Boycott Bollywood! Gossip, Contagion, and the Curious Case of Sushant Singh Rajput

Abstract

This paper considers the “SSR affair” as a point of entry into India’s public and political cultures as they have evolved under the current dispensation. Some of the unintended consequences—but ones that gathered traction with alarming speed—included the long incarceration of Chakraborty and her family members, multiple drug busts and CBI summons to major Bollywood stars like Deepika Padukone, and a wholesale, hysterical, right-wing propaganda against the Hindi film industry, which were relentlessly telecast by national media channels on television and the web. The war-cry of “Boycott Bollywood!” persists still, and the film industry has found itself tried and sentenced in the kangaroo court of gossip/conjecture/conspiracy driven public opinion. This paper looks at the consequences of fake news in the context of India as a beleaguered democracy.