India’s leading jewellery brand Tanishq has been subjected to vicious trolling by social media users over a new advertisement featuring a Hindu bride married into a Muslim household.
“She is married into a family that loves her like their own child. Only for her, they go out of their way to celebrate an occasion that they usually don’t. A beautiful confluence of two different religions, traditions and cultures,” read the ad caption, posted on Tanishq’s Youtube Channel.
Several social media users, including members of India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), questioned the jewellery retailer for promoting “love jihad,” or a derogatory reference to interfaith couples with a Muslim husband and a Hindu wife.
@TanishqJewelry :
— khemchand sharma #IStandWithFarmersBill (@SharmaKhemchand) October 12, 2020
Why are you showing a Hindu "daughter in law" to a muslim family and glorifying it?
Why dont you show a Muslim daughter in law in your ads with a Hindu family?
Look like you are promoting #LoveJihad & favouring a particular Faith only...#BoycottTanishq
This is Bizarre, highly objectionable and normalising #LoveJihad I want to know who directed this Ad and who wrote ? Pull this AD down #BoycottTanishq https://t.co/TNl44KJ0DC
— Geetha Kothapalli (@Geethak_MP) October 12, 2020
Why i see Hindu daughter in law everywhere....why dont you show Muslim daughter in law anywhere.#BoycottTanishq
— Hardik Bhavsar (@Bittu_Tufani) October 12, 2020
The comments to the YouTube video were disabled after a barrage of critical responses from online viewers.
‘Love jihad’ is a term employed by many Hindu nationalists to describe a marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man. Several high-ranking members of the BJP have alleged it to be a conspiracy of Muslim men to convert Hindu women.
Yogi Adityanath, the state chief of India’s Uttar Pradesh, was one of the earlier users of the term “love jihad” in public discourse. Several Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, have even launched an official investigation into “love jihad” in the past.
Tanishq, owned by famous watch maker Titan, made more than $2.5 billion in retail sales last year, according to the company’s website.
