By Arré Bench Apr. 27, 2020
Amitabh Bachchan’s Twitter timeline used to be full of requests to other stars to answer their phones. Now it is full of coronavirus-related misinformation. The latest in his series of “breaking news” updates involved a “joke” about bats.
Over the last few weeks, superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s tweets speculating on the various origins and cures for the coronavirus have served as an example of what happens when you receive too many dubious WhatsApp forwards.
The latest in a spree of “breaking news” updates from Bachchan senior, involved bats, and much like a few of his previous tweets have made eyes roll into the back of heads.
T 3510 – Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury .. news of the hour .. BREAKING NEWS .. would you believe it ..
A Bat , a चमगादर has come into my room .. in Jalsa .. on the 3rd floor .. in my Den .. 😯😯
badi mushkil se use bahar nikala ..
Corona peecha chodh hi nahin raha !!!— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 25, 2020
While the actor was clearly joking in the first half of his tweet, his implication that the coronavirus was following him around, attracted the ire of a few, who believed it was an irresponsible message to send to his millions of followers.
Not in good taste sir. You have millions of followers. Still we don’t have exact process of human virus spillover. Demonising bat is last thing we want. Things we know for sure; They are pollinators. They help in pest control. Please revisit it.
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) April 25, 2020
While, admittedly, the tweet wasn’t the worst bit of misinformation to grace timelines, especially considering that leaders of the free world are advocating “drinking bleach”, the fact is that this is only the latest of Bachchan senior’s false claims on the origin of the virus.
Previously, clarifications had to be issued by the health ministry after the actor implied that coronavirus could spread through flies. In a video uploaded for his 40 million Instagram followers, the actor made an appeal to stop open defecation, by citing a debunked claim that the virus spreads through flies who sit on excreta.
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A post shared by Amitabh Bachchan (@amitabhbachchan.ab) on
Earlier, when the virus was still in a nascent stage in India, and the Prime Minister had announced the first Janata Curfew, Bachchan senior was still making headlines. Then, in a tweet that has now been deleted, he had claimed that vibrations from clapping, and blowing conch shells would destroy the potency of the virus.
His reasoning was that the Janata curfew happened to coincide with “amavasya”, the darkest day of the month.
His “opinion” annoyed social media users, including writer Varun Grover, who once again, asserted that a man of his stature should be careful about what he tweets to his millions of followers.
Shameful superstitions propaganda coming from a person with such huge reach. And we have learned to let go of besharmi of many of our celebs but this is DANGEROUS too. Indian lives are at stake here and you need to be more responsible.
— वरुण 🇮🇳 (@varungrover) March 23, 2020
Days later, however, when the #9Baje9Min campaign was making headlines, the actor tweeted the infamously fake photo of India lit up from space. At least the image wasn’t credited to Nasa this time…
The World sees us .. we are ONE .. https://t.co/68k9NagfkI
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 5, 2020
Following the latest of the octogenarian’s tweets, a joke petition started doing the rounds, seeking for WhatsApp to be uninstalled from his phone. The petition also names Anand Mahindra, whose tweet about Indians finding novel solutions to fix coronavirus, and shows two Indians wearing masks made of leaves, was called insensitive.
As we enter another week of lockdown, with no end in sight, hopefully, the petition will act as a reminder to celebrities and influencers that they need to be more responsible when talking about the pandemic.
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