Diet Sabya talks about toxic work culture in India; Is it the need of the hour?

Fashion’s favourite(?) samaritan, Diet Sabya has played an important role in calling out hidden gems pertaining to plagiarism. For the unversed, Diet Sabya is an anonymous fashion watchdog that calls out #GandiCopy of designs made by smaller (or not so small) brands in the fashion and beauty industry. If you are a fashion enthusiast like us, you know quite a lot of brands make cheap knock-offs of major international designer labels and sell it for a whopping price in India. The anonymous account that started off with calling out some of the major brands for their dirty copies is now responsible for the sense of fear that most designers have before even thinking about getting ‘inspired’ by someone else. The platform has been clearly used to throw light on the importance of originality in the industry and the watchdog is now deviating from their original motto and using their voice for the greater good! 

What is this greater good you may ask? With approximately 281 thousand followers, Diet Sabya is now using its voice to call out workplace harassers and ill-treatment caused by the seniors in various companies. In the words of the anonymous account, ‘We are going to slightly pivot from our original goal, and talk about you more. Workplace harassment and bullying is a major problem in India, and it needs to be addressed now.’

Fun times? @mynykaa @nykaabeauty @nykaafashion . This is what the behind-the-scenes at India’s biggest beauty e-commerce looks like. And, this is clearly not an one-off moment. Discuss! . . (As told to us by source) #dietsabya #issuedinpublicinterest #workplaceharassment

Where are these stories coming from? Just like the account owner is anonymous, the identities of junior employees and interns who shared their stories of abuse and harassment are also kept hidden. During the whole ‘calling out’, quite a lot of names were dropped and to be honest we aren’t even surprised by a few companies they’ve called out but that’s a topic for another discussion! 

While the watchdog has deviated from its original agenda, they’re clearly creating history by doing so. Over the years many such stories have been buried and a lot of people have kept their mouth shut to make an appropriate statement in their place of work and of course there’s always the fear of getting fired! In the past few hours, we’ve been reading the stories shared by the account and to be honest, quite a lot of these people seem to be dealing with anxiety and abuse in the workplace. 

In a few screenshots shared by the watchdog, you can also see how people have threatened to file cases while others have reached out to throw light on some of these planned stories by interns

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A practical question here would be, how do you know these stories are true? Well, to be honest, the authenticity of these abuse stories is always a topic for discussion but there are people who are coming forward and sharing the same on their profile proving that they’ve been through the harassment themselves. 

To conclude, we’d like to say that this cycle of being overworked and abused in the workplace has continued for quite a while now and if just sharing these stories is leading to a healthy discussion, that’s a win for Diet Sabya and for everyone trying to make it in the industry honestly. 

Do you think sharing these harassment stories is the need of the hour? What are your thoughts about it? Let us know in the comments section below. 

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