Mersal (to release this Diwali) will be a great movie. Now repeat after me. Mersal starring Tamil hero Vijay will be a truly wonderful movie. Repeat.

Vikas Barala is an innocent little boy. Repeat. He respects women after midnight. Repeat.

What’s the connection? Unless you were living under a rock and away from social media, you would have realised this week that you can take either of them on, at your own risk. To me, Vikas, his father’s party colleagues and Vijay’s fans define the new rogues of India.

For one, the Censor Board should ensure all Vijay films carry a statutory warning – Criticising this movie may be injurious to your peace of mind and may invite character assassination. For details, scroll through The NewsMinute Editor-in-chief Dhanya Rajendran’s timeline, where over 60,000 tweets and counting, have been devoted to trashing, hounding, insulting, humiliating, verbally assaulting her by Vijay fans. The language used is abominable, gutter and shows the low in public discourse. Unless that is normal for them, if that is the way they speak to women at their home.

And what does Vijay, who is referred to as the Ilayathalapathy, which translates to Junior commander-in-chief, do? Watch the action unfold. Or may be like the title of his next says, he is simply Mersal-ed, meaning stunned.

The fault was in fact, Shah Rukh Khan’s. Dhanya went to see Jab Harry Met Sejal, a movie that has been trashed by nine out of every 10 viewers so far and tweeted the only movie before this she has walked out on was Vijay’s Sura, which released in 2010. Go back to see how Sura performed and you would wonder why are these Vijay fans defending a pathetic product. Rediff called it a “Give your brains a rest” kind of film, Sify described its story as “wafer thin and as old as the Kodai hills”. In fact, exhibitors in Tamil Nadu demanded that Vijay refund 40 per cent of the money they put up as a minimum guarantee because the collections were not good.

Did Vijay fans call the theatre owners names that they are bestowing on Dhanya now? Did they take on every viewer who trashed the movie then?

What was worse was the vicious organised attack that was mounted on Dhanya. #PublicityBeepDhanya started trending. And according to Dhanya, one of Vijay’s followers made light of the torrent of abuse, saying the controversy had made her go viral.

But seriously, is one even surprised by this behaviour. Vijay’s films, like several others by many leading heroes in Indian films, are a heavy dose of misogynistic content. Sample this scene from Sivakasi where he blames Asin for wearing shorts and a top and therefore inviting unnecessary male attention and molestation. In Kuruvi, he stomps on Trisha’s feet and when she protests, he delivers a cringe-worthy, “Girls should sit decently, keeping their feet close, if you stretch them, anyone would step on them.”

If that is the quality of the lesson these ardent fans of Vijay learn when they attend his movie classes, we should hardly be surprised at why abuse defines their utterances. They have only practised what he has preached in his movies — to put a woman in her place.

Usually stars in order to look respectable, come up with their hollow “I respect women” lines that mean zilch. Vijay has not come out even with that, which can only be construed to mean he endorses all that has been said. Actually, he will be on the horns of a Jallikattu dilemma (Mersal, incidentally, sees him as a Jallikattu bull tamer, going by the posters) that if he condemns the garbage that was dumped on Dhanya’s timeline, his stature as a commander-in-chief will be diluted. Clearly, the quantity of collections is more important than the quality of the followers.

Ugly India proved it exists both in the real and the virtual. In Chandigarh, we saw the Haryana BJP president’s son Vikas Barala allegedly in a drunken stupor, stalk Varnika Kundu, the daughter of an IAS officer, attempting to kidnap her.

A section of BJP members and supporters since Monday has behaved like Vijay fans. Like with a commercial disaster like Sura, many of them have rushed to defend the indefensible act, choosing to indulge in victim-shaming. Like Vijay’s advice to Asin, one of them asked what was Varnika doing staying out of home past midnight, suggesting she asked for it. Clearly, several specimens of men turn predators in the dark and in the anonymity of the Internet. (Thank god for Chandigarh BJP Member of Parliament Kirron Kher for introducing decency in the discourse.)

The Vijay and Vikas episodes are proof that laws such as the Nirbhaya Act are not a deterrent. The Prime Minister’s Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao needs to be Modi-fied to Beta Padhao, Beti Bachao. It is not enough to post selfies with your sister on Raksha Bandhan, promising to protect her, while transforming into a wolf, online and offline, with sisters of other men.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @Iamtssudhir.