The project

This project is an effort to reintegrate the Charra community with the mainstream society by breaking the myth of ‘Born criminals' The project aspired to construct a strategy of marketing human dignity for De-notified tribes in the country. The language of marketing and advertising has been restricted to the fields of tangible commercial products only. The rhetoric of marketing, if applied to social advertising with the same fervor, keeping in mind the psychology of the viewer, may yield the same success as aggressive marketing has done to the consumer market. The strategies of mass communication of appealing to the emotions, rational, and cultural facets of the targeted audience to persuade, can structure the given information to exhort change.The emphasis of today's advertisements has shifted from the product to the life style of the buyer. Advertisements today no longer tell us what to buy but how to live our lives and so they say ‘think apple’ and not buy apple, ‘just do it’ and not just buy it. This is very much true for social advertising and persuasion.

In the social rhetoric, one is not involved with the oppressed object but with the ‘upliftment’/ ‘empowerment’ of the attitude of the un-oppressed lot. The change in perception to a loftier attitude automatically changes the code of conduct of a person towards the socially under-privileged without preaching the non-enticing morality of goodness.

But today voicing an opinion for your rights and needs requires you to not only be conversant in a foreign language (English/ Hindi in the context of India) but also in that of the media- a media that has no place for the marginalized.

Theater advertisement is a pastiche of the languages of theater and advertising. It is said that the Chharas were born on the stage. They are
excellent actors and singers with many productions to their credit. This unsung genre of theater has been used repeatedly by these artists to voice their opinion, but the glamor of other medium have always faded the lights in their stage. Considering this, I propose that the entire spot be created in the language of theater with heightened emotions, strong lights, limited space, props and exaggerated make up to highlight the unknown side of the Charras as artists. The recordings of these theater pieces ‘glamorously’ edited could be then used as spots.

If ‘the medium is the message’ today the vehicle of the advertising language driven in celluloid can become the message that theater has failed to convey. These cryptic advertisements of 30 seconds to 1 minute would be a participatory process where the Chharas would not only determine what is said about them but also how it is said- something that has never been in their hands. The actors will decide not only what needs to be said but also how it is said through their acting.

There are no born criminals

The Print Campaign

History makes ‘others’, but then history was never known to be democratic.

Some Charras have been involved in thefts. Some of the incidents have been gruesome also. But did you punish the whole white world because their ancestors made the rest of the world a slave colony? Does one brand every bearded man a terrorist because some bearded men are terrorists? What kind of rationality promotes the logic of attributing the character of the part to the whole?

This fear in our words is also reflected in our eyes. The written word says that the ‘others’ are habitual offenders under law and so the eyes say that they have potential of ‘offending’ us. The written word says that the theft that took place a month back was committed by three Charras. It does not say that the theft was committed by two Indian men or by two unemployed youth, or two hungry youth or simply two men. The written word reiterates our fear into a belief which soon becomes a rational.Charras= Thieves

So who are the Chharas? Chharas are the Denotified tribes of India. In 1871, the British Notified a large number of tribes as 'born criminals' to solve their law and order problems. These tribes were placed under barbed wires and served as a cheap source of labor to the white rulers. Independent India failed to give these tribes justice. The Tribes were only, 'denotified' but the common man by now had learnt that some people are 'born criminals'.

Hence this campaign to break the myth of 'born criminals'. The idea was to create a visual dichotomy between the image and the myth. No child this age can be branded a criminal. If that is so the myth negates itself thorough it very image.

A toddler put behind bars enacts the life of an adult criminal. The image asks people to rethink their myth- Can he be a 'criminal'?

Equality begins with you

The language of theater and advertising

In order to create a communication strategy, it was imperative to build a language that was familiar to the community rather than to the Project. The community had a strong theater tradition with many plays to its credits. Therefore theater was the obvious choice. Combined with stark light contrast to give a feel of a stage, exaggerated emotions, theater scripts, and frontal camera angles the language of advertising was assimilated with that of theater.

The scripts were written after a few focus group discussions in which the children and the adults together spoke of events and ideas of their life. Based on these anecdotes, the scripts were written down.

It was realized that the problem faced by the community was two sided. There was a general social apathy towards the cause which led to the society in general blaming the entire community as criminal. On the other hand because of lack of job opportunities, certain members of the community are certainly committing crime and brewing illicit liquor.

The campaign was therefore divided into two parts

Individual verses the community – This section deals with the fallacy of terming a whole community guilty for the crime of the individual. The advertisements accept that thefts take place. They only exhort the audience to blame the criminal and not his community for the act. The media, police and the society have been addressed in this campaign through voice overs. They are not visually present in any of the scene but their voices perpetually blame, punish or hold guilty the other.

-Blame the thief not the community

-Punish the thief not the community

-Catch the thief not the community.

Equality begins with you- This section requests the society to give Chharras a chance. Mistakes have been committed but redemption is still an option. But this is possible only if the society treats them with equality. The community is not asking for money or any privileges. All that they ask for is human dignity.

In this section the audience was exhorted to take a step forward to bring change. The advertisements question the stereotypes held by people in general. The protagonist looks straight into your eyes and says ‘Equality begins with you’.

- Equality in jobs

- Equality in play

- Equality in attitude

- Equality in living

The perpetrator was deliberately kept absent in the advertisement in order to refrain from antagonizing the public at large and the ones holding law and order in specific. The attitude of the society was presented only through the voiceovers. Children were used as actors in all the advertisements to carry on the tag line of the print campaign that no one can be a born criminal.

Catch the thief not his community

Blame the thief not his community

Punish the thief not his community