Amar Ujala has celebrated love of the Hindi language with a resoundingly successful second filmmaking competition.

Assistant corporate brand manager Ashima Caroli says the Hindi Hain Hum competition was an opportunity to enhance the glory and pride of the Hindi language and re-emphasise its essence and the high cultural, literary, practical and everyday value it holds.

“India is a land rich in languages,” she says in an INMA blog. “Hundreds of languages and dialects co-exist, some of them spoken by only a few hundred people. While it’s not unusual for several different languages to be spoken in one country, India is fairly uncommon not only because of our languages but also our diversity.”

Professional network LinkedIn has marked a new milestone with the launch of Hindi, its first Indian regional language, with the goal to support 600 million Hindi language speakers globally. “The traction Hindi has gotten on social media platforms is tremendous, and adoptability of Hindi over the Internet has proven to be empowering,” she says.

After the success of an award-winning campaign in 2020, Noida, Uttar Pradesh-based Amar Ujala was optimistic about its second edition. The campaign was launched six weeks before Hindi Diwas, September 4, which is the day of 1949 on which Hindi – written in Devanagri script – was adopted as the country’s official language.

Promotional elements on and offline, included print ads and social media engagement, as well as news articles emphasising the glorious history of the language and its key contributors and educating the readers on Hindi literature.

“To bring in some creativity in the second season of the campaign, Amar Ujala introduced a short film competition, in which aspiring filmmakers shared two-minute films about their love for Hindi language, portraying its essence and beauty.

“The competition was a success with more than 1,000 incredible films received, reflecting high interest generation amongst the target audience and achieving the overall objective,” Caroli says.

Entries were scanned at three levels before being shared with a jury consisting of a senior media personality, a filmmaker, a film appreciation expert, and an Amar Ujala board member.

The top six winners of the competition were rewarded with prize money and mementos; the best short film was awarded INR 5 Lakhs (approximately US$6,562) and the other five winners received INR 1 lakh each (approximately US$1,312). The top six short films were screened at the felicitation ceremony and premiered on the official YouTube channel of Amar Ujala.

“Apart from the short film competition, our audience engagement initiative also included submission of 30-second videos in Hindi, either reciting a poem, singing their favourite song, reading from their most-loved book or an article from the newspaper, or performing stand-up comedy. Winners were announced on weekly basis and awarded cash prizes.

“The stellar participation results cemented our belief that Hindi is a language in which we dream, as it gives life to our emotions and adds soul to our expressions,” Caroli says. “Such expressions and love are beautifully depicted in the outstanding films. Just like English binds the world together, Hindi in our country is a bridge that connects people.”