In March 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19 that was already scything through the country’s major cities by that time. The lockdown threw the lives and careers of a large section of India’s workforce, mostly migrant workers – an estimated 139 million of them – in disarray. The already-grim situation exacerbated as several million migrant workers, predominantly daily wage labourers, decided to go back to their towns and villages in other states as they were unable to survive in the metropolitan cities without work.

The Indian government arranged special buses and trains for migrant workers in cities like Delhi and Mumbai to depart to their hometowns in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other states, however that wasn’t enough. Thousands of them then began walking back home, with no means of transport due to the lockdown, and an estimated 300 of them died due to starvation, exhaustion, suicide, accidents and other non-virus related reasons. Many migrants were also reportedly assaulted by the police and treated poorly by the federal and state administrations.

A number of organisations including Amnesty, SERUDS and Zomato to name a few, raised funds to help the stranded migrants. Supriya Garikipati and Shree Mandke from Liverpool raised money through their Just Giving page. The Quint partnered with non-governmental organisation Goonj in their COVID-19 initiative to support India’s migrant workers. Bollywood stars like Akshay Kumar, Anushka Sharma, Varun Dhawan, Kartik Aaryan, etc. contributed to Prime Minister Modi’s controversial PM Cares Fund.

One celebrity who stood out during this crisis with his philanthropic activities and the accompanying media coverage was Sonu Sood. The 47-year-old actor, speaking to the BBC, said he “distributed food and groceries to 45,000 people in slums, those stranded on the roads and those walking on the highways back to their hometowns from cities”. Sood had also arranged “hundreds of buses” for migrants to travel back home. The actor donated 25,000 face shields to Maharashtra Police and 1,500 PPE kits to doctors across Punjab.

It must be noted that Sood’s colleagues from the film industry – Farhan Akhtar, Dia Mirza, Vidya Balan and Shah Rukh Khan – had also donated PPE kits.

Sood started an initiative called “Pravasi Rojgar” to help millions of migrant workers find “good jobs and career progression to get a steady source of income” by linking job seekers and employers through his website that claims to have 300,000+ open job vacancies. It isn’t clear though how this initiative is different from mainstream job portals like Naukri, Monster and Freshersworld. Also there is no data available that can confirm how many migrant workers have actually obtained a job through Sood’s initiative.

Following widespread media coverage and appreciation for his efforts, Sood continued his philanthropic activities beyond helping migrant labourers. The actor has been donating to students to help them pay their tuition fees, to those needing life-saving surgeries and to girls from villages so they can purchase a cycle for their commute to school instead of walking several kilometers. A Twitter user claimed the actor “got our village internet” enabling children to attend online classes. Another user claimed the actor donated mobile phones to students from backward villages.

A number of people keep requesting the actor for help on Twitter and Sood simply obliges.

The actor hasn’t explained or wasn’t questioned by the Indian mainstream media on how he was able to keep up with his charitable initiatives and donations during what was a crisis period for people working in the film industry.

His efforts also raised some eyebrows when several tweets and Twitter accounts that the actor had responded to confirming his donation to their cause had been deleted as pointed out by Quora user Bhupendra Kumar Sonwani. A section of netizens also accused Sood of fake philanthropy.

At the end of September 2020, a number of Indian media outlets reported that Sonu Sood was conferred with a “Special Humanitarian Action Award” award by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for his efforts in helping Indian migrants.

Several celebrities took to Twitter to congratulate the actor and Sood even acknowledged their greetings. There wasn’t any official statement from UNDP confirming the award at that point of time. Later, news outlet LiveMint and fact-checking website “The Logical Indian” reported that the award to Sood was presented by the Punjab government and it did not have any association with the United Nations Development Programme.

The actor hasn’t attempted to correct or clarify the misinformation so far as news reports still continue to associate him with UNDP, however the stories only further bolstered Sood’s popularity and brand value.

The actor’s Twitter followers increased from 1.1 million in May 2020 to 4.6 million in November.

During the last six months, Sood, riding on his newfound fame, signed up endorsement deals with Pepsi, SpiceJet airlines, IG International fruit importers, Godrej interior solutions, Lays, Tata tea, Stayfree feminine hygiene products, Play wearable gadgets, Edelweiss insurance, YepMe online fashion, OYO Hotels and Homes, Shyam Steel, Lenskart eyewear, As-It-Is Whey Protein, ISM EduTech educational institutions, MFine Care hospitals, Sunfeast cookies, Mobile Premier League eSports platform, Acer computers and Disney + Hotstar streaming platform – to name a few – during a period when celebrity endorsements were expected to drop by 50% due to COVID-led disruption in India.

Sonu Sood is now gearing up for the launch of his memoir titled “I Am No Messiah”, published by Penguin India, scheduled to hit the shelves in December.

“This is a story of my life, as much as it is of the thousands of migrant workers,” said Sood announcing his book whose cover projects an image of Sood in white clothes against a backdrop of caricatures of migrant workers bearing a striking resemblance to propaganda campaigns organised by political parties in India ahead of elections projecting their leader as the saviour of the poor and downtrodden.

In a span of six months, Sood has gone from a supporting actor to a national hero with the mainstream Indian media singing his praises, multiple brands queuing up to be endorsed by him, numerous social welfare initiatives, some akin to those run by a government, tagged to his name and now a memoir. It’s difficult to imagine all of this happening without an effective PR strategy.

Sonu Sood’s next steps will be carefully monitored by his sceptics in what might reveal whether the actor has been genuinely using his fame and platform for philanthropy or the other way around.