Chetan Bhagat is famous for churning out bestselling novels, writing scripts for Bollywood films, penning weekly columns, judging a dance reality show, and stirring up the occasional fight on Twitter. Today morning, Bhagat sparked off a Twitter war by tweeting about a recent statement of protest signed by over 50 top Indian historians, expressing concern over the growing intolerance in the country. This was Bhagat's first response to the statement.
We had so many historians?— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) October 30, 2015
He soon followed with another tweet.
What do historians do? I am genuinely curious. This happened. Then this happened. Then this. Ok work done for the day.— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) October 30, 2015
It didn't take long for the rebuttals to start flowing in.
No no. That's what novelists do. https://t.co/J2zCSYbMkA— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) October 30, 2015
Chetan Bhagat's next book: 'Making India Stupid.' https://t.co/xSDP6bZkjD— Amit Varma (@amitvarma) October 30, 2015
@chetan_bhagat What do authors do? I am genuinely curious. Judge one talent show, then judge one dance show. Ok work done for the day.— Akshar (@AksharPathak) October 30, 2015
I know that what history will do is forget Chetan Bhagat.— Rohan (@mojorojo) October 30, 2015
Also for @chetan_bhagat, what do artists do, brush here, brush there, done for the day. Scientists, microscope here, telescope there, done..— ranjona banerji (@ranjona) October 30, 2015
Seriously considering a https://t.co/DKwnaatgTh petition to take Chetan Bhagat's twitter away. Worth a shot no?— Vidya Krishnan (@VidyaKrishnan) October 30, 2015
Bhagat isn't a stranger to controversy. A few weeks ago, he also faced backlash after tweeting about the Indian writers who have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards to protest against the recent murder of prominent intellectual MM Kalburgi and the wider issue of religious intolerance. He eventually had to point out that his original tweet was a joke.
Today's Twitter fight followed a similar script. After a firestorm of tweets, Bhagat finally issued this clarification.
In case it was not blatantly obvious that historian tweet was a joke. Made a million of them on writers and engineers before. Duh!— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) October 30, 2015
Bhagat worked as an investment banker before writing bestselling novels such as Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Centre and The 3 Mistakes of Life, which are based on his experiences in an engineering college and management school.