Flipkart Fracas: The Curious Quiet of Bengaluru’s Young Techies

While the Flipkart CEO’s sudden departure set tongues wagging, The Quint’s sojourn to Ground Zero was disappointing

While Binny Bansal’s sudden exit from Flipkart has set tongues wagging in India’s tech space, there is a deafening silence from ground zero.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Despite having no great insight or extraordinary interest in the machinations of India’s burgeoning information technology industry, when this past Tuesday brought news of Flipkart’s CEO and co-founder Binny Bansal stepping down due to allegations of “personal misconduct” dating back to 2016, my interest was piqued. Here was a tech billionaire and the role model for many young entrepreneurs, unceremoniously being made to quit from the very company he had helped build, thanks to “lapses in judgment” and “a lack of transparency”.

It was an unsettling story of how one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs had willingly stepped down, for the greater good of Flipkart’s name.

The intentional vagueness of the narrative being put forward in company communication was enough to hint that there was something larger brewing. So, I set off to ground zero – Embassy Tech Village on Outer Ring Road, the home of Flipkart’s fancy new digs, and also housing at least a half-dozen other tech companies.

Despite Bansal working out of one of the three buildings that constitutes Flipkart’s new office, the word on the street was stale and surprisingly silent. Expecting to catch some of the buzz around the latest developments at one of India’s most successful start-ups, that recently lost its ownership to American giant Walmart, I was heartily disappointed.     

Tepid Indifference and a General Air of Disinterest

Far from getting knowledge straight from the horse’s mouth, I was met with tepid indifference, nonchalant shrugs and a general, disappointing sense of disinterest. A large majority of the people I walked up to had one of the following three responses to my questions, trying to decipher the inner workings of tech corporations:

• They had no knowledge of Binny’s ouster
• They blatantly stated their complete lack of interest or opinion on the subject
• They had no knowledge of the complete picture, with hardly anybody knowing about the allegations of misconduct that muddied the waters of his resignation
• They were more interested in making the most of their lunch breaks

While I had expected some resistance from Flipkart employees from speaking to a mediaperson – “I really don’t want to lose my job”, as one employee pleaded – I was startled at the scale of silence. I spent more than two hours at the gigantic business park, walking from one building to another and engaging with the engineers and developers that milled about, but there was not one decisive opinion offered. Far from having an opinion, plain ignorance of this major power shake-up, was spelt large on the faces of many.

I actually wondered for a second: do they genuinely have nothing to say about this matter or is this just a ruse being employed to avoid an annoying journalist, who seemed intent upon making conversation.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

It doesn’t help that the case is as convoluted as it gets, with murkier reports coming out with each progressive day. Allegations of sexual misconduct, a consensual relationship between former colleagues gone bad and a big company seeking to assume control over operations. Here I was, trying to understand if Bansal’s resignation was inevitable in the current climate of survivor support and if this was only a knee-jerk reaction to calm the waters, but all I got was a wall of indifference.

Much has been said about how the events of the past week have only expedited Bansal’s inevitable exit, given that Walmart wants to exercise more control over the company’s operations. He himself admitted in his company-wide resignation mail:

“For some time, I have been mulling over the right time to step away from an operating role at Flipkart Group. My plan was to continue in my current role for a few more quarters to continue the transition after closing the deal with Walmart. However, my decision to step down has been accelerated by certain personal events that have taken place in the recent past.”

Binny Bansal

The corporate world has been at the forefront of many an upheaval recently: from rejigs and corporate blackmailing at Paytm to now this. But this was closer to home – A success story with a hero fallen from grace. From swanky offices to swiftly heralded exits, there was a lot to unpack, but populace at ground zero doesn’t seem to care.

A Lot to Unpack but Corporate Curiosity Low

While the company’s official line has been that the “lapses in judgment” were troubling to the parent company’s leadership that is toeing a zero tolerance corporate policy, there is also talk that the lack of corroborated accusations and Bansal’s continued denial of all allegations, were indicative of a more Machiavellian manoeuvre.

Whatever the case may be, the identity of the complainant is still unknown, as is the exact nature of her allegations. We may never uncover the truth behind his stepping down, his fall from grace, in what he calls “challenging times” for his family and him, but this is not altogether a bad precedent to set.

Much has been written about the corporate sector’s conspicuous absence from the ‘Me Too’ movement, that has touched nearly every other industry. It is indeed tricky territory to navigate, with a small oversight amounting to a PR faux pas, but Bengaluru’s techies seem to be missing out on all the action taking place in their own backyard.