Sunita Somvanshi
Runners and campaigners at the TCS New York City Marathon called on the race to end its association with Tata Consultancy Services, the event’s title sponsor. They said they were using the race to press organisers to “drop TCS.”
“I’m a first-time marathon runner. I’m running to drop TCS,” one runner said. Participants said more than 1,000 runners were wearing bibs carrying the message “Drop TCS.” Karmactive has not independently verified that number.
New York Road Runners’ official marathon site identifies the event as the TCS New York City Marathon. TCS is Tata Consultancy Services, an Indian information-technology services company.
What the runners said
The runners called on the marathon to “drop its title sponsor, Tata Consultancy Services.” They accused TCS of being “complicit in the ongoing genocide of Palestine” and in the Indian military’s control of Indian-administered Kashmir.
One participant said: “New York City runners don’t want to be affiliated with that. We want to run a race and have it not help the reputation of a terrible company that supports Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.”
These are the runners’ allegations and political views. Karmactive has not independently verified the claims that TCS provides weapons, banking services or IT services to the Israeli military, nor the claims made about the Tata Group’s activities. Those claims should not be read here as established fact.
The distinction matters because a protest can be documented accurately without treating every allegation voiced at it as proven. The runners are using the marathon’s sponsorship to press a political demand. Whether NYRR or TCS responds, and whether organisers change the sponsorship arrangement, would require separate confirmation.
