The media circus that’s being played out since the last 79 days in the matter of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death should make every journalist worth his salt hang his head in shame because the term being used to describe the voyeuristic investigation conducted by most of the television news channels, many of the film-based digital channels and websites, and print journalists is ‘investigative journalism’. This is not investigative journalism that we’ve known since years. Yes, social media did not exist when we entered the profession but its presence today can’t change the definition of ‘investigative journalism’. The tragedy is that, like journalists working for those channels and magazines fabricating and manufacturing stories to drum up their TRPs, views and readership numbers, we are also known as journalists. Unfortunately, there’s no division between honest and dishonest journalists, or between journalists who don’t put out stories till they are cent per cent sure about what they write or speak, and journalists who couldn’t care less because, in any case, they and their channels/magazines/websites are in the business of manufacturing news and peddling lies and sensationalism. A newspaper, news channel or news magazine’s primary job is to disseminate news, not to pass off lies as news. What started as Sushant’s suicide coverage has now degenerated into Bollywood bashing. Lies repeated a number of times assumes the colour of truth. The fabricated stories about the Hindi film industry are giving Bollywood a bad name. In my entire career of over 30 years in Bollywood, I’ve never seen its image being sullied so miserably. Even when Hindi film producers were accused of taking underworld funding, the reputation of Bollywood did not take the beating it has taken in the last two-and-a-half months. The public has been misled into believing that Bollywood is worse than the underworld, that its heroines are prostitutes, its heroes are thugs, its producers and directors make murder plans more than they make films, everyone’s full-time job is to do drugs, backstab competitors, badmouth people, ruin careers etc. So, when does Bollywood make films if it is so busy doing what the news channels would have us believe?
If what the news channels, instigated by a handful of industry insiders, are passing off as news everyday since more than two months is disturbing, equally worrying is to see Bollywood bear all the humiliation being heaped on it without any reaction whatsoever. One fails to understand, how the blood of Bollywood people is not boiling? Film people are sensitive by nature because insensitive people cannot be in the business of art. Given that, their inaction is intriguing, to say the least. Everyone who has earned name, fame, money and power in Bollywood owes it to the industry to safeguard its reputation. Silence may have been golden in the good old days but in the age of social media, silence is often misinterpreted as acceptance. Not revolting against the spread of negativity for Bollywood is the greatest disservice the people of Bollywood are doing to themselves and to the industry which has made them. And they will have to pay its price. Sooner than later!
A number of industry people have been speaking to me about what’s being played out on news channels ever since Sushant died. And all they say is that they are horrified by what is being put out in the name of news. Their blood is boiling, they say. I wonder, if it is really boiling. For, if they are indeed as angry as they profess to be, how is it that not a single industry person has decided to take action to curb the lies being spoken? How is it that nobody has a solution to this problem? Perhaps, because nobody is truly and genuinely concerned about the industry as a whole. Everybody’s problem is nobody’s problem, right? Wrong! It pains me to think that all those whom the industry has given so much, are not thinking of the industry when it needs them the most. They owe at least that much — actually, much more — to the industry!
Even if one admits without agreeing that nobody wants to bell the cat, what are the trade associations doing? Standing like mute spectators even as the industry’s image is being mauled and torn to shreds?! Over the last decade, many film trade associations have lost their significance. If not for anything else, these associations can use the opportunity to reassert their importance. But for that, they will have to take a stand on the front foot. Silence today is, more often than not, considered a weapon of the meek. And the industry which entertains crores of people week after week can’t be so weak and so meek. It is shameful that not a single association has come forward to put things into perspective. The associations need to forthwith resolve to:
(i) boycott all the TV channels, digital platforms and online or offline magazines which are indulging in yellow journalism and giving the film industry a bad name;
(ii) take disciplinary action against the industry insiders who are spreading hatred against the industry in public minds;
(iii) take corrective action on a war footing.
If associations cannot take such action, the presidents of those associations need to resign. Bollywood can do without such weak leaders. It should do without such people whose self-respect does not prompt them to act even in such a situation. The television channels which are spewing venom against Bollywood people are the same which have thrived on Bollywood personalities. The industry insiders who are instigating negativity among the gullible people are the ones who, to make strides in their professions, adopted the same path which they are condemning today without batting an eyelid.
Bollywood is not realising the implications of the army of trolls on social media which is waiting to attack whatever it puts out for public consumption. If a film is not to people’s liking, it will flop, but how justified are trolls when they ask people to boycott films? And why do they seek a boycott? Just for the heck of it! Has it been proven that someone from Bollywood has actually murdered Sushant? If and when it is proved, law will take its own course against the wrong-doer/s. Why is every news channel in such a hurry to pronounce judgement over a murder that’s being probed by the CBI, no less? Why is there a movement against star-kids, against some top names of the Hindi film industry? This one time, Bollywood needs to unite for its own good. The producers’ associations, directors’ bodies, artistes’ associations can’t be pretending that nothing is the matter while Bollywood is on fire. Something is wrong. A lot is wrong! And it needs to be set right. NOW!!