Following the 2-odd-minute video, shared by the official Instagram handle of Team Kangana Ranaut, in which she talks about the prevalent nepotism in Bollywood and calling Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide a murder, several more celebrities have shared very telling and pointed allegations towards what is known as the ‘elite club of Bollywood’ or the ‘Bollywood mafia’.
These tweets have been posted by director Anubhav Sinha and actors Nikhil Dwivedi and Ranvir Shorey, in which film fraternity has been accused of “hypocrisy” and of “two-facedness.” All three have shared posts censuring their colleagues – in particular what they separately call the “Bollywood Privilege club” and the “gatekeepers of Bollywood.” A tweet from filmmaker Shekhar Kapur goes further, referring cryptically to “people who let Sushant Singh Rajput down.”
Sushant Singh Rajput’s death prompted an instant and massive outpouring of seemingly grief-stricken posts from Bollywood, among them Karan Johar and Alia Bhatt who are both trending after backlash from Twitter. Social media, never quick to forget, reminded Alia Bhatt that she had referred to the late actor as “Sushant Singh Rajput, who?” on Karan Johar’s chat show Koffee With Karan.
There are also accusations of Rajput being shut out of Bollywood’s inner circle, he was never invited onto Koffee With Karan as a guest, for instance, despite starring in both hit films and acclaimed work such as Kedarnath, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Chhichhore and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!
Nikhil Dwivedi shared a strongly-worded tweet on Sunday denouncing the industry’s “hypocrisy” and writing of “High and mighty announcing they should have kept in touch with Sushant.” Dwivedi took no names but its easy to connect the dots to Karan Johar who posted a lengthy Instagram note blaming himself for not having kept in touch with Sushant Singh Rajput in the past year.
((Nikhil Dwivedi @Nikhil_Dwivedi
At times our movie industry’s hypocrisy gets to me. High &mighty announcing they shud ve kept in touch wth Sushant..
Cmon u didn’t! &thts coz his career dipped. So STFU! R u in touch with Imran Khan, Abhay Deol &others? No!
But u were, whn they were doing well#SushantSinghRajput
37K 7:03 PM – Jun 14, 2020))
Abhinav Sinha tweeted about the “Bollywood Privilege Club” and refused to say more:
((Anubhav Sinha ✔@anubhavsinha
The Bollywood Privilege Club must sit down and think hard tonight.
PS- Now don’t ask me to elaborate any further.
42.7K 10:28 PM – Jun 14, 2020))
Ranvir Shorey had more to say about “inherited privilege” and how it works to create power centres which he calls “gatekeepers of Bollywood”:
((Ranvir Shorey ✔ @RanvirShorey
It wouldn’t be fair to blame someone for a step that he took himself. He was playing a high stakes game, where it’s win or lose it all. But something has to be said about the self appointed ‘gatekeepers of Bollywood’.
Both Sinha and Shorey have clearly singled out a certain set of Bollywood insiders, one who have been repeatedly accused of nepotism and favouritism.