New Delhi: Dailyhunt, India’s #1 news and entertainment content application that provides content in 14 different languages today announced the launch of its trailblazing digital campaign, ‘#HarBhashaEqual’. The campaign aims at highlighting our in-built bias against our vernacular languages and seeks the support From the youth in India to seek linguistic equality in the country. ‘#HarBhashaEqual’ is conceptualized and executed by Mumbai-based, full-service digital agency, What’s Your Problem.
In the social fabric of today’s India, our individual identities are layered and polygonal. A vital aspect of our identity is the language we speak and yet in a country with so many languages and such rich cultural and linguistic history, do we really look at all languages equally?
The campaign starts off with a social experiment where different pairs of speakers, each with one speaking in English and the other in a regional Indian language, address a new set of bilingual audience. Both the people in every pair talking about the same achievement. The audience is then asked to guess who the real achiever is. We urge you to watch the social experiment film to find out what happened next.
The film ends with a beautiful song about linguistic equality that asks the ambitious Indian youth why they should be diffident just because they can’t speak English, while hinting subtly at the colonial history of India.
The movement lives beyond the film and asks everyone to write their next social update in their regional language instead of the usual English using #HarBhashaEqual.
UmangBedi, President, Dailyhunt, said, “In the societal fabric of India today, our individual identities are layered. A vital aspect of our identity is the language we speak, yet in a country with so many local languages and a celebrated legacy of rich cultural and linguistic history, the question that keeps popping up is – do we look at all languages equally? The answer is sadly ‘No’. The ‘#HarBhashaEqual’ campaign is an attempt to initiate a much-needed debate on this issue. It reflects our commitment to restore the importance of each regional language in India.This campaign is a good way to connect with the youth, across Bharat typically, millennials between 17 and 30 years of age and enlist their participation in this historic movement that goes beyond the film.
UmangBedi added, “For over a decade, Dailyhunt has been concentrating on empowering people across the country, the real Bharat, not just in the metros—with knowledge and information by offering news, information and entertainment in local languages. ‘Language Equality’ has been a part of our existence since inception; hence, this is a natural theme for us.”
MihirChitre, Associate Creative Director at What’s Your Problem, said, “We subliminally equate intelligence and achievement of a person with the language they speak. For instance, a lot of young talent doesn’t reach its true potential because of their inability to speak English. This needs to change. This campaign is a stance for equality, a stance against the privilege of being able to speak certain languages. And according to me, anything against privilege of any kind, is a great stance to take. This is an attempt at making the country a level-playing field for its youth. This campaign, as some call it, is a movement. We chose a social experiment to launch it because it’s a powerful way to prove the linguistic bias.”
Given the sensibilities of the project, it’s been directed by Cannes Lion winning director and feature film maker, Bauddayan Mukherji of Little Lamb Films.
Tejas Mehta, Business Head of What’s Your Problem, said, “This campaign engineers shareability in the digital world. It’s a movement that targets our consumers on platforms they spend time on. We intend to use new media to our advantage. This, hopefully, will generate tremendous brand love for Daily Hunt.”
