Kudos To Vikas Guppta For Coming Out, But Why Is He Calling Everyone ‘Mentally Ill’?

“Here I am, how I am – Standing tall and I will not be shamed bullied or blackmailed for what God has made me,” wrote producer and creative director Vikas Guppta as he came out recently on social media. Sharing that he has been constantly blackmailed for his sexuality all this while, Vikas refused to bow down to all the threats as he embraced his identity and shared, “Hi, just wanted to let you know a tiny detail about me. I fall in love with the human regardless of their gender. There r more like me. With #Pride. I am Bisexual #VikasGupta PS No more being blackmailed or bullied #priyanksharma #ParthSamthaan ThankU for forcing me to come out.” 

It was just earlier this year that YouTube creator and makeup artist Nikkie de Jager had to come out as trans after being constantly harassed and threatened for her identity. It is indeed sad that we live in a world that is ideologically fettered to the extent that not only we judge and shame people who don’t fit in our social constructs but also threaten them for their very identities. 

It was a couple of days after actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s shocking suicide that Vikas shared on Instagram that he too had been depressed while blaming actors Parth Samthaan, Priyank Sharma, and Shilpa Shinde for constantly “bullying” him. He shared that he had been “tortured” all this while and intends to “unmask” everyone behind this so that they can never hurt anyone else. In yet another video, he had also challenged Parth Samthaan to give clarity on all the allegations that the actor made on him.  

He said in the video, “So, Parth Samthaan, I want you to go Live and clear the air on what went wrong and tell all of it. Otherwise, I will tell the story, every bit of it. I tried reaching out to you a week ago as well. However, you refused to get involved.” When Parth stayed mum on the entire issue, Vikas decided to do a Live on Instagram and shared his side of the story in which he also came out and shared that he is bisexual. 

“It is pride month and with pride, I am saying that this is how I am and this is how I am going to be living my life openly. I will fall in love with a person, a human being. It could be a boy or a girl, that is not for you to decide or comment on. It is for me to decide,” he wrote in his caption. 

“It has been years of torture and humiliation and hiding my emotions,” he added. In the live, Vikas also addressed the controversies surrounding him, Parth, and Priyank. He shared that he never touched the two inappropriately and was, in fact, romantically involved and in a relationship with both of them at different stages in his life. 

“I have never forced Parth Samthaan or Priyank Sharma to do anything with me. People think it’s very easy to say things and leave. I have been through a very bad phase in my life and I don’t let people come to know because I believe that let’s just keep it in the house,” said Vikas. In the video, Vikas also accused Parth of breaking his heart while sharing that their relationship was the very first serious relationship that the producer ever got involved in. 

However, in his video, while Vikas came out with his own sexuality, he has also called both Shilpa and Priyank “mentally-ill” in a contemptuous tone. “Priyank is confused and mentally ill,” Vikas said in his video and then went on to say the same thing about Shilpa while implying that she is mad and needs to see a doctor.

Quite evidently, Vikas chose to conveniently forget that he has been talking about his own depression and compromised mental health while saying that both Priyank and Shilpa have mental health issues and looking down at them for the alleged problems. Dear Vikas, while we wholeheartedly support you and applaud you for having the courage to come out despite your family turning against you, we find it highly problematic to call people “mentally ill” in a derogatory way or as means of insulting them.

Having just lost a dear friend to mental health struggles and himself having faced the same, Vikas could have been certainly more respectful of the issue instead of randomly calling people “ill” or”mad” and directing all of this towards them as an insult. Mental health, depression, or harassment, none of this is a joke, neither an insult to bring people down. And there is no way one can get away with this while quoting their own struggles. We are sorry that Vikas had to face something that scarring but it does not give him any license to go around labelling people. 

For everyone else, remember that allyship also means letting people be human, calling them out when they are wrong, and holding them accountable for their own prejudices!

 Featured Image: Twitter