Social media has taken the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput and turned it into a nationwide online rage against nepotism in the film industry. They also trended hashtags in support of the 34-year-old actor and resorted to boycotting movies of Bollywood movie director Karan Johar, alleging that he had insulted him on his shows and had not shown him respect, leading to his depression.
In less than a couple of days after Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Twitter was teeming with the nepotism discourse once again. #JusticeForSushantSinghRajput, #SushantNoMore, #BoycottKaranJohar were some hashtags.
On 15 June, the day after Sushant’s death was reported, Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut put out a video in which she referred to Sushant’s death as a “planned murder.” In the video, she blamed journalists and the Bollywood fraternity for portraying Sushant as someone with a “weak mind.” Kangana has contorted Sushant’s death through the nepotism gaze.
Around the same time, two video snippets from Koffee With Karan went viral, once again, for all the wrong reasons. One featuring Alia Bhatt and the other featuring Sonam Kapoor. Now, I live on Twitter, so I have some understanding of herd mentality that exists on the bird app. But this one baffled even me. Twitter users started sharing a clip of Alia Bhatt playing the ‘Rapid Fire’ round on Koffee With Karan.
Meanwhile, the cyber cell from the Mumbai police is using another way to get some hints. And this time they are taking help from the late actor’s social media accounts. The police are scanning Sushant’s social media profiles. An officer said, “We are reading content like his posts on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social sites. His reply to his fan or friends. We are also listening to his interviews to news channels or YouTube channels.”
The media debates and discussions continue and go on to spin stories by pointing fingers at celebrities with baseless allegations, which can be easily termed as online harassment in a different light.
This is a judgment by the media. The Aarushi Talwar murder case provided an example of such judgment by media.
There are many others. The media in a democratic country have the overwhelmingly important role of pointing out wrongs and injustices, evidence of corruption, failures of the administration in the investigation of crimes. Building up villains in an unproven case is not their job. At a time when people are struggling with multiple crises, it is almost as though the focus on the case is providing a distraction. This is not just a matter of taste, it is an alarming failure of ethics. A civilized approach to a tragedy cannot be too difficult to achieve.