Bollywood Superstar Shahrukh Khan (SRK) has been accused of plagiarism in one of his recently made speeches. The speech which was made on September 30 at AIMA Convention, had brought him standing ovation from Audience. SRK was also praised for his deep understanding of Management and Corporate Culture.
However few days back one blogger raised questions over the genuinity of his speech when it was discovered that his speech had sections directly copied from J K Rowling’s speech at Harvard in 2008, without any reference or credit to the source.
Some eminent people like Mahesh Murthy indicated that many other parts of SRK’s AIMA speech were copied without crediting the source properly. His Analysis shows that SRK’s speech had quotes and paragraphs from works of Timothy Noah of Slate Magazine, Bill Cosby (Comedian), Soichiro Honda of Honda Motor Co and other eminent personalities like Thomas Huxley, John Wooden and Eddie Rickenbacker.
However, there have been some defense also for Mr. Khan in the blogosphere. One Blogger who claims to be the Chief Digital Strategist of Shah Rukh Khan says that SRK had forewarned in the beginning of Speech that it was recycled.
According to her, SRK had said “Let me forewarn you, this is a recycled speech. Whenever I am called to give speeches at ypo or some such big organisation…I use this speech. Its generic…simple…and makes me give no commitment in our first meeting. Somewhat like the corporate world itself.â€
She further argues that famous quotes especially if they are recycled from earlier speeches are sometimes not quoted. The recycled speech that SRK mentions included a speech he gave at Young President’s Organisation(YPO) where he clearly gave credit to JK Rowling.
Others claim that the speech made by J K Rowling was too lifted from a management book by James Galbraith.
These reports have apparently led to a war of words between SRK haters and his Fans on the Web. We wait for the outcome of this war and more anxiously for a statement from Mr. Khan.