In the case of Sushant Singh Rajput

Why India remains so heavily invested in the death of SSR

BY BAGESHRI SAVYASACHI

It is almost three months now that Indian actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his home in Mumbai, a suspected suicide. Ever since, there has been nonstop coverage and public discourse about the circumstances of his death. Indian fans across the globe have voiced their support, concern and anger. There is clearly a phenomenon under way where this subject has completely dominated social media space and the attention of the press for such a prolonged period.

When I asked Indian journalist and writer Shoma Chaudhary what is so extraordinary in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput, she talked of his appeal as an as pirational youth who had broken into a tight-knit establishment and attained success.

“He was the classic case of the talented outsider breaking into a large power structure, and someone living out his dreams,” Chaudhary told Indian Link. “Very talented and quite unique, there was a whole aura around him because he was just so special in terms of the variety of interests he had. He was very good at maths and physics; he had cleared his IIT-JEE and all of that. Yet he gave it all up to pursue a dream and become at first, just a dancer, but slowly by sheer dint of his merit, broke into Bollywood and became a superstar. So, the whole trajectory is a very compelling one. The sudden suicide in the midst of lockdown (drew) everyone’s focus and attention. The hugely empathetic, tragic tinge to the story has certainly caught attention.”

Indians everywhere seem to be incredibly invested in the matter, even devastated. The diaspora in California and in Melbourne in even put up billboards demanding justice for the actor. Sydney-based clinical psychologist Gurprit Ganda analysed a worldwide community’s passion and anguish in terms of the natural process of grieving.

“We all grieve in different ways,” Ganda said. “All these people are grieving, to some extent. The Kübler-Ross model of grief says there are stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance. In the case of Sushant Singh, the investigation is still trying to find what the facts are - there are many gaps in the story and that does not help the grieving process. That is why they’re putting the pieces together in their own way. Some are in denial, in the first stage in grieving. Some are really angry, which is the next stage; they seem to besaying ‘it’s not fair’. And some are bargaining, like if that didn’t happen, then this wouldn’t have happened. There is a lot of uncertainty. If we know the facts about a person’s passing, such as if they had a health condition or some such, then we are able to go through the stages of grieving much better than when we don’t know the whole story.”

Regarding the more dismaying aspects of this case, it has now turned into a torrid and high-octane story resulting in a national level murder investigation currently in progress, with an increasing number of allegations against Rhea Chakraborty, the deceased’s girlfriend. Shoma Chaudhury spoke of the media’s “mauling” of the young woman.

“This is a kind of medieval stoning mob that does not give any person a chance and is not evidence-based. So, sadly while pursuing the investigation for Sushant Singh, you know, you need a villain. The media houses have turned a young woman into a villain. Sex, drugs, murder, golddigging, social climbing, nepotism, mental health, you name it, you’ve thrown every masala in the kitchen into this one broth. This happened once before with the Aarushi Talwar murder case, where two grieving parents were horrifically vilified by the media. They were put into jail; it took eight years for them to retrieve their life and they were finally exonerated. The Rhea case is going in a similar direction, so I think what started as an empathetic story has become a very ugly story of voyeurism now.”

With new information and angles surfacing everyday about the case and being plastered on our screens, it is clear that other news has taken a back seat. Like the crashing economy, for example, which is predicted to have the worst performance since 1947, because of a more than 30% contraction of the economy. And between the bans on Chinese apps, soldiers on the border have been killed because of our northern neighbour encroaching on Indian territory. Last, but not least, India’s COVID outbreak has been declared the fastest growing in the world.