Cringing at the steamy condom ads featuring the likes of Sunny Leone? Fret not, the good old normal is staging a big comeback. After nearly a two-year-long hiatus, the government’s family planning campaign — epitomised by the ‘ Hum Do, Hamare Do ’ message of Nirodh condoms — is all set to return in a new avatar with trendy packaging, a new punchline and the star power of Amitabh Bachchan to boot.
The overarching family planning mantra — in Mr. Bachchan’s baritone — will be ‘Plan Banate Hain ’ (Let’s make a plan) but the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has spared no expense in reaching every stakeholder. The condom ads have a more specific punchline, ‘ Achchi Aadat Hai ’ (It’s a good habit) and, in a marked departure from past campaigns, this one combines the message of family planning, child spacing and safe-sex practices. The advertisement likens the use of condom with the use of helmets, suggesting that if you use the helmet every time, why not condoms?
The ads are likely to hit the screens in the next 10 days and the messaging ranges from mother-daughter theme to saas-bahu conversations about maternal health and safe sex.
As part of the fresh push, the ministry has a revamped logo for the family planning programme, a repackaged version of the oral contraceptive pill, Mala-D, and fancier covers on the free condoms distributed by government. There is a basket of choices available to women including injectable contraceptives, centchroman [a non-hormonal, non-steroidal oral contraceptive] and progestogen-only pills (POPs).
In campaign mode The new campaign comes after a lull during which budget cuts led to a condom stock-out in government-run medical centres as well as discontinuation of all IEC (Information, Education and Communication) activities on condom promotion. “We are going after family planning in a campaign mode,” says C.K. Mishra, Mission Director, National Health Mission. “Our programme is not about limiting children. This is about a healthy family. We wanted to relaunch it in a manner that the youth relate to it. Our target is to give them better choices,” adds Mr. Mishra.
The new strategy comes against the backdrop of a massive commitment India has made at the Family Planning Summit in Delhi earlier this month of giving an additional 48 million women access to voluntary family planning methods apart from the 100 million women it had originally committed to cover. The stakes are high. “If India does not do its bit, the global vision will fail — it is as simple as that,” says Poonam Muttreja, executive director of Population Foundation of India, which works on population policy advocacy and research.
After decades of gingerly approaching the subject of family planning, the centrepiece of the new strategy will be shifting from limiting children to child spacing.
“Unlike the Congress governments that carried the baggage of the Emergency years, this government has an advantage in that it can experiment with the family planning programme. And it is doing just that: there are many choices for women, they are focussing on spacing methods and using star brand ambassadors to amplify their message, which is that condoms need to be used every single time,” adds Ms. Muttreja.
With new advertisements, fresh products, radio spots, airtime and — last but not the least — Big B as the campaign face, the Health Ministry is banking on Indian men to be a part of the change.
vidya.krishnan@thehindu.co.in
