The Bollywood star, a suicide … and an online witch-hunt across India
It was a muted finale to a saga that has rivalled the wildest movie storylines. On Wednesday, the Bollywood star Rhea Chakraborty stepped out of the Byculla women’s prison in Mumbai, released on bail after 28 days in jail.
Over the previous four months, she had been vilified in a media spectacle that became a national obsession in India. She was accused of playing a role in the death of her boyfriend, fellow Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, who killed himself in his apartment in Mumbai on 14 June.
After news of his death broke, Rajput’s struggles with mental health began to emerge. But in the days that followed, conspiracy theories also began to take hold that Rajput had been driven to his death by the nepotism in India’s film industry, which had hated him for being an outsider and not from pure Bollywood lineage.
Claims that he had been murdered spread on social media and a “Justice for Sushant” campaign took hold, seized on by politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).
The glare of the media then turned to Chakraborty. Rajput’s family filed a lawsuit against her, claiming she had abetted his death, and though no evidence could be presented, a campaign of hate began to build against her. In September she was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), accused of supplying drugs to Rajput, trafficking, and being part of an “active drug syndicate”.
She was not alone. After her arrest, the NCB also questioned some of Bollywood’s biggest names for alleged drug-related activity.
But Chakraborty denies any wrongdoing, both in relation to the death of her boyfriend and the NCB’s charges, and last week the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Aiims) released an autopsy report confirming what the police had said all along: that Rajput had died by suicide. Any suspicion of murder could be ruled out.
Shortly after, a court in Mumbai ruled that Chakraborty, who had no criminal record, was not part of any syndicate and could not be said to have financed or supported illegal drug trafficking, as alleged by the narcotics agency. She was therefore released on bail after almost a month behind bars.
As the conspiracy theories unravel in the face of science and the legal burden of proof, a pushback has begun. Last week, Mumbai police, who have born the brunt of online accusations of a cover-up, filed two reports under India’s Information Technology Act alleging that over 80,000 fake social media accounts had been used to derail their investigation. A report released by Microsoft Research India also laid out the role BJP politicians appeared to have played in fuelling conspiracy theories around Sushant’s death for political gain.
According to the data, BJP politicians helped manipulate the narrative around Rajput’s death online as an attempt to discredit the opposition Shiv Sena party, which governs the wealthy state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located. The BJP and Shiv Sena are former political allies turned bitter rivals in the state.
Among the conspiracies being peddled was that Shiv Sena was involved in the death, and the chief minister was collaborating with police to cover up Rajput’s murder and their own bungled investigation.
Among the findings of the Microsoft report, which analysed data from Twitter, YouTube and an archive of widely shared fake news, was how politicians, specifically the BJP, “were instrumental in changing the course of the discourse by referring to the case as ‘murder’, rather than ‘suicide’”.
“Over the weeks that followed, there was an increased usage of ‘murder’ keyword repeatedly in tweets by BJP politicians … Overall, the data strongly suggest that the BJP drove the insinuation of ‘ murder’,” the report states. It adds that it appeared “far from coincidental that a lot of the celebrities being trolled in the aftermath of the suicide were among those who were critical of the government in the past.”
The report also notes that among the online groups claiming to seek justice for Rajput, researchers found “a heady mix of ultranationalism, casteism, distrust of Muslims, and misogyny.”
The report has been subject to such a vicious online backlash that its authors told the Observer they no longer had permission to speak to the media.
And even all this has not laid the speculation to rest. The Mumbai police investigation into Rajput’s death continues, as are the investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate and the NCB. Chakraborty’s brother remains in jail, and a court date has yet to be set for Chakraborty, who still faces charges of procuring drugs. Meanwhile, the Rajput family’s lawyer has claimed the Aiims report “lacks credibility” and that they intend to challenge it in court.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
Overall, the data strongly suggest that the BJP drove the insinuation of ‘murder’
Microsoft Research India report into social media traffic
global star.
The process began with her school strike – against Swedish politicians’ failures to take meaningful action on the climate crisis. “Why have an education when there is no future,” she demanded. The strike was a social media sensation and almost overnight Thunberg became a star of the green movement. She has since spoken to the UN nations in New York, appeared at the COP24 climate conference in Katowice, in Poland and visited the European Parliament.
At the EU she broke down in tears during a speech in which she outlined the extent of the extinctions, triggered by climate change, that were occurring across the planet. And at the 2019 UN climate summit in New York, an infuriated Thunberg told delegates: “People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairytales about eternal economic growth. How dare you!” Intriguingly, Thunberg insists her performance at the general assembly was an unusual one for her. “I’m never angry. I’m not even angry at home. That was the only time I’ve been angry. Before that speech, I thought, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I need to make sure something comes out of it. So I let my emotions take over.”
Her words are pretty uncompromising in general, however, and her speeches have earned her the approbation of fans who range from Arnie Schwarzenegger to Jon Bercow to Emmanuel Macron and alsoattracted the scorn of Brazil’s populist president
Jair Bolsonaro, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and others.
Thunberg has also received death threats, we learn. So are they still being sent, I ask her? Thunberg looks unfazed. “I don’t know. I don’t spend that much time checking.”
She is equally unperturbed by the political derision she has provoked. “When these people attack individuals – in some cases, children like me – that shows that they really have nowhere left to go,” she tells me.
“They have no arguments left. This is a crisis completely based on scientific consensus, but they try to focus on something else. It’s as if there was a fire and the alarm starts and they try to argue about the fire alarm instead of the actual fire.”
The pattern needs to be disrupted, she insists. “We are stuck in a loop where everyone just blames each other, and as long as we keep on doing that we won’t be able to achieve anything.”
The extent of humanity’s vulnerability is starkly demonstrated by the impact of Covid-19, adds Thunberg. “If one virus can completely destroy economies, then that is a sign that we need to rethink things and start to live sustainably.” If nothing else, Covid emphasises again that we need to listen to the science, she insists.Thunberg is now studying for her school exams and is planning a career in the social sciences. “All this attention isn’t going to last for very long,” she believes. “The interest in me will soon fade away. And, really, it’s not healthy at such a young age. So I need to see past it – although all the travelling was good fun.”
As to the documentary, Thunberg says she is happy with it, although the title makes her uncomfortable as it suggests she takes herself very seriously. “And I don’t,” she insists.
I Am Greta is released in cinemas on Friday 16 October, with a special Q&A screening in cinemas nationwide on18 October; iamgreta.film
We are stuck in a loop where everyone just blames each other, and if we keep on doing that, we won’t achieve anything
Greta Thunberg