Goel TMT's new campiagn encourages families to support daughters against domestic violence

Every year, Indian authorities record hundreds of thousands of acts of violence against women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, over 365,000 such cases were reported in 2022 alone. Of these, 38% involved cruelty by a husband or his relatives.

Dowry deaths accounted for another 2%. That puts domestic violence at a minimum of 40% of all reported crimes against women, and experts note that the actual numbers are likely far higher, given how many cases go unreported.

It is against this backdrop that steel manufacturer Goel TMT launched its short film as a part of its campaign, Band Baaja Bitiya.

The film, produced by The Unicorn Film for the brand, conceptualised by Wisteria Media featuring actor Gajraj Rao, questions the social conditioning around marriage that has long asked daughters to adjust, tolerate the intolerable, and preserve appearances at the cost of their dignity.

The film opens with an elderly father visibly disturbed after a phone call with his married daughter. Through conversations with family and friends, it becomes clear that she is facing abuse at her in-laws' home. Around him, everyone urges him not to interfere, she is no longer his responsibility, they say. Her struggles are dismissed. He is told to focus on marrying off his younger daughter and move on.

What follows is unexpected. The father hires a band baaja troupe, the kind typically reserved for weddings, and marches to his daughter's marital home amid curious stares and loud music. When her in-laws question the reason for the spectacle, he tells them, calmly but firmly, that he is celebrating bringing his daughter back home.

He calls her out, embraces her, and declares she is neither a stranger nor a burden. The film closes with a pointed reminder that countless women suffer in silence because their families choose silence over support.

The campaign's message aims to tie directly into the brand's tagline, Aapke ghar ko de lambi umar, meaning "ensures a long life for your home", suggesting that a home's true strength lies in the people it protects.

The film draws on familiar socialpressures, the advice to ‘adjust,’ the silence expected of daughters, and centres the father's decision to reject them.

Former Union Minister Smriti Irani shared the campaign on her social media, writing that for generations, women have been told to tolerate the intolerable to preserve appearances. She addressed the phrases that normalise suffering, "thoda bohot chalta hai", and stated plainly: "Violence is not culture. It is not tradition."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Smriti Irani (@smritiiraniofficial)

The campaign does not offer legal solutions or policy prescriptions. What it does, in a little over three minutes, is show a father choosing his daughter over convention.