Brands are discovering that signing on far-left propagandists to promote their products isn’t the smartest business decision in today’s India.
Amrapali Jewels has deleted a tweet featuring Swara Bhasker after protests broke out over their choice of brand ambassador. “Celebrating the festivities with love, light and happiness, Swara Bhasker shines bright in our chandbalis, bangles and maangtika,” the brand had tweeted yesterday, along with a picture of Swara Bhasker looking awkwardly at the camera.
Swara Bhasker, too, had acknowleged the tweet, and responded to it with heart emojis.
But India’s citizens clearly weren’t feeling the love, and there were immediate calls to boycott Amrapali jewels. “You are promoting your brand through those who were involved in inciting Delhi Riots. Please understand else, People know make you Tanishq 2.0,” wrote a Twitter user, referring to the calls to boycott Tanishq, which had come up with an ad promoting love jihad.
Other netizens dug up old tweets of Swara Bhasker in which she had incited crowds to “hit the streets” in Delhi, and said that they’d boycott the brand for promoting someone who had added fuel to the fire in the riots which killed 54 people.
Other netizens said they’d boycott Amrapali jewels for featuring Swara Bhasker. “She is one who was incited Delhi Roits . Boycott Amrapali jewels,” wrote a Twitter user. “I’ll make sure no one in my family will give business to you,” wrote another.
Some Twitter users even began digging up old stories around Amrapali jewels, with one account sharing an article from earlier this year about how Amrapali Jewels had been raided for tax evasion. “All crooks are helping each other,” they wrote.
At this point, Amrapali Jewels appeared to have had enough, and deleted the tweet featuring Bhasker. The tweet is no longer available, but the company is yet to clarify or apologize for its decision for featuring Bhasker.
Swara Bhasker has earned the ire of India’s netizens over the last few years for her strident anti-India rhetoric, and for spreading fake news. Just last week, she’d claimed on Twitter that a photo of a Muslim man kicking the Amar Jawan Memorial was a “bad photoshop”, but had been forced to delete her tweet after netizens had pointed out that the pictures were, in fact, real. A few weeks prior to that, Bhasker had spread fake news around how a Tanishq showroom had been attacked after its controversial ad, and had been forced to delete that tweet as well after the police clarified that the news she’d spread was fake.
