Depression T-shirt featuring Sushant Singh Rajput row: Mockery of mental health, say experts

A T-shirt featuring late actor Sushant Singh Rajput with the slogan, ‘Depression is like drowning’, has led to a furore, with Rajput’s fans slamming it, triggering the #BoycottFlipkart hashtag on Twitter. It has also opened a larger conversation around mental health, with psychologists saying it is a mockery and “insensitive imagery”.

“Such misinformation and disinformation can compound the mental health issues making it more difficult for people to reach out for help,” says Natasha Mehta, senior counselling psychologist from Mumbai, adding that “such a thing needs to be corrected publicly, through an apology or by calling out, or else it will continue to exist on one platform or the other”.

In 2020, Rajput was found hanging at his flat in Mumbai. His death, which was termed as a suicide, made way for several theories, which led to an investigation after his family lodged an FIR accusing his girlfriend and actor Rhea Chakraborty and her family with abetment to suicide among other charges.

Several of his fans took to social media to slam the platform terming it as “cheap and insensitive marketing”, and some questioning the reason to use his picture without family’s permission.

In fact, his fans share that such imagery not only brings back the bad memories, but also affects them personally. “The T-shirt looks very good with the image of Sushant. But the only thing which I really feel bad about is the words mentioned about depression. What was the need to put it there,” wonders Rohit Lakhendra Thakur, administrator of a fanclub dedicated to the actor.

Another one notes, “My question to Flipkart is why they came out with this T-shirt. What was the idea behind it. It is only hurting the sentiments”. In fact, one user on Instagram wrote, “Family must take a serious action immediately against this shameless behaviour… It is defamation. They should apologise to SSR’s fans and family”.

Opening up about the impact of the “careless” messaging in the name of fashion, psychologist Divya Singh notes, “His suicide is still fresh into the hearts and minds of so many of his fans… And celebrity suicide can have a domino effect…. The T-shirt controversy goes on to say how mental health is not well understood in our community and how ramification of such events can trigger emotional well-being of those struggling with mental health”.

Adding to it, a Mumbai-based psychologist, on request for anonymity, asserts that “such messaging is definitely not okay because it invades the privacy of the individual”, adding, “It is not helpful for the narrative around mental health as it further reinforces the romanticisation of mental health. This further adds to greater stigma around mental health and is a step back in the process”.

Meanwhile, the online shopping platform has removed the tee from the portal. When we tried to reach out to them, they said, “As a marketplace platform, we enable sellers to connect with customers across the country. As part of our ‘customer first’ philosophy, maintaining the quality, appropriateness and sensitivity of products listed on the platform is our top priority. In accordance with this, we have delisted the product/T-shirt depicting a sensitive issue that was flagged to us by customers”.