The unfortunate demise of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput has once again brought to fore the treachery of so-called liberals in co-opting deaths to further their propaganda. While they pontificate others on allowing the bereaved family and friends space and privacy to mourn for their loss, they do not shy away from using the same deaths to build a narrative favourable to their espoused cause.
For a long time now, liberals have been dubbed by many as “scavenger activists” trying to exploit deaths to consolidate their propaganda against the Modi government. From falsely smelling foul play in natural deaths to blatantly communalising horrifying atrocities to absolving themselves of any blame by painting the victim as “mentally unstable”, the coterie of leftist liberals have gone to a remarkable extent to safeguard themselves from any criticism while simultaneously portraying the central government as guilty of wrongdoing.
Here are a few instances when scavengers masquerading as self-righteous liberals have exploited unfortunate deaths to shore up their floundering propaganda:
Sushant Singh Rajput
Sushant, an actor par excellence, was just 34 when he allegedly committed suicide. Besides being an exceptionally talented actor, he was also a rank-holder in the engineering entrance exam and was lately fascinated with astrophysics. The untimely death of a young successful actor such as Sushant Singh Rajput has sent shockwaves across the country.
While the nation tries to yank itself out of the mourning induced by Sushant Singh Rajput’s departure, there have been some prominent individuals in Bollywood who have wasted no time in casting aspersions on Sushant’s psychological health and attributing the death to his mental illness and depression even when the investigation is still underway.
As the blame of Sushant’s alleged suicide pivoted on Karan Johar and other senior celebrities, popular Bollywood critics and starlets came together to patronisingly assert that the Kai Po Che actor was ailing from a mental illness and support one of their own(since Sushant was considered as “outsider”). Bollywood critic Subash K Jha penned an article claiming how Sushant, who many believe was bullied and pushed over the edge, was ‘mentally unstable’.
Another actor, Sonam Kapoor, in a bid to shield the industry stalwarts who allegedly pushed Sushant to the brink, claimed that blaming a girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, family, colleagues for someone’s death is ignorant and inconsiderate. Similarly, Swara Bhaskar, Sonam’s colleague came out to defend Karan Johar and Alia Bhatt, who were accused of bullying Sushant Singh Rajput on their show through mean comments and ridicule.
Liberal lodestar Rajdeep Sardesai too jumped into the defence of the Bollywood heavyweights when he raised questions over the Maharashtra government’s decision to launch an investigation to determine if his decision to commit suicide was influenced by professional rivalry. Taking to Twitter, Sardesai wrote that this is what happens when governments watch ‘too much social media’ and the Mumbai police should instead let Sushant Singh Rajput ‘rest in peace’ and let his family ‘mourn quietly’. This when all unnatural deaths are to be investigated as per law.
While it would be difficult to ascertain the true reasons that pushed Sushant over the edge, efforts are already underway by the liberal and Bollywood coterie to paint Sushant as a victim of clinical depression and absolve themselves from the collective guilt of his death.
Rohith Vemula
Arguably, the suicide of Rohith Vemula had been one of the most politicised deaths in contemporary times. On January 17, 2016, Rohith Vemula, a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide. The claim that he was Dalit, which was later disputed, was enough for the opposition political parties and liberals to raise a caste discrimination bogey and weave a narrative against the Modi government of being oppressive against the lower caste members of the society. This despite the fact that his suicide note talked about his disillusionment with Students Federation of India (SFI).
Rohith Vemula’s suicide quickly became a hot topic of debate in India. It was dishonestly spun into a political battle of Dalits vs Non-Dalits. Politicians like Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi spared no time to extract maximum mileage out of this event and dragging the Modi government through the dirt. An online mob of coddled leftists masquerading as custodians of Dalits indulged in scavenger activism to smear the Modi government. They claimed that the differential treatment meted out to him by the University as compared to the general category students pushed him over the brink to take such a decision.
Months later, Justice Ashok Kumar Roopanwal (retired), who inquired into the events at the University of Hyderabad that led to the suicide of student Rohith Vemula, has furnished the report which said, “the suicide did not relate to any activities of the university administration or the above political leaders including the vice-chancellor, Prof. Appa Rao Podile. It was wholly a decision of his own. His suicide note is on the record which shows that Rohith Vemula had his own problems and was not happy with worldly affairs. He was feeling frustrated for reasons best known to him.”
