Hum Palash Ke Hain Kaun? Why India must rethink its obsession with celebrities’ private lives

Smriti Mandhana and Palash Muchhal in better times. pics/@palash_muchhal

When Palash Muchhal draped the Indian flag on Indian women's cricket team captain Smriti Mandhana after they won the 2025 World Cup, women across the country swooned.

If you scroll back to the Instagram video where the couple is seen interacting on the cricket field after the triumph, the comments section is filled with green flag emoticons. Cut to November 23, when it was announced that the couple's wedding had been put off as Mandhana's father took ill. Though never confirmed officially, Muchhal's chats were allegedly leaked, painting him as an unfaithful partner. What followed was an online furore that seemed disproportionate when compared to other pressing national issues.

On a video of Muchhal proposing, a clip that he has not yet pulled down from his Instagram page, you can spot comments like "For god's sake at least delete it now, we can't get over it… imagine our Smriti going through it, thodi to sharam ho to [if you have any shame left] delete it for her, please". There are milder comments in denial: ‘Hope this is fake news and this has not really happened".

Shruti Sitara Singh shares a picture from her wedding shoot and says she wants to reclaim what she can share

Why is India so enraged over the private lives of two people they have never met, and are unlikely to ever meet? Most fans won't even stop to ask this question because many do feel like they have a sort of relationship with Mandhana, albeit from some distance. They have a window into the celebrity's life through their daily posts, and can even comment on these posts and send them messages directly - it matters not if the recipient is actually reading these messages and responding. This is what experts refer to as a parasocial relationship: a one-sided, socio-emotional connection that a person forms with a public figure like a celebrity, influencer, or fictional character.

Mandhana, of course, is not the quintessential celebrity whose work involves courting public attention at all times. Rather, the hardworking sportsperson won India's heart in a wholesome way - at first by doing the nation proud and bringing the World Cup home, and then by sharing heartwarming reels of her and her teammates getting ready for the wedding. Everybody could relate; she had worked hard, done well, and it was her time to get all the happiness she deserved. And then, all hell broke loose.

Mandhana and Muchhal's every social media move is being watched like hawks by fans, from the former removing her post about the wedding, to both putting an evil eye icon in their profile, to Mandhana's teammates Richa Ghosh following Muchhal and Jemimah Rodrigues choosing to skip the Women's Big Bash League in Brisbane to stay back in India and support her friend.

Harshita Gupta

The suffocating surveillance and thousands of strangers inserting themselves into a couple's private affairs with self-righteous comments on what they should and should not do - all of it reminds us that heartbreak in the public eye is not something we'd wish on our worst enemy. Muchhal has become public enemy No. 1, somebody we love to hate. And yet, do we have a right to?

We have only recently added the word ‘boundary' to our interpersonal relationships, so establishing a digital one is something we are quite far away from, says Mukta Chaitanya, the founder of Cyber Maitra, an organisation based out of Pune that works with cyber, digital, and psychosocial health. "We as users are still trying learning social media etiquette. A lot of the time, celebrities or actors, too, don't know what their digital boundary is, and what the consequences can be of giving strangers that kind of access [to your life]," she says.

To many of us, Chaitanya might sound like an alarmist but given what she has seen in terms of crimes online and the fall out on people's lives, it feels justified. "When you share news of your engagement, photos of your wedding, or give away any information, you are opening the door and giving someone a chance to take a peek at your life. In fact, in my workshops or talks, I always say ‘your social media handle is also a door handle to your life," she adds.

The proposal video that is still up on Muchhal's feed

Lost a little sleep there? So did we. The more open one is about their personal lives on the Internet, the more they open themselves up to public commentary and interference. It's a point that was driven home all the stronger earlier this year, when the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal released data that shows the reporting of online crime has increased by 118.4 per cent between 2020 and 2024, with online sexual abuse being at the top.

So then, why do we still share about our heartbreaks and flings on the Internet?
In October 2024, Harshita Gupta, a public figure and radio jockey, published her book Unloved: The Art of Moving On. The book is a guide to healing post-breakup, and was the result of Gupta sharing freely with her online followers about her relationship and then her heartbreak. There was a price to pay, of course, but Gupta tells us she really doesn't care. "I am a public content creator, and I have seen my share of criticism of everything I do, but I would rather choose to focus on love. When I wrote the book, I never thought ‘What people would say about me or my ex'. My heartbreak was so deep, it took me time to overcome it. I thought that if something helps someone make sense of this pain, it's worth the effort," she says.

Gupta's social media feed is full of her life and new husband, and is a great example of how one shouldn't give up on love. "It wasn't until I got married and put it on my profile that people realised I hadn't been single. It was just that after the heartbreak I had learned to keep my cards close to the chest. Also my online content until the marriage photos were put up, was around singlehood and how to lead the best life you can ask a single person, which was also a big part of my journey and is also when I happened to meet my husband. So when people saw I was married now, it kind of became a inside joke between me and my followers, many would playfully comment saying that she has made us love the single life and has gotten married herself. They are extremely happy for me of course," she chuckles.

Vaishali Bhagwat

For others like Shruti Sitara Singh, sharing online is a way to get it out of their system once and for all. In January, Singh ended her three-year marriage. As a creative consultant and curator, Singh's online feed is mostly artwork - statues, paintings, and intricate carpet work, along with the link to her substack where Singh puts out long-form pieces. The announcement of her marriage ending was in stark contrast to the professional content, and the 33-year-old Bandra resident received flak for the decision to post about it. "People would say things like ‘she has lost it' or ‘why put it out on social media'. I lost a lot of friends who disagreed with me and said that I shouldn't share my grief of losing my most important relationship at that time on social media, but thank god I did," she says.

