It seems like most in Bollywood gave ChatGPT the same prompt to generate an empathetic Instagram post to support protesting students without offending the sentiments of the Union government. If this is the Hindi film fraternity’s idea of showing support to the country’s youth, it was better when they remained silent on the movement. Earlier, the fraternity was deemed spineless, now it’s spineless and embarrassing.
Bollywood’s silence over the students’ protest against the alleged NEET-UG paper leaks and irregularities, has been drawing flak on social media for weeks. The protest, organised under the banner of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), has snowballed into one of the largest public demonstrations in recent times.The movement was picking up pace, from their first sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on June 6, to activist Sonam Wangchuk going on an indefinite hunger strike on June 28. But tensions flared up between the protesting students and Delhi Police on July 20 during the ‘Sansad Chalo’ march towards the Parliament.
What followed was a volatile day for Delhi: the police lathi-charged protesters near Parliament Street, fired tear gas shells at the crowd, and detained dozens. Despite this, it took Bollywood stars three days to finally break their ‘maun vrat’ or vow of silence. Even then, their solidarity was performative and toothless.Templatised, tone-deaf, toothless
