Sonu Sood, the most popular villain of the Bollywood industry who gained recognition from the Dabangg franchise is in the headlines again and for all the politically right reasons- he facilitated hundreds of migrants to go back to their hometown by arranging buses from them. As per the reports, the migrants whom he helped belonged to states such as Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand.
He got an overwhelming response from the migrants who were stuck in various parts of the country due to the nation-wide lockdown. In order to extend his support, he rolled out a toll-free helpline number dedicated to migrants and also airlifted 169 girls from Kerala to Orissa by arranging a special flight for them.
The actor is receiving a lot of praise from the film fraternity for being a good samaritan including Ajay Devgn who Tweeted in his support, “The sensitive nature of the work that you are doing with sending migrant workers back to their homes safely is exemplary. More strength to you, Sonu.”
What is coming across in front of the public is bracketed under ‘humane act’ or ‘genuine act of service’, but the media is intentionally not revisiting the year 2019 when just before the Lok Sabha election, actor Sonu Sood was caught off guard in Cobrapost sting operation demanding a sum of 20 crore rupees to polarize the elections through his social media tweets and posts for a period of eight months in the favour of Bhartiya Janta Party.
The Cobrapost journalist who masqueraded as a member of a PR agency working for the BJP offered him INR 2 crore a month, which may get hiked in the future in case he gets a positive response from his fan-base. To this the actor replied, “Nahi aapko response kee koi tension hee nahi hai mujhe pata hai na mera sikka bahut … main bahut alag hoon bhai (No, you don’t have to take any tension with regard to response. I know how big a currency I am … I am made of a different stuff brother). He was unabashedly bargaining to fetch more money out of the deal. He was confident about his ‘neutral’ image in the public which will help him toss the opinion of his loyal followers.
They finally settled for INR 2.5 crore with an agreement of writing on 5 topics every month that should be summed up in at least 15 posts that will be published across his Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. He was also adamant about accepting 80% of the money in cash, which ironically, was not in sync with the ethos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which devaluated the then currency of 500 rupees and 1000 rupees notes, to put an end to the menace of black money.
This cobra post sting operation was reported by a few media houses at that time but it didn’t garner much attention from the twitter brigade, who otherwise wastes no time in trending a topic on twitter, which ultimately slides as a breaking news headline in many prime-time television debates.
Many rational minds might raise an objection here with their argument that celebrities endorse endless number of brands through advertisements for a fat pay cheque, but nobody bats an eye. The only answer to it is that democracy is not a commodity that should be advertised in return for money. You may experience indigestion by consuming biscuits of a brand endorsed by your celebrity, but the damage which these manipulating and fabricated social media posts will cause will tarnish the system of ‘free and fair’ elections in which an individual decides to vote for the representative of his/her choice. Moreover, the secrecy involved in such backdoor political deals will only mislead the public which is not the case in endorsement deals. Everybody knows that the actor is getting paid to promote the brand.
On the last count, the actor had 1.5 million followers on Twitter, 2.9 million on Instagram, and 2.6 million on Facebook. There is no way one can downplay the mighty impact of such a vast following.His bastion of fandom increased multifold when a tweet went viral on social media which showed his local train ticket from Borivali to Churchgate which costed him 470 rupees in the year 1997. To decipher that it’s a mere coincidence that this emerged out of nowhere after 23 years does not seem reasonable as the man who posted it on his account is an Islamophobic and a BJP sympathiser if we look at his previous tweets.
There is an old saying it takes years for a man to gain respect in society. But the old proverb is being redefined by our modern-day public relations agencies which charge an exorbitant amount of money to ‘whitewash’ tainted public image of celebrities. The person concerned about his public image just needs to shell out some money, and he can become a social media hero in seconds, even if the shadow of his dark past is lurking around. The actors today operate in a much more controlled environment which is scripted by their publicists and this is how I see the ‘messianic’ version of Sonu Sood coming into existence for the migrants- kneaded by some PR agency he hired in order to whitewash the sins of his past.
The classic case of such tactic was used by Salman Khan in the recent past when he laid the stepping stone of ‘Being Human’ organization to become a scapegoat from the harsh judgment which could have been imposed on him owing to his hit and run case of 2002 and killing of two blackbucks in Jodhpur in the year 1998. His philanthropic initiative was a mechanism devised to cut short his sentence in the court because of his charitable work.
It’s not that actors should refrain from being vocal about their political stances. They have the right to exercise their freedom of speech, but not at the cost of polarizing the public just because a political party is backing them with a suitcase filled with cash. The post- truth world is certainly a tantalizing space in which what appears before the eye might have hidden agendas. We just need to be careful while deciding whom we should idolize.
