Titan Co Ltd's jewellery brand Tanishq had withdrawn its 'Ekatvam' advertisement campaign after being trolled by Twitter users, who attacked it for glorifying 'love jihad', a derogatory term used by Hindu fundamentalists to refer to inter-faith marriages.
The 45-second clip, released ahead of the festival season, features a Muslim family celebrating a traditional South Indian baby shower ceremony for their pregnant daughter-in-law. The campaign attracted heavy backlash from various accounts on Twitter, many of whose users used the hashtag "#BoycottTanishq".
A company spokesperson said the idea behind the campaign was to celebrate the coming together of people from different walks of life, local communities and families during these challenging times and celebrate the beauty of oneness. This film has stimulated divergent and severe reactions, contrary to its very objective.
"We are deeply saddened with the inadvertent stirring of emotions and withdraw this film keeping in mind the hurt sentiments and well being of our employees, partners and store staff," the spokesperson said.
The company had released two campaigns in a span of a week. While this campaign was taken down, the company has continued with the other one, he said.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
