Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has been caught in the throes of controversy after many netizens found an advertisement he featured in to be disrespectful towards Maratha workers.
In the Nirma washing powder ad, Akshay Kumar plays the role of a Maratha ruler who has just returned victorious from a battle. He and his men are jubilant about the victory and wish to spend some time in merrymaking, but the queen is dismayed by their soiled clothes, anxious about the effort they might have to put in to clean them.
At that moment, the king intervenes and assures the royal household that he and his men are capable of cleaning out the enemies as well as clothes and get on to soak their white clothes in Nirma washing powder.
This, many social media users, found condescending. The users called out the advertisement for making a mockery of the valiant Maratha warriors and sought a boycott of the detergent brand.
Soon, the hashtag #BoycottNirma began trending on the microblogging platform Twitter and has received more than 22,000 tweets already.
According to a Navbharat Times report, a complaint has been filed against Akshay Kumar at Worli Police Station in Mumbai by one Suryakant Jagannath Jadhav. He mentioned in his plaint that advertisement makes a joke at the expense of Marathi culture.
Meanwhile, a section of Twitter users has come out in support of the advertisement for promoting gender equality, with some users promoting it with the tagline "Great warriors always help their family".
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