THE TANISHQ ADVERTISEMENT CONTROVERSY AND ITS LEGAL ASPECTS

THE TANISHQ ADVERTISEMENT CONTROVERSY AND ITS LEGAL ASPECTS

“The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness.” - Dalai Lama

The leading jewellery brand Tanishq’s advertisement on it’s new line ‘Ekatvam’ has thrust it into the limelight. It drew battle lines on social media and sparked off a debate on the issue on every news channel and public forum. The idea behind the campaign to highlight ‘oneness’ and coming together of different social communities and families during these challenging times received severe criticism and stimulated divergent reactions contrary to its main objective. The 43-second advertisement prompted a massive backlash over its content as it has apparently hurt the Hindu sentiments ‘deeply’ by promoting ‘fake secularism’ and ‘love jihad’- a derogatory term used to describe intercaste relationships.

The controversial advertisement showing a pregnant woman being led to her bridal shower thrown by a Muslim family, as per Hindu customs and traditions resulted in display of a number of demonstrations and protests throughout the country outside Tanishq’s stores. These protests led by several Hindu activists aimed at getting an apology for hurting national sentiments and for exhibiting such demeaning thoughts against their customs and values. Members of the Hindu Jagran Manch in Indore held demonstrations outside three stores and handed saffron stoles to its employees demanding an apology and registration of a FIR against those responsible for the advertisement. However, certain protests outside the stores in Gujarat were declared to be fake and the narrative was busted stating all of it to be a part of a propaganda. The police force in the Kutch region of Gujarat stated that this controversy has set a dangerous precedent and these attacks were fraud however, they mentioned that an apology had been asked for.

Several prominent bodies including the International Advertising Association and the Advertising Agencies Association of India backed Tanishq in this stating it to be a massive intimidation of the company as there is no legitimate breach of ethical standards. They condemned this aggression and threatening of the employees of the company as they had voiced their support for freedom of expression and thought and appealed to the government to take exemplary actions against such behaviour to ensure a safe environment for communication of brand advertising messages.

The Titan Ltd. owned Tanishq brand first disabled the comments and later had to rescind its advertisement due to the unfortunate antisocial behavior that followed along with floodgates of debates, illegal threats and trolling demanding the advertisement to be banned. Although no FIR was registered due to absence of any strong ground to do so, yet, it was pulled back to show respect and humanity towards the opinions of the communities. Reacting on this issue, several politicians, authors and other prominent names stood strong with Tanishq over the withdrawal of the ad campaign expressing the need to strengthen the laws enshrined under section 19 (i)(A) of the Constitution of India stating freedom of expression. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had tweeted, “So Hindutva bigots have called for a boycott of @TanishqJewelry for highlighting Hindu-Muslim unity through this beautiful ad. If Hindu-Muslim ‘ekatvam’ irks them so much, why don’t they boycott the longest surviving symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity in the world — India?”. Likewise, several others showed their strong support towards the advertisement along with the disappointment they had on it being rescinded. The withdrawal indicated a larger weakness or malaise of the society and depicts yet another failure to act on part of law and order. In a country like India, the self-appointed guardians of religion with such notions fail to recognise the legal aspects involved and continue to boycott the advertisement with their irrelevant ideas of a conspiracy theory to promote inter caste marriages. However, this removal outraged more debates than the advertisement itself. A progressive brand like Tanishq gave in and removed the advertisement due to the dislike and resentment they received on social media. It is shameful to see a mindset like this in the 21st century that encourages hatred towards the idea of a secular society.

Although, Tanishq took down the advertisement, the effects of the outrage on social media with the trending #BoycottTanishq led to severe losses for the company. The company saw its share price fall by 2.5% after the hashtag. Its stock closed at Rs.1224, and Titan, which has a market cap of Rs 1.09 lakh crores, saw its collective shareholder wealth get eroded by Rs.2700 crores. It is often difficult to analyse the reasons for the fall in stock prices, however, in this case, hundreds of social media users declared a boycott of Tanishq products that led to immense loss for the company.

In the history of Indian advertising, this brand new ad campaign of Tanishq might be recorded as the worst marketing mistake ever as it made the #BoycottTanishq trend the whole day which ultimately affected its stock price. This mistake can also be given the tag of a misfortune for the company because in a similar case back in 2013, the Supreme Court had quashed complaints against MS Dhoni relating to “hurting the sentiments” of a community. In this case, criminal proceedings were charged against the famous Indian cricketer, MS Dhoni for being portrayed as Lord Vishnu in a magazine cover. The Supreme Court declared that not all ‘insults’ to religion are offences. While the decision of the SC to strike down Section 66A of the IT Act, 2000 for being violative of the freedom of speech and expression was highly supported by social media users, the court also reiterated the limits of Section 295A of the IPC. It held that any advertisement cannot be legally challenged unless it has a malicious intention to outrage the religious beliefs of a community. The SC made it crystal clear in this decision that Section 295A does not stipulate every act or advertisement to be penalised as they might not tantamount to any insult. A similar case was filed against actor Aamir Khan for hurting religious sentiments by dressing up as Lord Shiva and puling a rickshaw with two Muslim women sitting on it in his movie ‘PK’. The SC believes it is its duty to protect individuals from such political propagandas and to prevent misuse of law by political activists.

However, as per the advertisement regulatory standards set by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), it did not violate any of the norms set, infact, it promotes harmony among religions contrary to Section 153A (1)(a) of the Indian Penal Code that makes promotion of disharmony punishable under law with imprisonment that may extend to three years, or a fine, or both.

In this social media era, an error made by a brand like Tanishq speaks volumes about their target audience. They were fishing in troubled waters by associating themselves with values like communal harmony, which may already have existed in their target audience. It is because of their brand value and progressive nature, that they chose to spread an emotionally charged message. Advertisements going wrong is nothing new for the Indian society. In fact, everybody is so used to this, that we reward such advertisements by humming their jingles all the time, like washing powder Nirma. So why was the Tanishq advertisement backlashed with so much public outrage? Gender activists believe that the onus of upholding culture and tradition lies on the women entirely and she is said to be tarnishing the honour of her family by marrying into another community. Hence, this sensitive issue taken up by the brand proved to be fatal for their reputation in this society.

India is a secular country, which shows the world how we celebrate all religions, traditions and ethnicities for centuries. Any brand does not have to apologise for promoting communal harmony and celebrating diversity. There will always be an outrage on social media, but they must break through it. The delusional optimism of India towards secularism leads to such bigotry. It is a constitutional right and an essential freedom which should not be taken away from any Indian citizen.

BY:-

Ridhika Kapoor