Ruman Ganguly (BOMBAY TIMES; August 12, 2020)

Ever since allegations against Rhea Chakraborty in the Sushant Singh Rajput case surfaced, trolls have been targeting Bengali women. Actor and singer Babul Supriyo, MoS Environment, Forest and Climate Change, calls them distasteful, and talks about why he believes the case should be investigated by the CBI. Excerpts:

Many of your colleagues from politics and entertainment have had a say in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. When did you start following the case and what is your primary source of information?
There’s no primary source of information. I’m following the case in the media like everyone else. His death shook us all. He came across as a smiling young boy from a small town, trying to gain a foothold in the industry, though I didn’t know him personally. I believe in logic and there’s no logical reason so far to believe that he died by suicide. How come his so-called close friends had no idea about his mental state? The nepotism debate is valid, but it’s diverting the narrative of the case. There are too many unanswered questions around his death. I’m happy that the CBI has taken over the investigation.

A fallout of the case has been the hate campaign targeting Bengali women, who have been labelled ‘gold diggers’, ‘witches’ and ‘opportunists’. How do you respond to this?
Extremely unfortunate and distasteful! I think these people are mentally sick. How disgusting is it to single out Bengali women after this tragic incident? What is the connection? Why the stereotyping? Discussing the good and ugly sides of how Bollywood functions is fine, but attributing that to Sushant’s death is misleading. The focus should rather be to see if there is some criminal activity around the circumstances that led to his death and the death itself. The super talented Alia Bhatt got trolled because of the unnecessary comments made by Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt. There was no need for Mahesh Bhatt to compare Sushant Singh with Parveen Babi and if Mukesh Bhatt “saw it coming”, why didn’t he help? Would he have helped if Sushant was an insider? That’s where the insider-outsider debate comes in.

How do you respond to the insider-outsider debate that was fuelled by SSR’s death? Did you find it difficult to gain a toehold in Bollywood?
This debate is necessary, but here it seems to only divert focus away from the actual case. Nepotism does exist in Bollywood like in other corporate worlds. But talent ultimately rules or else we wouldn’t have Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Ranveer Singh or Kareena Kapoor Khan and Alia Bhatt. Bollywood invests in talent as they expect high returns from them. True sons and daughters of biggies get an easy launch or even a second chance unlike outsiders, but they survive only if they have talent. I’ve had a roller-coaster ride and it wasn’t meant to be anything different. I don’t believe in glorifying struggle. I have a white board in my bedroom in Mumbai where it is written, ‘You have to be your own godfather’, and I want my daughter, who has Bollywood aspirations, to believe in that, too.

Given the constant call for boycotting producers and actors — many of whom would be your colleagues as well — what is your stand on the issue?
I don’t believe in boycott hashtags. One is always innocent until proven otherwise. Now the CBI has taken over the case, so let us wait and watch whether this is about mental health or nepotism or more.

After the initial scare when you isolated yourself, you tested negative for Coronavirus and got back to work...
I am back to normal life with a bang! But, I worked more during my quarantine period as I was confined to my room and no one disturbed me at all there. I tried to enjoy the isolation as much as possible by introspecting, reading, writing, working out and playing the piano.