Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead on June 14, 2020 leaving entire India shocked. People grieved his untimely demise as if he was a family member. He was an amazing actor, an intelligent person and most importantly a humble man with whom middle class people could connect. He was one of us. When we see film actors throwing tantrums, giving a cold shoulder to people who made them what they are, or even show arrogance as if they own ‘film industry’. Well, in a way it is correct too as power to make or break a talent is with the selected few in Bollywood, or Bullywood as Kangana Ranaut calls it.
After Sushant’s murder, there was a calm for a few days and then Kangna Ranaut was interviewed by Arnab Goswami where she opened up on her struggle in Bollywood as an outsider and gave shocking details about how Sushant was banned by the major film production houses after he refused one film by Yash Raj. Kangna talked about bullying, how talent from outside of film industry targeted and suppressed to make a way for their own. She even quoted Tapsee Pannu from her interview where she called herself as a B-Grade actor. Kangna said that both Swara and Tapsee are better actresses and better looking than Ananya and Alia but still don’t get what they deserve as they are outsiders!
A sane person would appreciate that but Swara and Tapsee acted too egoistic to understand the statement. They openly stood against Kangana and many feminists jumped to stand with them. What about Kangna, you ask? She risked her career to expose and reveal the mightiest of the industry, did any feminist stand with her? No. That is how feminism works it seems.
In another interview, Kangna revealed about drug parties and how newcomer girls in the industry are ‘introduced’ to elderly group of men in Dubai, how they are drugged and hallucinated. She said that Sushant was a victim of cunningness around him. Guess what, still media tried to let go of such major revelations. No feminist asked for safer working environment for women, no tweets in her support, none of her colleagues from film industry supported her too.
A couple of days later, Rhea’s PR team arranged two interviews for her- NDTV and AajTak. As per Sudhir Chaudhary, he was approached for the interview too provided he used their’ script for questioning her, which he denied. It is worth applauding that a girl whose net income in the last couple of days was 12-14 lacs per annum, who has a loan of 50 lacs and pays monthly instalment of 17,000 Rs is able to afford the costliest lawyer and a PR team to work for her.
As soon as her interview came out, feminists came out of their holes to give her a benefit of doubt. They shamed ‘media trails’ (not the ones in which Rhea presented her case though). Feminists want people to let Rhea ‘innocent till proven guilty’ despite so many inconsistencies and proofs of her talking about drugs and discussing how to give drugs to Sushant- tea or coffee. Despite this, Bhaskar, Pannu and now Vidhya Balan want people not to judge Rhea but none utter a word to support Kangana, who risked her life, career and security to speak what we all know today.
Is it not a clear case of film industry working as a unit in who to support and who to boycott? Why is the definition of feminism so shallow that a woman would support another woman ONLY if her agenda is met? Are we giving the right environment to our future generations? Isn’t this a vital period to introspect and change ourselves a bit? Should we not support the right for once? What is the need of hypocrisy every time? Why are people oblivious of the pain of a 74-year old father and sisters? Had Sushant been their son or brother would Tapsees and Bhaskars and Lakshmi and Balans said the same? Why is an achiever middle class person not accepted by the riches? Was a boy too much a threat? Is Kangna too bold and truthful that others are scared of being swept away? Is their position so weak? Do we still need feminism or do we need humanism?
