By Nita Bhalla
– NEWDELHI
alyan Jewellers, a major
jewellery chain, has
withdrawn an advert
featuring Bollywood
actress Aishwarya Rai
Bachchan with a dark-skinned
boy holding a parasol over her
after it was slammed by activists
and on social media for being
racist and promoting child slav-
ery.
Kalyan Jewellers, which
employs about 4,000 people
across India, said the advertise-
ment featured in a national
newspaper on April 17 was
intended to present “royalty,
timeless beauty and elegance.”
The ad shows Rai Bachchan,
41, a former MissWorld and
goodwill ambassador for the
Joint United Nations Program on
HIV/AIDS, in regal Indian attire
and adorned with jewelry, reclin-
ing under a parasol held by a boy
of darker skin.
“If we have inadvertently hurt
the sentiments of any individual
or organization, we deeply regret
the same.We have started the
process of withdrawing this cre-
ative from our campaign,” said a
statement by the jewelry retailer
on its Facebook page late on
April 22.
In an open letter to Rai
Bachchan published on Indian
website Scroll, a group of social
activists said the image reflected
17th and 18th century European
paintings of noblewomen with
their child servants and was
“insidiously racist.”
“In the advertisement you
appear to be representing aris-
tocracy from a bygone era –
bejewelled, poised and relaxing
while an obviously underage
slave-child, very dark and emaci-
ated, struggles to hold an over-
size umbrella over your head,”
said the letter.
“While advertisers routinely
use fantasy images to sell prod-
ucts, they must surely desist
from using images that condone,
legitimize, normalize, or build
desirable fantasy around slavery
or servitude of any kind, includ-
ing child slavery or child servi-
tude.”
The activists – including
Shantha Sinha, former chair of
the National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights, Harsh
Mander, director of Centre for
Equity Studies, and Nisha
Agrawal, CEO of Oxfam India –
called for Rai Bachchan, brand
ambassador for Kalyan Jewellers,
to disassociate herself from the
advert and ensure its withdrawal.
Rai Bachchan’s publicist
Archana Sadanand issued a
statement indicating the actress
was not involved in the final
image.
“The final layout of the ad is
entirely the prerogative of the
creative team for a brand,” said
the statement.
“However shall forward your
article as a viewpoint that can
be taken into consideration by
the creative team of profession-
al working on the brand visual
communication.”
“Kalyan Jewellers” was one of
India’s top trends on Twitter on
April 23 with users slamming
the advert as “sick” and “insen-
sitive.”
“Black kid holdin umbrella to
d great Aishwarya Rai. Kalyan
Jewellers has lost this one com-
pletely by promoting slavery!”
tweeted one user.
Thousands of Indian chil-
dren, mostly from poor rural
areas, are taken to cities every
year by trafficking gangs who
sell them into bonded labor or
hire them out to unscrupulous
employers, promising to send
their parents their wages.
There are no official figures
on the number of child workers
in India. The 2014 Global
Slavery Index says the country
is home to more than 14 million
victims of human trafficking.
– Reuters
21
News India Times
May 1, 2015
Arts & Entertainment
K
Kalyan Jewellers Pulls ‘Racist’, ‘Slave-child’ AdWithAishwaryaRai
By Tony Tharakan
– NEWDELHI
T
ania James’s “The Tusk that
Did the Damage,” puts the
spotlight on elephant
poaching in southern India and
the lives lost to the lure of ivory.
This novel, the author’s sec-
ond, has three narrators: One is
Gravedigger, a rogue elephant
who terrorized the countryside at
the turn of the century.
Born in 1980 to Indian immi-
grants, James lives inWashington
and spoke to Reuters about her
new book and writing from the
elephant’s point of view.
What was the inspiration for the
novel?
(It was) a non-fiction book by
Tarquin Hall called “To the
Elephant Graveyard” in which he
mentions a real-life elephant that
used to bury its victims.
I’d known that elephants bury
their own dead, and that they
have complex grieving rituals,
but this burial of human victims
seemed a macabre distortion of
an otherwise tender and sensi-
tive act. That particular ele-
phant’s trajectory, from captivity
to escaped rogue, inspired one of
the arcs of my novel.
How tough was writing it from
the elephant’s perspective?
The elephant sections proba-
bly went through the most itera-
tions and revisions. Initially, I
tried a first-person voice, but it
seemed too fabu-
list and it didn’t
quite mesh with
the other two
voices. I tried
writing from the
points of view of
people around
the elephant as
well.
I suspect I was
a little hesitant to
anthropomor-
phize, or give
human qualities
to an animal, but
the more
research I did on
elephant behavior, the more it
seemed that termwas somewhat
outdated, based on an old
understanding of what we know
about animal psychology. I
should add that there are obvi-
ous limits to the Gravedigger’s
interiority, and my portrayal of it.
Midway there is the myth of the
flying elephants.
I read a lot of elephant origin
myths during my research
process, and they were mesmer-
izing. There was one about flying
elephants who were condemned
to a flightless life by a sage. There
was another about an African
elephant who powdered his
canines with magical dust, which
allowed him to
grow the world’s
first tusks.
At first it didn’t
seem clear to me
how a myth
would work with-
in the framework
of the novel. My
hope is that it
hovers over and
haunts the rest of
the story, adding
resonance to the
novel’s events
through its magi-
cal elements.
– Reuters
Tania James Gives Voice toElephant
Poaching in India inNewBook
– that’s all you need to know
IndianDesignerWendell Rodricks’
CreationHeads toNewYork
– NEWYORK
I
ndian fashion designer
Wendell Rodricks’ 30 meter
net panels, built on a silver
lycra swimsuit, has made its
way to a NewYork museum.
Valerie Steele, director and
author at the Museum at
Fashion Institute of
Technology, NewYork, and
curators Ariele Elia and
ElizabethWay picked out
Rodricks’ gown constructed
on a swimsuit, to be included
in the Global Fashion Capitals
exhibition that opens here on
June 3.
The garment was chosen
after the curators saw last
month’s Amazon India
FashionWeek grand finale in
Delhi.
The gown was chosen to
join the ranks of designers
fromWorth to Dior in Paris
and traces the trend of global
fashion capitals Milan,
London, NewYork, Tokyo to
more recent fashion
capitals the world over.
“I’m happy that
India will take it’s place
via Delhi and Mumbai
among the world’s fash-
ion capitals.We had a
lot of hard work and
fun putting together
this fuschia and orange
gown with floating
satin orbs and circles in
satin suspended from
nylon wires. I’m indeed
honored and happy for
both Amazon and FDCI
that Indian fashion
advances on a global
platform,” the Goa-
based Rodricks said in
a statement.
Indian designer
Manish Arora is also
represented at the exhi-
bition.
– IANS
