Remember those school projects on making wealth from waste? This new Swachh Bharat ad, #Don’tLetHerGo, featuring Bollywood stars Kangana Ranaut, Amitabh Bachchan, Isha Kopikar, and Ravi Kishan appears to have taken inspiration from this popular homework.

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Targeting those who litter across social classes, the ad suggests that if you don’t get your waste management right, Goddess Lakshmi will leave you. Cleanliness is next to godliness and all that. 

Though Kangana is an interesting choice to play Goddess Lakshmi, a role that usually goes to more sedate and less controversial female actors, the idea behind the ad itself is rather lame.

If religion really influenced people’s civic sense, the Ganges, India’s largest and holiest of rivers, wouldn’t be in the state that it is currently. Our places of worship would be a lot cleaner too. 

An ad for littering that does not prick your conscience in any way but simply tells you that you might stop adding zeroes to your bank balance is going to work only if you are THAT naïve or THAT Hindu. Seeing a picture of Peanut might have more shock value.

The only thing we like about this ad is Goddess Lakshmi leaving on a bike. Pillion seat, but still.