Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya has championed the case of putting one’s foot in the mouth ever so often. The crooner has had a long history of ranting on the micro-blogging site. On May 22, Abhijeet Bhattacharya spewed insults to some female Twitter users, in particular, JNU student-activist Shehla Rashid. He wrote to Shehla, “There is rumour she took money for two hours and didn’t satisfy the client... Big racket. [sic]” A complaint was filed thereafter and Abhijeet’s Twitter account was suspended.
In 2016 too, he had written quite a few tweets, which were brazenly xenophobic, chauvinistic and anything but cultured, coming from a cultural icon. “U not proud of Indian? Wats your breed? U sk pakis..I fk Pakis, U lick..I kick, dnt block just wait”[sic], read one of his tweets from February, 2016.
One of his spats with a journalist also had him arrested for a few hours. He had drawn flak for his posts on Salman Khan’s hit-an-run case after he posted: Kutta rd pe soyega kutte ki maut marega, roads garib ke baap ki nahi hai i as homles an year nvr slept on rd @BeingSalmanKhan @sonakshisinha [sic].
Abhijeet Bhattacharya
However, seems like he has not lost his touch to deliberately incite hatred. Abhijeet tweeted in solidarity with an equally imbecilic tweet from actor-turned-BJP MLA Paresh Rawal on Sunday night, and then the abuse towards Shehla began.
Almost a day later , after vehement lashbacks from Twitterati, Abhijeet’s handle was suspended. While many have welcomed the move, several others are calling the suspension a biased act. Many have come out in support of the singer with hashtag #IstandWithAbhijeet, which started trending on the site. Meanwhile, Sonu Nigam had also voiced his opinion, but ended up deleting his account.
“What happened with Abhijeet’s Twitter account was long overdue. In fact, I was one of the people who helped deactivate it by reporting abuse on his tweets. The problem is that, his Twitter handle getting deactivated does not really mean anything in the long run unless some stricter action is taken,” says filmmaker Karan Anshuman.
However, this is not the first time Abhijeet has invited trouble. Last year, AAP spokesperson, Preeti Sharma Menon registered a complaint against the singer, which led him to be arrested and later released on bail. “The cyber crime branch hasn’t done much since then,” says Preeti. Abhijeet was booked under Section 500, 509 of IPC and 67 of IT Act. “However, as we speak, I am writing a fresh letter to the DCP of Mumbai Cyber Cell.”
She continues, “What’s most disturbing is the fact that celebrities like Paresh Rawal, Abhijeet and Sonu Nigam sit in their air-conditioned bungalows and send out such hate messages. There are people who will fall prey to more violence. They are the influencers of our country, and if they behave in such a way, then we are heading in an extremely wrong direction.”
Sonu Nigam
When we tried to get in touch with Abhijeet, he messaged asking the reporter to call after ten minutes, however, when called, he didn’t answer.
“In most democracies abroad,” points Karan, “saying the kinds of things that he, and Paresh Rawal for that matter, have said, would have resulted in getting debarred from committees and alienation at least and some legal action as well, when it goes to the extent that it has with Abhijeet.”
Rahul Ram from Indian Ocean has a matter-of-fact approach to the debacle. “These guys follow an ideology which prefer aggression. Look at all of them. It is unfortunate that we are expecting anything better out of them. Didn’t Paresh Rawal spew venom on some fake news? But unfortunately this is their way of diverting our attention from the more serious issues at hand,” laments Rahul. However, not everyone is buying the ideology, according to him. “There are two sides to it. You also have artistes who are vehemently opposing Paresh and Abhijeet’s stance. The most disturbing fact is, this aggression and inciting the mob will go on for at least another good ten years,” he points out, half-jokingly.
Early on May 24, singer Shaan, a Abhijeet and Sonu Nigam’s contemporary, tweeted: “We understand the frustration and hopelessness that You feel.. bhai I can only urge and request you to stay and spread the Love @sonunigam.” (sic) However, Shaan was unavailable for any further comments.
“You have a very disbalanced narrative now, since people like Abhijeet — with their pseudo-nationalist ideals — can say whatever they want and ultimately get away with it, whereas whoever says anything against these ideologies, is immediately dragged through the coals,” adds Karan.
