Chetan Bhagat accused of plagiarism – Chetan Bhagat is in the midst of another row, this time it being a plagiarism accusation. Dr. Birbal Jha has accused the Indian author of plagiarism, with reference to his recent novel “Half Girlfriend”.
#ChetanBhagat is and has been bestselling Indian author for quite some time now.
For some unknown reason(s) to me, he is also the #Bollywood favourite, for almost all his novels have been turned into film adaptations by the Mumbai film industry.
It was in October 2014 when the 40-year-old author released his latest work ‘Half Girlfriend’.
Although the book was heavily criticised by critics and readers alike, people are already predicting which actors could play the characters in its adaptation (…and this will happen!).
Bhagat’s time with promoting the book has not been all hunky-dory, as he was criticised by the Dumraon family for portraying them in a derogatory manner.
Now, when all the dust seemed to have settled, Bhagat has been accused of plagiarism. Yes, you heard that right!
It is Dr. Birbal Jha, the director of British Lingua and English scholar, who has accused the author of the highest crime that a writer is capable of committing.
He claims that the author visited Patna and interacted with local students as part of his ‘research’.
This was also when Bhagat was given a set of books that Dr. Jha had written to help his students better their spoken English knowledge, out of which one was ‘Englishia Boli’, a bilingual play and the source of all ‘plagiarism evil’.
The Dumraon royal family, on the other hand, has sent Chetan Bhagat a legal notice seeking unconditional apology from the author and recall of all the novels that are yet to be released by publishers.
Since Jha believes that the theme broadly matches the story of his play ‘Englishia Boli’, which was released a year before Chetan Bhagat’s book, he is planning to serve the author notice for copying the theme.
The writer immediately took to Twitter and brushed off all plagiarism allegations made against him. He wrote about how he has been writing for a decade and received the love of his fans, and that he has no need to copy anyone else’s work.
Chetan Bhagat is the author of books 2 States: The Love Story of My Marriage, Five Point Someone: What not to do at IIT, One Night @ The Call Center, Revolution 2020 and The 3 Mistakes of My Life.
The Bollywood industry and Chetan Bhagat lovers will, without a doubt, come to his aid. But will the issue be resolved without any more damages? Or could plagiarism been the ‘fourth mistake of his life’, only time will tell.
Till then we can keep a close eye on the exchange of words between all the parties included, which supposedly will be more interesting that the author’s books!
