- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The goal was to promote road safety but it ended up creating a controversy. Indian road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, who has always been vocal about road safety in the country, recently shared a video on social media amid his government’s attempt to promote six airbags in vehicles so that more lives can be saved in case of accidents but the video faced a backlash for another reason.
It was alleged that the video, while promoting safer vehicles, also promoted the practice of dowry, a punishable offence in India. What is worse is that the road safety video also featured popular Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar in the role of a traffic policeman.
What is in the video?
The clip showed a father crying as his daughter is leaving the house after marriage for her in-laws, a social practice in India. Kumar, who is seen standing next to the father, taunts him over the car in which the newly married couple are set to depart. While the father argued that the car had modern facilities such as automatic transmission, sunroof and imported music systems, Kumar told him that it only had two airbags and hence the rear passengers were not safe if there was an accident.
6 एयरबैग वाले गाड़ी से सफर कर जिंदगी को सुरक्षित बनाएं।#राष्ट्रीय_सड़क_सुरक्षा_2022#National_Road_Safety_2022 @akshaykumar pic.twitter.com/5DAuahVIxE
— Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) September 9, 2022
Hearing this, the couple get off from the vehicle and another one arrives, fitted with six airbags, to pick them up. “Now they are safe. Stop crying,” the actor in the guise of a policeman was then seen telling the bride’s father jokingly while pinching him.
While the video tried to send across a message on a light note, the critics were not impressed.
Priyanka Chaturvedi, leader of Shiv Sena, which doesn’t have a good relation with Gadkari’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called the advertisement “problematic” and wondered who cleared such creatives that ended up “promoting the evil and criminal act of dowry”.
“This is such a problematic advertisement. Who passes such creatives? Is the government spending money to promote the safety aspect of a car or promoting the evil& criminal act of dowry through this ad?” she tweeted.
This is such a problematic advertisement. Who passes such creatives? Is the government spending money to promote the safety aspect of a car or promoting the evil& criminal act of dowry through this ad? https://t.co/0QxlQcjFNI
— Priyanka Chaturvedi?? (@priyankac19) September 11, 2022
Saket Gokhale, the national spokesperson of Trinamool Congress, another anti-BJP party, said it was “[d]isgusting to see Indian govt officially promoting dowry.”
Road safety has come to the fore in India following the death of business tycoon Cyrus Mistry in a car crash near Mumbai on September 4. Gokhale said the crash took place because of faulty design of the road and the government was deflecting responsibility by pushing for six airbags in vehicles.
1. Disgusting to see Indian govt officially promoting dowry. What even???
2. Cyrus Mistry died because the road design was faulty. That spot is an accident-prone area.
Amazing way to deflect responsibility by pushing for 6 air bags (& expensive cars) instead of fixing roads. https://t.co/vTiTdkeei2
— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) September 11, 2022
Gadkari also said recently that wearing seatbelts would be made compulsory for rear passengers as well.
Netizens were also not happy with the advertisement.
One said, “This ad is the pits.Lost the plot completely. Is this about the wedding,the bride or that dowry should be 6 airbag car-what is it? These govt ads are so puerile and ill conceived.They couldn’t talk about safety any other way?”
“Only in India would the Govt spend taxpayer money to create an ad campaign promoting a punishable offence, dowry,” said another.
On Friday (9), Gadkari thanked Kumar for his support to the nationwide National Road Safety Campaign, saying his “efforts in spreading the awareness on road safety issues is truly commendable.”
“We’re committed to bring down road accidents in India with awareness & public participation,” he wrote on Twitter.
According to a Reuters report, the minister expects to finalise rules for all cars to have six airbags by the end of the current financial year.
In 2019, the National Students Union of India, Goa, had objected to Kumar’s presence in a government road-safety campaign launched in 2018 on grounds of the actor’s Canadian citizenship saying it was not acceptable for the citizens of India to see a Canadian representing the Indian government.
