On Wednesday, a Calcutta High Court lawyer named Dibyayan Banerji filed a police complaint against Bollywood actor Nawazzuddin Siddiqui and the CEO of Coca-Cola India for allegedly hurting the sentiments of the Bengali community in its newly launched advertisement for the soft drink brand Sprite. The legal follows a social media campaign by Bengalis to boycott Sprite and other Coca-Cola products over the ad, the Bengali version of which implied that Bengalis will rather remain hungry instead of working.
The complaint says that there is a joke cracked in the Bengali version of the advertisement which has hurt the sentiments of the Bengali community. “The main advertisement by Coca-Cola for its product Sprite was in Hindi. And we have no problems with that. We only have a problem with Bengali dubbing of the ad which is running on various TV channels and websites,” the petitioner said.
He alleged that actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui is seen laughing at one of the jokes in the advertisement which says, ‘shoja anguley ghee na uthley, Bangali khali petey ghumiye porey’. “In English, it means that if Bengalis don’t get anything easily, they sleep hungry. And this, we think, hurts the sentiments of the Bengali community,” the complaint read.
Banerji further said that there is nothing offensive in the Hindi advertisement but it attracts section 66A of the IT Act and also section 153 A of the Indian Penal Code. “We also want this type of shallow act and gimmicks to not be promoted in the future,” he added.
The meaning of the line ‘shoja anguley ghee na uthley, Bangali khali petey ghumiye porey’ is ‘if they can’t take the ghee out with a straight finger, Bengalis sleep hungry’. This is a take on the well-known phrase in Hindi and other Indian languages which says that ‘when ghee can’t be taken out with a straight finger, you have to bend the finger’. The joke in the Bengali advertisement for Sprite suggested that Bengalis won’t take the effort of bending the finger when a straight finger does not work, labelling the community as lazy.
The advertisement is related to the Sprite Joke in a Bottle campaign, which lets consumers listen to a joke by scanning a QR code on the Sprite bottle. In the Hindi version of the ad, Nawazzuddin Siddiqui is seen waiting for a train at a railway station, where all trains are late by one hour. The Sprite bottle held by Siddiqui starts to talk, and asks, ‘train late? Want to hear a joke?’ When Siddiqui’s character says yes, the bottle says the joke, ‘These days it’s so hot that if you ask for a Dosa, the guy fries it on your face and gives it to you.’ Both the Sprite Bottle and Nawazzuddin Siddiqui laugh at the joke.
The ad also has been translated into various Indian languages, and in an effort to localise the ad, they used different jokes relevant to the language. But while selecting the joke for Bengali, they made the mistake of selecting a joke that created an outrage on social media. Before the complaint was filed, social media users were calling for boycotting Sprite.
After receiving the complaint, the corporation removed the advertisement from TV and its social media sites. In a message that was written in Bengali, Sprite India expressed its apology for the most recent ad campaign for the soft drink brand and its respect for the Bengali language.
The next movie Nawazuddin will appear in is Sudhir Mishra’s Afwaah, in which he co-stars with actress Bhumi Pednekar. The movie will premiere in theatres on May 5. Additionally, it has significant parts for the actors Sumit Kaul, Sharib Hashmi, Sumeet Vyas, TJ Bhanu, and Rockey Raina.
Nawazuddin will also appear in Tiku Weds Sheru, a movie starring Kangana Ranaut.
