In this era of hashtags, everything from eating food, to doing yoga to making business, runs on the wheel of hashtags. If you aren’t aware of this hashtags phenomenon, then you for sure need to check out this latest trending hashtag called as #BoycottRedLabel. Thousands of users ran down on Twitter on Sunday at an 11-month-old advertisement of the tea brand Red Lable with Ganesh Chaturthi theme. Holding placards and sharing posters to lead the show of hashtags trend, users claimed the ad targeted Hindus, by showing them as “intolerant”.
From where it all began!
An advertisement, longer than two minutes, inspired by a true story; a man visits a Ganesh idol sculptor for the festival. When he realised that the sculptor is a Muslim, as he puts on a skull cap hearing the namaaz call, the buyer deterred the purchase for the next day. Later, when both took a sip of Red label tea together, the dispute gets abolished and the Hindu guy bought the idol. “What happens when a cup of tea breaks deep-rooted prejudice?” shows the video’s description on Youtube.
Why is Hindu Sena shouting?
Asking to the Hindustan Unilever Limited, owner of the brand, to remove the ads, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti tweeted: “We appeal Red Label Chai and HUL News to remove ads insulting religious sentiments of Hindus and apologise to Hindu Community”.
We appeal @RedLabelChai and @HUL_News to remove ads insulting religious sentiments of Hindus and apologize to Hindu community !
Links of ads are :
1. https://t.co/vhH9iCSDAn
2. https://t.co/SpXwTmCPk6Please, don't compel Hindus to #BoycottRedLabel & #BoycottHUL
— HinduJagrutiOrg (@HinduJagrutiOrg) September 1, 2019
One user, tweeted: “It’s disappointing to see how a Hindu is being projected as intolerant. It could have been a happy ad where the Hindu man gets excited after knowing the artist is a Muslim, and both could have felt proud of India’s diversity & pluralism.”
The Hypocrisy
Why we always want to drag everything on religion, culture, tolerance, intolerance and Hindu-Muslim fight. Being a democratic secular nation, it sometimes seems like our diversity is not our strength anymore. The people who are raising question should realise that there is no hatred or riots shown in the Ad. What if the side of both the parties get switched and instead of Ganesh Chaturthi, some Eid festival was displayed. Then will you be happy?
It is not always about Hindu-Muslim; sometimes it is about humanity which we all have forgotten somewhere, as the brand claimed that a true story inspires the ad. It means such an incident happened and we can’t deny from the fact that this kind of biases, discrimination based on caste, creed, religion still exists in our society. So better to grasp the positive side of everything instead of giving the momentum to the negative part.
Journalist Parth M. N. tweeted for the critics, “At this rate, the boycott industry will eventually have to boycott itself.” and this is somewhere true at the pace we are getting intolerant and hyper on every slight issue.
At this rate, the boycott industry will eventually have to boycott itself.#BoycottRedLabel
— Parth MN (@parthpunter) September 1, 2019
If you look at the positive side, you will find a good message being conveyed in the ad. So let me pose a question; #BoycottRedLabel Are you for or against this hashtag?