Singh found a new tribe of people, those who were nursing their own heartbreaks on social media. Soon, messages from heartbroken men and women from around the world flooded her DMs. "I found friends who have been trying to get out of a break-up for years! I have so many friends whom I had lost touch with and reconnected with when I shared my story, and it has been food for my soul, really," she adds.

In October, after almost nine months of trying to heal, Singh put out a picture from her wedding shoot, the caption reads, "Reclaiming what's mine". She goes on to write that "no one gets to decide which memories I keep and taint what was once beautiful - not anymore". We can't help but think back to Muchhal and the proposal video still up on his account.

Mukta Chaitanya

Singh, who is open about coming from a broken home, feels it's time to stop and find herself first. "Social media has become a tool for us to reach out when we don't know what to do. I was crying for two months, I have OCD, but brushing my teeth and getting out of bed was difficult. I didn't know what to do. At such a time, if you get some love from people who are going through or have been through the same thing as you, I welcome that support and promise to be there for those who need it as well," she adds.

For a few influencers, their marriage is a big part of their online presence, like Tanvi Geetha Ravishankar, aka @thechubbytwirler, and her husband, Tushar Mehta, famously known as @instapati.official. Tanvi, a body-positive dancer, is no stranger to the ugly side of the Internet. "Being a plus-size woman online automatically makes you a magnet for opinions you never asked for, and when my husband appears with me, people think they have even more permission to comment. I get everything from ‘You're so lucky' to ‘Why is he with her?' to ‘She doesn't deserve him' or the classic ‘He must be settling/kuch toh majboori hogi'.

"Sadly, even women have DMed me saying my husband could do better," she adds. Tanvi believes that these comments reveal more about the commenters' own insecurities than her relationship. Tanvi, though, feels that the appreciation she receives often outweighs the bad. "The love massively outweighs the hate. Of course, there are some negative comments, mostly body-shaming, as well as critiques on his dancing capabilities, or snide remarks that he's ‘too good-looking' to dance with me. But the positives are huge: women tell me they feel seen, men say it motivates them to hype their partners more, and couples tell us our videos helped them open up or try new things together. That makes it all worth it," she adds.

But how do they ensure that the hate doesn't get to them or affect the relationship? "He's the calm one, I am the fiery one," says Tanvi of her marriage. "But over the years, being in this industry, I've built boundaries to protect my peace: I don't take comments personally from people who don't know us personally. Also, when something bothers me, instead of bottling it up I discuss it with him," she says.

The couple is definitely aware that being under the spotlight means they have to really put in the effort with communication. They remind each other constantly that their relationship is bigger than the Internet. They also take breaks from social media, putting the phone away and coming back only when they feel grounded. "But I am also human and, at times, it has affected me," Tanvi admits, "There were times when constant body-shaming and unsolicited opinions about our marriage did overwhelm me. It hurts when strangers feel entitled to judge something so personal. But those moments have always brought us closer. I remind myself that the love we share in real life is infinitely louder than the noise online."

As far as Mandhana and Muchhal are concerned, it's for them to figure out where they find their way back to each other, or just wish each other well and move on. Their personal crisis is not an opening for us to enter their relationship and bombard them with advice or taunts. Nor should their story discourage fans from finding love. As author Harshita Gupta says, "Iss mein love ki kya galti hai yaar?" "If someone doesn't know how to love, pyaar ki kya galti hai, insaan ki galti hai…" So keep the love you have found, find the love you want, and maybe watch what you say about someone else's love?

Does Muchhal have any legal recourse?

Advocate Vaishali Bhagwat, an advocate who has been dealing with cases of online harassment, says that there is no law against trolling unless "the comments are sexual in nature or defamatory or perpetuate violence or hatred or against national integrity/security". "Otherwise, we are protected by the freedom of speech and expression. In fact, section 66 A [of the Indian Information Technology Act], which prohibited people from making hateful comments, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015 because it was seen as gagging freedom of speech," she says.

"If a person has chosen to put personal information on social media, and then another puts a comment on it , this cannot be a breach of privacy. But if anyone is repeatedly making comments on a couple in public domain even though they never shared it on social media thereby causing inconvenience harassment or embarrassment, the couple can say that their private life is being dissected publicly and build a case under the right to privacy," she adds. "There might be a case of defamation, but "only in the case where he can prove that the comment is false to knowledge of the commentator and has resulted in loss of some kind", she adds.

Gender dynamics

This conversation cannot be complete without looking at it from the lens of gender dynamics. This controversy comes at a time when India is introspecting on how we treat women, and both misogyny and misandry have become a part of everyday vocabulary.

We've seen fans turn similarly rabid against partners of sportspersons, but those partners - and recipients of hate - have usually been women. The closest comparison we can give from India when fans got this obsessed is Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma. We all remember the barrage of hate Anushka got every time she attended a match and the team lost.

However, it must be pointed out that Anushka, while being a woman, still had considerably more agency and power in that situation as was a celebrity in her own right, and was in the public eye anyway. Muchhal, on the other hand, is a common man who probably never expected his actions to be played up in national limelight.