Amitabh Bachchan in Incredible India - Fusion - WeRIndia

Amitabh Bachchan, the Bollywood veteran is now the new spokesperson of famous Incredible India. It is a campaign to market the country to tourists abroad. 73 year old Amitabh Bachchan was set to receive a letter on January 8. He was selected for the campaign for a reported three-year arrangement.

The government has directly recruited Mr Bachchan. Actor Aamir Khan who was in this position previously was removed from the campaign on Wednesday evening. There are many reports that the decision to remove Mr Khan was made because of him suggesting recently that India has increasing amounts of religious intolerance. However, according to the Tourism and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, the actor signed a contract through an ad agency, McCann Erickson to appear in the ads of the campaign and the contract with the government had expired.

When asked to comment on the matter, Mr Khan stressed the fact that he had been the campaign spokesperson for 10 years. He said that whether or not a campaign needs a brand ambassador or who the brand ambassador should be is a decision of the government. He added that he respects the decision of the government to discontinue his contract.

According to reports, the Prime Minister’s office suggested Mr Bachchan as the new brand ambassador. In the past, Mr Bachchan has featured in ads of the tourism campaign for the Prime Minister’s home state of Gujarat.

Mr Bachchan commented that it should be made clear whether Aamir Khan was removed due to something that he may have said or if it is because of the end of his contract. He added that he doesn’t believe people would be removed because they said something that is controversial.

He further explained that he has not been formally asked to feature in the campaign, however, if he were asked he is more than willing to do so.

Image credit: Amitabh Bachchan – TeachAIDS Interview image by TeachAids is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Image Reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/teachaids/15039613545/