Is anyone watching, Sirji?

There is a body called the Advertising Standards Council, whose purpose is to ensure that advertisements do not mislead the consumer. Journals have ignored the Press Council of India’s diktats in the past; I suppose advertising agencies do the same to the ASC. Always assuming, of course, that the ASC has opened its bleary eye and is actually watching.

 

I want to know why a beady eye has not been turned on that ugly series of commercials for Idea Cellular which has been running for some months now. By ‘ugly’ I mean both unbeautiful and unethical. In case you haven’t been watching, the 30-second ad begins with a poor yokel trying to get his granddaughter admitted in a Catholic school. He is turned away because the school is full. The priest – played by Abhishek Bachchan– watches sadly. Then inspiration comes. Over mobiles, placed strategically in the classrooms of his school and in rural areas without schools, he teaches the village children. The yokel’s granddaughter is declared best student at the end of the year. The priest kneels before the altar. "What an idea, Sirji," he whispers admiringly.

 

Does this, or does it not, give the impression that Idea Cellular is really working on this project, using mobile phones in rural education? I contend that the almost saturation telecast of these commercials – particularly during the Indian cricket tour of Sri Lanka, where both Tests and one-dayers were contested for the Idea Cup – certainly persuades viewers that something of the sort is happening. I’d like to know if Idea Cellular, or the Aditya Birla Group as a whole, has invested at all in rural education.

 

There can be no doubt that these commercials are targeted at the rural viewer, the unsophisticated viewer, even the ill-educated viewer. The first campaign with the tag line "What an idea, Sirji" was aired late last year. There the Bombay star was a sort of village honcho who removed communal tensions by replacing names with mobile phone numbers. It was a stupid notion: No one (and especially not an illiterate) wants to subsume his identity within a number. But the Orwellian shades are carried on into this current campaign.

 

The smaller spots also being aired as I write this make clear not only the 1984 theme, but also the target audience. In one, the teacher in the classroom calls out in Hindi (but in a very Anglo voice): "Who’s making mischief? Goppi [presumably Gopi], murga ban jao." Big Sister watching, Goppi under the village tree duly accepts punishment. In the other spot, the yokel’s granddaughter recites "Jack and Jill", hearing which the priest executes a jig. In a third, the mother of one of the children, coyly covering her face with her pallu, recites the school pledge…. These are all advertisements for an unsophisticated education, to which no modern enlightened parent would want her child subjected today. But to the villager, presumably, they are openings into that wondrous world, an English education.

 

No modern educationist advocates medieval punishments such as that Goppi won, or the rote learning of "Jack and Jill" or the school pledge ("India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters…"). It is English, the miracle drug, which appeals. Doesn’t Raj Thackeray have anything to say about this?

 

Surely it is a laudable objective to take education – of whatever kind – to the villages. This initiative with the mobile phones might even work. But is it ethical to take credit for an idea, pretending it has been put into practice? That is what this company is doing.

 

This trend needs to be stopped before more corporates see the beauty and simplicity – and economy – of claiming the kudos for an idea instead of achievement. Around August 15, the Sahara group released a print advertisement showing an urchin with a tricolour painted on her cheek and a tear flowing from her eye. The copy went: "Let’s start a second freedom movement. For the girl child." Fine. The heartstrings are tugged. But is Sahara doing anything for the girl child?

 

When I ask this question, I don’t want the answer that so many lakhs have been given to CRY or some other NGO. The Idea campaign, and to some extent the Sahara release, make the claim that they are themselves doing something, working to achieve something on the ground. Corporates are not usually shy in these matters. If they were really doing something, we’d have heard all about it by now and the group Chairmen would have won Padma Bhushans. If I’m wrong, please step forward to applause, Mr Birla, Mr Roy, and I’ll eat a printout of this article.