Dabur is a well-known Ayurvedic and FMCG company with products like hair oil, honey, toothpaste, beverages, chyawanprash, cosmetics etc. It also makes Fem Bleach and over the years has been making the usual transform from dark & sad to fair & happy types of ads. This year, they did something different for Karwa Chauth – the ad is progressive but also not. And of course, some people had other problems with it
Two women are preparing for Karwa Chauth and discussing why they are keeping the fast. An older woman comes in and gives them sarees. The two then break their fast traditionally with the moon… for each other. That is the progressive twist in the tale - two women keeping the vrat for each other.
It is now getting tedious – people see anything progressive or different as an attack on a community, a religious group or traditions.
If people believe that the tradition is only for ‘husbands’ perhaps they would have no problem if two men kept the fast for each other, asks this tweet. Is the opposition only for women keeping the fast for each other or for all same-sex couples?
As is common with anything remotely progressive or inclusive, some people started to call for a boycott. So, before long there were calls to #BoycottDabur and its other products as well.
Some expressed this view.
Saying that people of different sexual orientations are ‘against our culture’ or somehow a result of ‘westernisation’ is basically a fig leaf for homophobia.
Karwa Chauth is the tradition of the wife fasting for the long life of her husband. Some think of this observance itself as misogynistic and regressive. They don’t believe that a progressive ad could change that.
Most people liked the ad and thought it was progressive, inclusive and forward thinking. But they did have a problem with it.
Many thought that the ad was beautiful – after all other religions do not have any traditions such as these.
The real problem isn't that there is some imagined insult to a whole religious group or that same-sex couples are some western import. The real problem is that this is an ad for a very regressive product – it is a product that perpetuates the fair is beautiful myth. So, with the Dabur Fem ad featuring the female same-sex couple, I think it is two steps forward, but alas, still one step backwards --- a progressive ad for a regressive product.
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