Even Rohith Vemula’s father blew the lid over his caste, claiming that both he and his wife (Rohith’s mother) are from the Veddera caste and are not Mala of Madigas (SC or ST). This flies in the face of earlier reports which claimed that although Rohith’s father was a Veddera, his mother was a Dalit (SC or ST) and hence Rohith chose his mother’s caste after her separation from her husband. His father had alleged that his son was murdered and attacked the “vulture politics” by the leftists to use his son’s unfortunate demise as a plank to mount an attack against the central government.
Kathua rape and murder case
In 2018, a horrifying case of rape and subsequent murder of an 8-year-old had shaken the conscience of the entire nation. The victim, an eight-year-old girl from the nomadic Bakherwal tribe was kidnapped and was reported missing from 10th January 2018 near the Rasana village. Her body was found a week later in the nearby woods.
Village head Sanji Ram, four policemen including two special police officers Deepak Khajuria, Surender Verma, head constable Tilak Raj, sub-inspector Anand Dutta were convicted by Pathankot court in Kathua rape and murder case. One accused named Vishal Jangotra, son of the main accused Sanjhi Ram was acquited from the case after he provided an alibi stating that he was away from Jammu to appear for an examination.
However, soon after the blood-curdling incident came to fore, liberals and their Bollywood counterparts made a beeline to malign Hinduism and Hindus by highlighting the fact that the rape and murder presumably took place inside the temple. A placard campaign was run on the social media where liberals denounced the incident while pointing out that the incident took place inside a “Devisthan”.
Swara Bhaskar, Kareena Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor, whose new film Veere Di Wedding was due to release then, took the opportunity of garnering cheap publicity by holding out a placard emphasising how they are ‘Hindustan’ and how the rape took place inside a temple.
Instead of talking about the bestiality of the crime committed against an 8-year-old girl, assorted liberals, including leftist organisations such as NDTV, brazenly communalised the incidents by distinguishing between the religions professed by the victim and her oppressors. Exploiting the poor girl’s death, they pulled out the communal angle into the incident by alleging that the Muslim victim was raped and killed by the Hindu perpetrators because they harboured deep animosity against the Muslims.
Judge Loya death
Judge Loya’s natural death was one of such passing aways that is still invoked by the liberals to cast aspersions on the Modi government and paint them in a bad light. Judge Loya, the judge who was presiding over the Sohrabuddin murder trial where BJP President Amit Shah was the main accused, passed away in December 2014.
But three years after the death, in November last year, a magazine named Caravan came out with a sensational story, which insinuated possible foul play behind the death, which was deemed as a natural death. Caravan’s story was later debunked to a large extent by an Indian Express article and an inconsistency, which the IE failed to address, was explored and debunked by OpIndia.
However, despite the expose by the Indian Express and OpIndia, allegations about a possible connection of Amit Shah into the alleged murder of Justice Loya kept surfacing, thanks to the remarkable co-ordination between lawyers, leftists, politicians and propagandists.
Even the courts rejected the notion of foul play that was alleged by the petitioners concerning the death of Justice Loya. The Supreme Court bench dismissed the Loya PIL petitions and systematically countered the major arguments put forth by the petitioners that the death of judge B.H. Loya raised reasonable suspicion of foul play.
But, the incestuous bunch of liberals tried to undermine the judiciary by casting aspersions on its judgement and trying to prove that the death of Judge Loya was a ‘murder’ and not natural. Despite Loya’s sister, whose statements were used as a basis to cry foul denying everything. She said she was manipulated and that this entire episode was a media hit job. Congress used shady “whistleblowers” with questionable pasts to create this monster of a controversy. Loya’s son pleaded to be left alone, but the ‘cabal’ lied that the press conference was organised by Amit Shah and the son was being coerced. So firm was the propaganda weaved around Justice Loya’s death that even today former Congress President Rahul Gandhi refers to the natural death of Justice Loya as a conspiracy by the BJP to stave off legal implications.
