A video of a dance troupe taking to the streets of Anarkali had been making rounds on social media for the past few days. Dancing to Beyonce’s iconic “Who Run the World”, these girls who frequent the bazaar for art supplies and were oft wrongfully dubbed as models tried to promote, what the brand calls, “doing your own thing”.

“Our concept was #doyourownthing and it was not about women empowerment.”

After the video raised a shit ton of eyebrows and enraged people, from conservatives to feminists, to rage over the “stunt” and rally together against the brand, it was taken down.

“We were not promoting any cause or telling people about appropriate behavior. The creative artists wanted to use dance as an inspiration and created a scene for impact”, the brand wrote after announcing that the promo video has been removed from their official campaign.

“If you watch it as a movie clip, you would agree that these girls are wearing decent clothes and the dance movements are not vulgar.”

“It’s certainly more decent clothes and dance movements than most Pakistani or Indian song videos or what people watch at Mehndi these days”, the brand shared on a status update. “Such negative reaction to a simple dance by girls on a public place has caught us and everybody associated with this project by surprise.”

“The internet crowd watched the video and wrote offensive statements, passed judgements[sic] and threatened girls.”

The brand also disclosed that the members were being targeted by cyber crusaders which led to fear for personal security. A project that came as natural expression to the participants who are dance students at college became negatively stigmatized.

“Anarkali crowd did not create issues for girls that cyber bullies have. Anarkali crowd enjoyed the performance and made videos on phone and we were fine with it because it was to go on social media”

The conversation on social media was a lop-sided one, with pros and cons being listed by various circles. While many categorized it under a feminism-gone-terribly-wrong category, others thought it was perhaps sexualized based on the fact that the flash mob consisted of girls.

We picked up a few of these comments from the post itself:

Whether or not the campaign was in bad taste or aimed at a different agenda altogether, cultural context was something that was bothersome. A statement was made, nonetheless, which sparked a much needed conversation. What are your thoughts on the matter? Share in the comments section below.