The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2021
Manyavar's Alia Bhatt ad questioned a ritual — #BoycottManyavar trended within hours
A bridal-wear ad had Alia Bhatt ask why only daughters are 'given away' at weddings. Hindu groups called it an attack on tradition, not a product pitch.
Manyavar · 2021-09
What happened
In September 2021, the Indian menswear and bridal brand Manyavar released an ad for its Mohey line featuring the actress Alia Bhatt at a wedding mandap. In it, she questions the Hindu ritual of 'kanyadaan' — where a bride's father formally 'gives away' his daughter to the groom's family — asking 'Am I a thing to be donated? Why only kanyadaan?' The ad proposes 'kanyamaan' (respect for the daughter) as an alternative, and ends with the groom's parents performing a reciprocal gesture.
The hashtag #BoycottManyavar trended on Indian Twitter within a day. Critics called the ad 'anti-Hindu propaganda' and 'forced feminism,' arguing it misrepresented a ritual that, in their reading, was never about property. The Hindu Janajagruti Samiti staged protests outside a Manyavar showroom and demanded an unconditional apology. The actress Kangana Ranaut urged brands to stop using religion and majority-minority politics to sell products.
Supporters, including women's rights commentators, praised the ad for naming a real discomfort inside a wedding ritual. Manyavar defended the campaign as promoting a more equal space for women in marriage while claiming to remain respectful of tradition, and did not withdraw it — unlike Tanishq and Fabindia, whose own festive-season ads had been pulled after similar campaigns that same year.
Why it happened
- The ad put a religious ritual's wording on trial in a 60-second commercial, which read to a segment of the audience as the brand lecturing them on their own faith rather than selling clothes.
- It arrived days after Fabindia's Diwali ad had already been pulled under similar pressure, so any brand touching Hindu ritual language in that window met an audience already primed to react.
- The reciprocal gesture at the end tried to soften the challenge but came after the provocative line had already spread on its own as a screenshot, stripped of the ad's fuller context.
The lesson
A ritual is not a slogan. Naming it in an ad, even to critique it gently, hands the audience a fight about identity instead of a reason to buy.
Aftermath
Manyavar did not withdraw the ad, unlike Tanishq's near-simultaneous retreat, and the controversy faded within the news cycle without a lasting boycott. The episode became a reference point in Indian advertising for the risk of touching religious ritual language even with an ostensibly progressive message.
Sources
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
More like this
Fabindia named a Diwali-season line 'Jashn-e-Riwaaz' — the ad was pulled in two days
Tanishq pulled an interfaith wedding ad after a boycott — and drew fire from both sides
BlueTyga's 'India's 1st Sunscreen Jacket' and Milind Soman ad upheld by ASCI
Somewhere, someone solved the problem this company failed at. 2nd Opinion →
Comments · 0
Sign in to join the comments.