TW: Suicide
For the last several months, the news has mostly been all about COVID-19; the number of new cases, deaths, flattening the curve and the updates on every vaccine under trial right now. All of it painted a dour picture, but it was important information for the citizens of the country, especially as case numbers sky-rocketed.
But then something changed. Sushant Singh Rajput’s untimely passing shook the country; a young star, seemingly with the world at his feet, gone before his time. The cause of death was ruled to be suicide, but in the weeks that followed, the sorrow surrounding his death was replaced by something far more nefarious, as whispers of foul play took centre stage. The alleged architect of his demise; Rhea Chakraborty.
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At this moment, I want to explicitly state that I will try to neither defend nor condemn Chakraborty for the rest of this piece. Rather, I want to talk about how this media-led witch-hunt sets a dangerous precedent for the country, while relegating far more devastating developments to the shadows. The rest of this article will be quite blunt and straightforward, so read on with that in mind, because a lot of it won’t be pretty.
Over the last several weeks, news channels have dissected texts, journal entries and alleged conversations between the deceased and those potentially responsible for his demise. All the while, Chakraborty has been tagged a ‘gold digger’, a ‘murderer’, and those are some of the nicer names she has been called online.
News channels have dissected WhatsApp conversations, tried picking apart urban, Gen-Z lingo. Is ‘spilling the tea’ sharing gossip or secrets, or is it something far more sinister? It’s the former, and projecting the words onto a massive screen and speculating wildly for millions of impressionable viewers at home doesn’t change that.
There’s a popular saying, “Innocent until proven guilty”; when the powers-that-be investigate and put together usable evidence to arrive at a logical conclusion. But in this case, it’s been a case of, “Guilty, and I dare you to say otherwise.” If you turn on any channel covering the story, Chakraborty and clan has been painted as a drug-addled, money-hungry group that exploited a young man for their benefit.
These speculative assumptions have been presented as fact, leaving the viewer as the Judge, Jury and Executioner. At this point, it is difficult to argue that the outcome even really matters; people have decided that Chakraborty is the scourge of society. Even if she were to be proven innocent today, there is no coming back from the repeated whoring out of tragedy for ratings. If she is guilty, then this affirms that all of this, this entire circus is the correct course of action. A circus where the media, explicitly or implicitly, prompts a verdict from the masses before the powers-that-be can arrive at a conclusion. We’ve of course, seen all of this before, with Sridevi’s passing in early 2018, but this feels dangerous, even sinister, as it has spurred a sense of vigilantism in the media, where they dictate the guilt or innocence of the accused.
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But to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, from a purely financial standpoint, this makes sense. This entire story will obviously have people tune in to watch. Ratings means more advertisers; more advertisers mean more money for the network. This argument does not make any of the media’s actions even remotely correct. In the urge to hit those numbers, we as a collective, have been asked to compromise our sense of already-strained humanity. More worryingly, this entire ‘performance-reporting’, has cast aside stories and developments that have far wider reaching consequences for the country. I’m talking about farmer suicides, our spiralling GDP, record unemployment rates and the fact that we seem to have lost complete control of the COVID-19 situation in the country. Some of these stats have been put together to great effect by a gentleman named Waseem on Instagram. You can see the post here.
Even if we cast aside everything on a macro-scale, let’s bring things closer to home. Sushant Singh Rajput’s therapist, in an interview with Barkha Dutt, stated that the young star was dealing with clinical depression and bipolar disorder. While people are divided on the breach of patient-doctor confidentiality, it is telling that in light of this information, the narrative doesn’t look like it has shifted, or even included the destructive, painful nature of mental illness. No one has sought to question that maybe mental illness doesn’t care if you’re on the cusp of greatness? Maybe mental illness consumes you if it is denied and left untreated. Where are the conversations about the symptoms of bipolar disorder and clinical depression? Why aren’t there massive green screens with a list of symptoms, the benefits of seeking professional help and why mental illness deserves to be treated like any other ailment of the body?
I’ll tell you why, because all of these things require education, and education does not equal ratings. Scandal, controversy and speculation is the fundamental tenet of addictive programming, and when it comes to high-profile cases like these, the news also gives in. But all that does is distance a person further from the nature of mental illness. A multi-faceted, wild conspiracy becomes more likely than mental illness. It gets consistently cast aside, as people will continue seeking a cause far and wide, instead of turning inward and admitting that maybe, just maybe, the brain is the cause.
As of this writing, we aren’t really any closer to arriving at a resolution, but irreparable damage has already been done to the people involved, and to Sushant Singh’s Rajput’s legacy, which will forever be accompanied by these months of media speculation. Regardless of what the police or the courts deem to be true, the masses have already made their decision, and in all of that noise, mental illness has become the unlikeliest cause once more.
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