Indian Ocean jams with Dettol for 'Banega Swachh India'

Fusion rock band India Ocean and lyricist Prasoon Joshi have partnered with Dettol 'Banega Swachh India' to re-energise the hygiene and sanitation movement across the country.

Almost a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced #SwachhBharat mission, music artistes across the country have come together to unite citizens to commit themselves towards a cleaner and healthier India by 2019.

India Ocean, considered among the pioneers of fusion rock genre in India, and Prasoon Joshi have partnered with Dettol 'Banega Swachh India' to launch a music track to re-energise the hygiene and sanitation movement across the country. Other prominent bands and artistes such as Dr. Palash Sen of Euphoria, Subir and Nitin Malik from Parikrama, Karthik, Kutle Khan, Koco and Mohan of Agnee and Shilpa Rao have also joined the initiative. Joshi has penned the lyrics of the song.

Titled 'Banega Swachh India', the video has been shot near historic monuments like Qutub Minar, Amer Fort, Humayun's Tomb and Gateway of India. The title track was released on September 30 on MTV, Aaj Tak and YouTube, featuring the band members Rahul Ram, Amit Kilam, Nikhil Rao, Himanshu Joshi and Tuheen Chakravorty. All the elements of the video, the futuristic approach, the eye-catching sequences, charm of historical places and expressions of the singers, intend to create a long-lasting impact on the spectators.

Talking about the video, Indian Ocean says, "Cleanliness is about the heart, body, mind and soul being clean. This will relieve the world from pain and disharmony. For us, the song is not just about being hygienic, that of course is the text of the song and also an extremely important message, but the subtext for us is the fact that cleanliness in all walks and factors of life is important."

"Music can be a powerful instrument for bringing mass consciousness and for a movement like this - where we're trying to get as many people to come forward - it can certainly play a role. The song tries to capture the upbeat sentiment prevailing in the nation right now and connects people with the intent to make India 'swachh'. It's a song of hope and of a better, cleaner future," says Joshi, chairman - Asia Pacific, CEO and chief creative officer - India, McCann Worldgroup.

"Music can be a powerful instrument for bringing mass consciousness and for a movement like this - where we're trying to get as many people to come forward - it can certainly play a role. The song tries to capture the upbeat sentiment prevailing in the nation right now and connects people with the intent to make India 'swachh'. It's a song of hope and of a better, cleaner future," says Joshi, chairman - Asia Pacific, CEO and chief creative officer - India, McCann Worldgroup.

As part of Dettol 'Banega Swachh India', initiatives such as Stop Diarrhoea, Swachh Varanasi, creating sanitation change leaders, hygiene curriculum for schools and toilet construction were also undertaken by Reckitt Benckiser in the last one year.

Speaking about this particular collaboration, Arjun Purkayastha, marketing director - Dettol, developing markets, shares, "In the last one year, after launching our nationwide campaign Dettol 'Banega Swachh India', we have made a considerable progress in driving behaviour change towards hygiene and sanitation - right from developing hygiene curriculum for 2.5 million school children and building 25,000 toilets to adopting 200 villages to make them open-defecation free."

"While we will continue to move forward on this initiative, we also want to encourage people to stand up and do their bit towards this movement. Music is a universal language which unites people across cultures and can serve as an agent of change," he adds.

RB (trading name of Reckitt Benckiser group of companies) is amongst the world's leading health and hygiene companies. It has operations in over 60 countries, with headquarters in UK, Singapore, Dubai and Amsterdam.