00:00The video of Ranbir Singh imitating the daivas shown in the movie Kantara left many people
00:09furious. Which brings us to this debate of what is cultural appropriation and why is it being
00:15taken so seriously. South Asians in the UK recently woke up to a very bizarre headline
00:23when a UK-based white-owned company had managed to trademark the word Sabzi, a word that simply
00:30means vegetables across several South and West Asian languages. And this isn't a one-off. Remember
00:38when global fashion giant Prada faced backlash for launching a chappal that looked almost identical
00:44to the iconic Kolhapuri chappal? The big question there is, when does cultural appropriation
00:51become something that the law can actually step in on? First let's look at what is actually
00:56cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation usually means taking cultural expression,
01:00traditional knowledge, designs or symbols from another culture without permission, understanding
01:05or even credit. The imitation of the daivas per se doesn't fall within the cultural appropriation
01:12category. Simply because it has been clearly attributed where it came from and he was not
01:18claiming it for himself. But most of the time what can be offensive or insulting
01:23is not illegal. But sometimes it crosses into violation of intellectual property law or even laws
01:30dealing with religious or cultural insult. So where does the law come in? Under international
01:36intellectual property law, two tools matter most here. Trademark and geographical indication tags,
01:42also known as GI tag. A trademark protects a distinctive name, word, symbol, logo or a design
01:48that identifies a specific company or product. But here's the key point. Generic or commonly used
01:55words cannot be trademarked. You cannot own a word that belongs to everyday language. Which is exactly
02:01what happened in the UK's Subzi case. The trademark was cancelled as authorities agreed that Subzi is a
02:08common word and could never belong to one business. And where do GI tags come in? GI protects products
02:15that come from a specific location like Kolhapuri Chapel, Darjeeling Tea, Kashmiri Pashmina, Makrana Marble.
02:22These names and the product legally belongs to the region and its producers. GI tags cannot be owned by one
02:29company or person. It belongs to producer groups or government body like the tea board of India for the
02:35Darjeeling Tea. That is why Prada had to apologize and engage with local Kolhapuri artisan. But not
02:42everything that feels like cultural appropriation is illegal. Calling a dupatta a Scandinavian scarf of
02:49selling westernized yoga styles may be appropriation but it is not a legal violation.
