From Laxmmi Bomb to Tanishq’s Ekatvam campaign, CAA and farmers protests to ‘Love Jihad’ and ‘Corona Jihad’, 2020 was the year of boycotts and basically, India getting offended. Now blame it on all the spare time we had or just quarantine boredom, people were searching for something to be offended by... or at least it looked like that.
Now if you're someone who's easily offended, we advice you not to watch this video.
It started with protests at JNU. Students protesting a fee hike offended us but students allegedly beaten up by police lathis did not. Deepika Padukone standing in solidarity with those injured protestors triggered every ‘desh bhakt’ but the vilification of the actor after that (and even months later) was prime-time entertainment for months.
In short, it wasn’t an easy year for women in Bollywood, from Rhea Chakraborty’s media trial purely based on conspiracy theories to naming and shaming Bollywood actors (women only, btw) for their alleged drug abuse - that was the only NEWS that mattered.
The mainstream media fed us with information about who’s smoking what for more than a quarter of the year. This, when the country was battling a pandemic, farmers were protesting against the new farm reforms, India’s unemployment rate was soaring... but who cares? The only important question that needed an answer was maal hai kya?
It was also a year when we realised the true meaning of patriotism and being an asli desh bhakt, which is to blindly agree with everything the government proposes and never question their authority or decision. So, if you questioned the timing of the lockdown or why it was announced with just a four-hour notice, if you thought about those one crore migrant workers who returned to their home states on foot or those 18.9 million salaried Indians who lost their jobs, bad news, you’re ‘anti-national’.
There’s a lot more that offended Indians this year. To find out more, watch the video.
Video Editor: Veeru Krishan Mohan
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