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Advertisements for yoga guru Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved have repeatedly been called out for being misleading. In July the Advertising Standards Council of India had said the company “unfairly denigrates” products from its competitors. In May, too the ASCI had rapped Patanjali’s ads for being “false and misleading”.

Now comes a campaign which was timed to be released ahead of Independence Day. The TV spot, seen in the video above, compares Patanjali's foreign competitors to the East India Company. The message is pretty direct, likening today’s consumers to Indian freedom fighters.

The multimedia campaign also ran on radio and in print, urging consumers to buy Patanjali products because they are made in India. The print ad read, “Though we got political freedom 70 years back, economic freedom is still a dream. The way East India Company enslaved and looted us, multinational companies are still doing the same by selling soap, shampoo, toothpaste, cream, powder and similar daily items at exorbitant price." An accompanying image of a Christian cross in the ad reportedly angered a group of Christians in Bhopal.

The Economic Times reported, quoting Patanjali spokesperson SK Tijarawala, “We are running the campaign for long hours during prime time. We telecast these ads during all shows which are not foreign, vulgar and violent.” The report further states, citing data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council website, that Patanjali became the biggest television advertiser in the first week of August, 2016 with the release of the campaign. "The campaign was telecast 21,923 times during this period", it says.

The company has become a strong contender for marketshare in the fast moving consumer goods segment. And while Ramdev has preached the swadeshi theme earlier, this is the first time it's appeared in ads.

A report on Firstpost.com, says quoting advertising professional Piyush Pandey, that such ads are negative, especially at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is inviting the world to India to do business. In June, the government had cleared the way for 100 percent foreign direct investment in the trading of food products.