There are two Indias. One which reads Chetan Bhagat, and the other that derides his work. As Bhagat goes around promoting his latest novel, Half Girlfriend, the Twitterati are out in full force to be anything but nice to him. To be fair, Bhagat doesn't make it easy for himself, demonstrating an astonishing talent for making ridiculous statements.

On Tuesday, even as he gloated about getting a letter from Bill Gates, there were at least three fronts the writer was defending himself on.

1. Ignorance of the anti-defection law On Tuesday afternoon, Chetan Bhagat sent out a Tweet about how the Bhartiya Janata Party could form a minority government in Maharashtra with no allies. He was suggesting that the BJP deal in open trading among other things that are illegal under the anti-defection law. Social media users took off against Bhagat claiming that he didn’t know the rules of government formation. 









2. Being snotty

On October 20, Bhagat enraged by an article about him that included the word "snotty’ in the headline. He thought the writer really meant "snooty". While speaking at his book launch at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Bhagat had said, “Educated girls don't want to date a guy who doesn't speak English and this is what I have tried to bring out in my novel.” This quote, as also his book in general, has outraged women on Twitter. He got a lashing for not knowing that "snotty" is actually a word.

 



3. Full outrage over Half Girlfriend

There has been outrage ever since the title for the book was announced. Social media users wondered what actually constitutes a "half" girlfriend.

"Deti hai to de varna kat le,'"says a character in the novel. That line has caused offence to many readers. The hero of the book is from Bihar, and Bhagat assumes that everyone from the state will love the book. By propagating sexist stereotypes to a mass audience, he's only adding fuel to fire, went the Twitter argument. If someone like Bhagat doesn’t use popular culture to influence change, then who can?

In a CNN-IBN aricle, Chetan Bhagat defended himself.  "I want to tell the 'English types' what India is all about," he said. "They don't own the language and my question to them is will you not give someone a voice just because you don't like their accent. Indian literature has been catering to a niche ‒ that is very similar to the way English is spoken or written in the West ‒ and I always wanted to do a book that would question that."