News World

Khalistan supporters buy Super Bowl ad spot that costs several million dollars

February 9, 2021
Balaji Subramanian

Super Bowl is one of the calendar events in America. There are instances when fans would mortgage there house to pay for the ticket to watch one of the most important sporting events of the year. The American National Football League is also fast becoming popular across with many American teams playing away games in Europe.

Super Bowl is also known for its half time musical performances from some of the most popular singers and companies line up to put their ads which will be seen by over 100 million Americans as confirmed by a Reuters report. These ads, however, cost upwards of 5 million dollars for a 30-second but one ad, in particular, stood a little apart from the regular commercials and that was of the farmers’ protest in India.

The 30-second advertisement began with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. and termed the ongoing farmers’ protest as the “largest protest in history”. Singer Jazzy B sent out a tweet and said, “World is Watching”.

Indian-American banker Raj Sodhi Layne and her friends is said to have put together this 30 seconds ad which grabs 100.45 million viewers. “Our initial goal was to raise $852,000 to air the ad in all 43 major cities across the United States. But we were a bit late for that,” Raj was quoted saying in The Indian Express.

They had set up a page on crowdfunding platform ‘GoFundMe’ and managed to raise $11,123 in just one day. The ad was produced by one local artist and producer named Shar Singh of Teji Videos.

Super Bowl commercials are high-profile television advertisements known for their creativity and cinematic quality and feature celebrity cameos and it is not uncommon some of these commercials also go viral on the internet, and the people who bought this time slot are hoping for that.

Right now in India thousands of farmers, especially from the Punjab which has a large diaspora in the US and Canada have literally sealed the Delhi’s borders for more than 75 days that has led to a loss of nearly 80 thousand crores.

The farmers are demanding that the government rollback of the three new agriculture reform laws and a guarantee on the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system being retained. All the negotiation attempt for an equitable compromise made by the government and the farmers’ union leaders have failed thus far and the protesters are hell-bent on continuing the siege.

Already singer Rihanna, Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg who famously let the tools fall out of her toolkit, American vlogger and Playboy model Amanda Cerny, and the world’s most famous porn star Mia Khalifa have sent tweets supporting the farmers.

It has also been alleged that Rihanna received 3.5 million dollars for sending that one single tweet. Many in the opposition in India claim that the farmer’s protest is purely organic but it is clear that some foreign interests are extending there support because it is not easy to get an ad spot in the Super Bowl which cost millions of dollars.

However, it is very clear that some very rich and influential people have launched a systematic campaign against the Modi government and derail the BJP in 2024 general election. The farmer’s protest also saw the ugly rise for the demand for Khalistan which has a history of violence in which thousands of Sikhs and Hindus lost there lives in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Khalistanis get lots of support from Canada and also from Pakistan which is viewing this as an opportunity to create rift and discord in India. Already India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a statement has said: “The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible,”.

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