the weak: when the facts don’t support you, bluster and threaten. It’s totally laudable that Sabnis didn’t want to expose his employer to commercial repercussions from something it had nothing to do with. But aside from IIPM, the fault here lies also with IBM/Lenovo for accepting the sucker punch and hinting to Sabnis that the drama wasn’t really welcome.
Commercial pressure is legitimate when applied to related parties. It is totally illegitimate when someone drags a business dispute across private boundaries. That’s usually when you call the cops.
The sucker punch is the definitive mark of a loser. IIPM, your name is mud.
DesiPundit has the roundup. Related posts: one, two
Update: Renegade of Junk penned a parody:
Arindam Choudhry, on being asked for a comment, replied, “We have submitted an ultimatum to IBM that unless they hire new IIPM graduates by tomorrow, we will begin immolating our students on campus… we have students threatening to self-flagellate on the Wipro campus, self-mutilate outside the Infosys building and self-fellate at the TCS office.” [Link]
Hi Manish Excellent point. Btw, there is a new IIPM wiki that gives background on the Ramshi and Sabnis episodes. Why not like to that instead of the IIPM homepage.
Unlike the secularists, communists, Akalis, Muslim League, Dravida parties who play completely fair and abide by the rules of democracy.
Sorry – could not resist the urge.
M. Nam
they are just another degree factory, only they have grown out of proportions… it would be very hard to nip them since they have acquired quite a lot by bleeding the poor students dry…
I think there was a major difference btn boycotting the Radio Station and IBM in this case. IBM was not directly involved in all this mess while the Radio station was. IIPM would have been well within their rights if they had boycotted JAM though.
Hey, I think it’s unfair to badmouth IBM in this case – the fact that they didn’t immediately fire Gaurav, and were more than willing to listen to him goes in their favour. Let’s face it, IBM is a “foreign” company on Indian soil. It’s been kicked out once before. It really has nothing to do with this whole thing. Once the MSM gets hold of this, the only things mentioned will be IIPM, IBM, and IBM Employee resigns not hobbyist blogger working for IBM resigns. Nobody is going to stop to read the facts. It’ll easily become IBM vs IIPM. Further, IBM standing up to IIPM could so easily be painted as “foreign interference”. Sad but true fact – most multinationals have to tread lightly in this regard. Again, what goes in their favour is that they didn’t fire Gaurav. I’m pretty sure that the Indian Software company I’m working would have wanted to totally wash its hand of the affair and would have given Gaurav the pink slip, no questions, dialogue or options.
TTG i think there is huge difference in Indians and Indian govt. approach to foriegn companies now and in 70’s when IBM was kicked out. These days its the IBMs which are providing jobs to Indians. In those it was percieved that IBMs are shipping away Indian wealth a la East India Company.
After reading about this in blogosphere, I could gather this much: IIPM is a IIM-wannabe that has very little to show for itself. Too much gloss, too little substance. Management does not seem to be professional. They sugar-coat everything about themselves.
If they had any PR common sense, they would have responded with: “We don’t comment on insinuations on blogs.” and cut their losses. But Nooooo… they wanted to attack two people(Rashmi and Gaurav) on a personal basis and invite wrath upon themselves.
I do feel sorry for its existing students.
M. Nam
It’s more than two bloggers– now they’re just emailing laughably-worded, empty threats to anyone they find on Technorati.
Pathetic.
Manish, if I were you, I’d be worried sick about getting a legal notice and prepare to flee the country. Oh wait. You are going to Canada 🙂
It’s gonna be interesting to see how this unfolds – 50 million ad budget vs a few hundred bloggers.
I have not seen a more concerted effort among Indian (origin) bloggers, but I am kinda of skeptical about what we can do on this.
Hello, whats with bashing saffronites. Dont you have so called secularites doing the same thing. Ohh come on, bombing temples and issueing death threats isnt secularism, if you havent realized that till now. Go ahead flame me..