The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has served a notice to food delivery app Zomato over portraying a Dalit character in a negative way.
One of the company's ads dedicated to the World Environment Day featured actor Aditya Lakhia, who played the character of "Kachra" in the 2001 movie ‘Lagaan’, alleging a link etween Lakhia’s character and Kachra (Hindi for "garbage").
In the ad, Lakhia was depicted as a lamp, paper, paperweight, watering can, and different types of jackets -- the accompanying text detailing how much recycled "kachra" had been used to make each item.
The company through this advertisement aimed to highlight the importance of wasting food and draw attention to the challenges faced by marginalized communities in society. However, it faced a lot of backlash on social media following which the company took down the video saying it had "unintentionally" hurt certain communities.
Despite the video having been taken down, the NCSC said that it would investigate the matter and also issued a notice to Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal.
In its notice, the Ccommission said: “In case the Commission does not receive reply from you within the stipulated time, the Commission may issue summons for your appearance in person”.
This is not the first time that Zomato has landed in controversy.
In 2017, it used Hindi expletives as abbreviations for mac n’ cheese and butter chicken in one of its outdoor advertisement campaigns. In 2022, it faced backlash from priests of famous Mahakaleshwar temple after it showed that Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan had ordered food from “Mahakal” when he was craving food.
The priests objected to the advertisement claiming that it offended Hindu sentiments and demanded its withdrawal. The home minister in the state government Narottam Mishra had also issued directives to the police to look into the controversy.
However, the company later apologized, clarifying that the “Mahakal” reference was for a restaurant and not the temple.