Meet author Chetan Bhagat, the enfant terrible of social media

In his latest tweet Bhagat said, 'Expecting politics without corruption is like expecting jalebis without sugar and oil'

Who: Chetan Bhagat, the enfant terrible of social media. He is an armchair critic, as well as a TV presenter, columnist, scriptwriter and motivational speaker. Not to mention, best-selling author. He has an opinion on everything from politics to the economy to Kashmir. His cautious criticism of the BJP government and caustic advice to the Congress hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Where: On Twitter. His 12 million followers include those seeking advice from a prolific author on how to be successful, some who identify with his assertion of being “apolitical” and some who genuinely enjoy his earnest wisecracks. The rest lurk to catch him at his most vulnerable. It’s his grammar, sometimes, but mostly his free lessons on the ABC of politics. The most recent one started with an H.

What: Bhagat set the stage for his roast with a piece of advice that misfired just before the results of the Karnataka state elections started coming in. “Enjoy politics and elections,” he tweeted, “but don’t waste too much time on politics. Chances are no matter who comes to power, how well you do in life will depend on how hard you work, not who gets elected.” The proclamation received over 10,000 re-tweets, but only a few actually endorse his views. 

“And here an MBA negligently shrugs away the welfare state, PDS, roads, electricity, water, even taxes,” tweeted political journalist Swati Chaturvedi.

While Bhagat was defending his right to have an opinion, his next observation on the elections snowballed into a trolling fest: “In a parliament there’s no ethical way out. So let’s stop moralising either side please as it is a pointless exercise.” Adding, “Even horse trading is an art form, another test for both BJP and Cong. Let’s see who’s better at it.” Against the barrage of criticism that followed, his defence of posting a screenshot of the dictionary meaning of “horse-trading” did not stand a chance.

How: Twitter-users began to share screenshots of the meaning of “democracy” in response. From historians and political analysts to humourists, journalists and fervent social media users, the Twitterati took turns to remind Bhagat that horse-trading in politics is tantamount to the highest form of corruption in a democracy. There he was, a best-selling author of seven fiction and non-fiction books, including What Young India Wants — a collection of speeches and essays — receiving some free but strict lessons in semantics and syntax.

“Writing books is an art-form @chetan_bhagat. Horse trading is a crime,” tweeted Rahul Kanwal, managing editor of India Today TV. “Don’t glorify an illegal act. Buying and selling MLAs is a subversion of our democracy,” he advised. Others such as journalists Suhasini Haidar of The Hindu and Gargi Rawat of NDTV and political historian S Irfan Habib expressed shock at Bhagat’s statement. The jokes were less than polite. “Horse-trading is an art like Chetan Bhagat books are literature,” wrote AisiTaisiDemocracy, the combined Twitter handle of comedians and political satirists Varun Grover and Sanjay Rajoura and Indian Ocean guitarist Rahul Ram.

In his latest defensive tweet Bhagat said, “Expecting politics without corruption is like expecting jalebis without sugar and oil”.