Twitter-happy celebrities are too quick off the mark
Role models such as Sonu Nigam and Gautam Gambhir should be more circumspect on social media
The voices have assumed a shrill, chauvinistic tone. A few months after playback singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, (remember him?), warned us of the hazards of allowing Pakistani artistes to work in India, Sonu Nigam has woken up to the perils of forced religiosity and loudspeakers blaring the azaan .
One fine April morning, Nigam, best known for such chartbusters as Sandese aate hain , decided to express his displeasure over the azaan. “God bless everyone. I’m not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India,” he tweeted to his 5.92 million followers. “Gundagardi hai bus... (it is hooliganism),” he said in another tweet. It helps that the political climate in the country is decidedly Right-of-Centre and the BJP in power in the Centre and in Maharashtra.
The tweet came soon after Olympic medallist wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt threw his weight behind the army personnel stationed in Kashmir. Reacting to the outrage over the video of a Kashmiri youth tied to a jeep and being used as a human shield, he retorted on Twitter that there was no similar upheaval when army personnel were pelted with stones despite rescuing the people of the state from floods.
Dutt isn’t the only sports icon wearing his coloured views on his sleeve. Last week, World Cup 2011 star Gautam Gambhir took umbrage over the heckling of troops in the Valley, tweeting: “For every slap on my army’s Jawan lay down at least a 100 jihadi lives. Whoever wants Azadi LEAVE NOW! Kashmir is ours. #kashmirbelongs2us”.
This new-found candour among artistes and athletes is a departure from the pre-social media days where a Mohammad Rafi, an AR Rahman or a Sachin Tendulkar kept their counsel and were circumspect about airing their opinions.
To some, Nigam’s controversial statement that came out of the blue or Gambhir’s pop-patriot tweets may appear to be attempts to draw attention towards themselves and revive their flagging careers. Others say that artistes or athletes have as much a right to air their views on social media as you and I.
Although celebrities in the age of social media displaying a degree of openness in expressing their opinion on matters of popular interest is a good development, since they have millions clinging on to every character they type, they have to be careful of what they put out in the Twitterverse. Displaying a degree of maturity on social media will help them gain the respect of millions of fans who might respect their craft but are enraged by their biases or views. The trigger-happy Twitter celeb can inadvertently turn into a troll. Whether it is the compulsions of staying relevant or the nature of the social media beast that is fuelling this, they need to be mindful of the medium and the message.