Gurugram CEO explains why he feels touching elders' feet should stop in blunt post

Jasveer Singh, co-founder and CEO of Gurugram-based Knot Dating, said touching elders' feet out of obligation reflects social conditioning, not respect.Gurugram CEO explains why he feels touching elders’ feet should stop (Representative pic from Getty)The CEO of a Gurugram-based company has argued that touching someone’s feet simply because they are older is not necessarily an expression of respect, but a form of social conditioning.In a blunt post on X, Jasveer Singh, co-founder and CEO of Knot Dating, questioned why age, family ties or religious identity should automatically make someone worthy of the traditional gesture.As per Jasveer, respect should instead be earned through qualities such as character, wisdom, knowledge and integrity.“Touching someone's feet just because they're older should stop. That isn't respect, that's social conditioning,” Jasveer said. In his opinion, many people in India follow the practice because they have been taught to do so since childhood, rather than because they genuinely respect the person. He believes that people often bend simply because everyone else is doing it without questioning whether the person actually deserves their respect.“Age is not an achievement,” Jasveer said, arguing that being someone’s uncle, aunt, relative or elder does not automatically make them worthy of the gesture. He added that if age alone were enough to deserve respect, every older person would be wise. Jasveer also argued that wearing religious clothes or being related to someone by blood should not automatically earn them respect.Instead, he said people should touch the feet of those they genuinely admire - someone whose character they respect, whose knowledge or wisdom they value, or whose achievements make them want to learn from them.He urged people not to perform the gesture simply because their parents instructed them to, relatives might get offended or everyone else in the room was doing it.“That isn't respect, that's a performance you've been rehearsing since childhood,” Jasveer said.He clarified that he was not suggesting people become arrogant or stop respecting others. His argument, he said, was that respect should be genuine rather than compulsory.“Respect should be genuine, not compulsory. Stop bending because society expects it, bend only when it’s real,” Jasveer wrote.Read the entire post here:Soon, a debate ensued in the comments section of Jasveer Singh’s post with users offering differing views on the tradition.An X user who said he had initially followed Jasveer Singh because he found his posts informative and reasonable, criticised him for questioning the practice and said he should understand Indian culture instead of trying to reason about everything.Another user argued that there is a distinction between respecting elders for their experience and respecting them for their wisdom.“Respecting elders for the experience of having survived life is different from respecting them for wisdom,” the user wrote, adding that the former is reasonable while the latter needs to be earned.What is your take on this?- EndsPublished On: Aug 20, 2026 16:37 IST