DNA Special | Media and Bollywood: Friends turned foes

Bollywood, which has always been divided into camps and families, on Monday came together for the first time in so many decades. Four Bollywood industry associations and 34 leading producers filed a civil suit at the Delhi High Court against four anchors of news channels and unknown defendants as well as social media platforms. They sued the publications for making or publishing irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood as a whole and members of Bollywood, and to restrain them from conducting media trials of Bollywood personalities and interfering with the right to privacy of persons associated with Bollywood. The plaintiffs also pleaded that the defendants abide by the provisions of the Programme Code under the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994, and to withdraw, recall and take down all the defamatory content published by them against Bollywood. On the whole, two news Channels and four News Anchors have been made accused in the petition.

While it does not seek a complete ban on media reporting, it has been said that these four anchors should not violate the laws while reporting.

All these people have hired the same legal agency for this case. The petition specifically objected to some of the words used by a part of the media.

These include words like dirt, filth and druggies.

Also, some of the sentences that have been objected to are:

Bollywood needs to clean up dirt

And the whole Perfume of Arabia cannot remove this smell that rises from Bollywood.

This is the dirtiest industry in the country

And the industry is steeped in the intoxication of LSD and Cocaine.

All these complaints are based on the reporting of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case and the drug angle being investigated by the Narcotics Control Bureau. The petition also argues that Bollywood is the only industry that runs on the foundation of trust and the appreciation by the audience is very important.

The whole of Bollywood coming together like this is phenomenal in itself. We will tell you why we are calling it an unprecedented event. Some of these film stars who have filed a petition are Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Farhan Akhtar, Anusha Sharma. Petitioners also include big film producers such as Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Vishal Bhardwaj.

The entire film industry is against a part of the media and they coming together is an unprecedented event in the history of Independent India. India saw four wars in 70 years, but these people never came together like this. Bollywood is India's biggest soft power, but Bollywood never came together to save India's image in the world.

You will remember that even when our 40 soldiers were martyred in Pulwama, Bollywood films were made but no one never came forward and spoke a word against Pakistan. Even on Kashmir, none of these big artists ever made any statement and never openly said that Kashmir is ours. In the meantime, Pakistan's film stars and cricketers spoke openly on the Kashmir issue and opposed India.

Bollywood is selective in its protest. Today, when their existence is being questioned, they have all come together. The high and mighty of the film industry who have petitioned in the High Court against some news channels and anchors play the protagonist in films. On the film screen, these people save the lives of the people, sometimes save the country, sometimes give justice to the poor, sometimes to carry out injustice. But today, these people are just protecting themselves. These are the same people who did not come together on the issue of Sushant Singh Rajput's death. None of them said anything about the death of Sushant. Even in the case of drugs in Bollywood, these people remained completely silent. But today, these big stars are trying to clean up the stain they have created.

Another thing that is unprecedented is the outrage of the entire country against the media. Earlier people used to say that media is the voice of the people, but today media is not seen in the same light. Earlier media and Bollywood were two sides of the same coin, but today they have turned adversaries.

But the point that needs to be pondered is that where did this collective hate towards the media rise from? Let us understand that. Last week some advertisers said they were withdrawing their adds from certain channels because of media's toxic nature, Bollywood soon followed suit. Media and Bollywood, considered the two driving forces of the country, can't see eye to eye now and thus the credibility of both these powerful forces are in question.