There are very few Indian companies who take the trouble to create ads that try to address larger social issues along with trying to promote their product - Tanishq is one of them.
Tanishq ads have always had something more than just an accent on gold and jewelry as things to aspire to. For example, there is one of a wedding where the woman already has a child. When the child indicates to her mother that she would like to be part of the ceremony, the groom beckons her and makes her part of the ceremony. The ad addresses so many issues on so many levels, that it is truly a work of art. Simplistic maybe, but in a world that goes by simplistic narratives, this definitely hits the right spot.
The latest ad from Tanishq shows a Hindu girl who has married into a Muslim family. Her husband's family go out of their way to prepare the Hindu traditions that the girl must have grown up with to celebrate her pregnancy. It ends with the girl remarking to her mother-in-law, "But you don't have these ceremonies (traditions)." To which the mother answers, "But the tradition to keep the daughter happy is part of every home."
I am not really aware of the tradition in either religion, but after watching this ad over and over again, I fail to see what problem anyone can have with it.
The ubiquitous Hindutva brigade has come out saying that the ad promotes "Love Jihad". In response to the hate mongering, Tanishq has, sadly, removed the ad saying it doesn't want to put innocents at risk. Once again, Tanishq has shown extreme sensitivity and won hearts. Once again, the Hindutva brigade has shown extreme narrow-mindedness and lost ground (at least it should).
Over the past decade, I have come to despise the words "tradition" and "culture". They are fig leaves used by narrow-minded people who have nothing better to do than mind their neighbor's business. It conveniently includes things they agree with and excludes things they don't agree with. The magic of "tradition" and "culture" is that the line is drawn on sand and can be moved around depending on what is comfortable at the moment.
I once had an interesting conversation with a Keralite friend of mine who supported right-wing activists stopping couples from celebrating Valentine's Day. His argument was the now familiar, "It goes against our traditions and culture." So I asked him if he was okay with his mother and sister showing me their breasts. The question of course shocked him. But what he forgets is that it was part of Kerala's tradition and culture for women to go around bare-breasted. In fact, a woman who covered her breasts was looked down up on. The reason Keralite women cover their breasts is because they adopted the sensibilities of the Christian missionaries that came with the Portuguese and British invaders. So when these goons claim that Valentine's Day is a Western import and destroying our culture, they fail to see the irony in the situation when they also ask women to cover themselves.
Another example of how things change with time is the position of Shiva in the pantheon of Indian gods. In the Vedic texts, Shiva is hardly mentioned. In fact, the worship of the Shivlingam was frowned up on. (https://vedicfeed.com/lord-shiva-and-shaivism-in-vedic-texts/) But over time, Shiva came to become the most powerful of the Hindu gods.
Tradition and culture move with the times. They are what we make of them. We can choose to make our culture and our society what we want it to be.
When we draw a line, it must contain the entirety of the culture at that moment. We don't get to pick and choose. Every era had had things that were good and bad, that is the way of life. It is up to us to choose the good and drop the bad. But when you choose, at least have the guts to say that you choose something because YOU want it to be like that and not hide behind the fig leaf of culture and tradition.
In another world, I would say if people were given the choice between living in the world Tanishq envisages versus living in the one the Hindutva brigade sees, the choice would be resoundingly in favor of the former. But given that we have elected this bunch of goons into power, not once but multiple times, I am not very confident that we would choose the former. Maybe we don't deserve the former.
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