Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari had recently shared a video on road safety campaign on his Twitter handle featuring Akshay Kumar.
The video shows a wedding scene where the bride bids adieu to her family.
In the video, Akshay Kumar, starring as a policeman, can be seen taunting the bride’s father for sending the newly-wed couple in a car that had only two airbags.He advises him to send her off in a car with six airbags instead.The advertisement didn’t go down well with netizens and the video sparked a controversy.
While the concept behind the video was to promote safety with six airbags in cars, it faced severe criticism for ‘promoting the practice of dowry’ along with it. Shiv sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi wondered who passes such creatives that end up ‘promoting the evil and criminal act of dowry’.
Another user wrote, “It is 2022 and the Govt of India cannot get a message of road safety across without also promoting giving car as dowry (which as per Indian law is, by the way, illegal). Great going.”
The campaign comes in the backdrop of a national conversation on road safety after the death of Indian billionaire Cyrus Mistry, who was killed in a car cash on 5 September. Some reports have suggested that he wasn’t wearing the seat belt in the rear seat of his car.
Indian law mandates seat belts for all car occupants, but this was rarely enforced for people in the rear seats.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people die in accidents on India’s roads – in 2021, the toll was more than 150,000, an average of 18 per hour, according to government data.
After Mistry’s death, transport minister Gadkari announced that people sitting in rear seats without seat belts would be fined. He also said that the government would make it compulsory for carmakers to install alarms for rear seat belts.
Mr Gadkari’s efforts have been praised by many on Twitter. However, some on Twitter have also asked the minister to pay attention to the poor condition of roads and faulty designs.
Many have shared photos of poorly maintained roads and potholes found on national highways in recent days.
Saket Gokhale, a spokesperson of the Trinamool Congress party, tweeted that the latest ad was an “amazing way to deflect responsibility by pushing for 6 air bags (& expensive cars) instead of fixing roads”.
Some have also pointed out that a car with six airbags was unaffordable for most people in India.