Troll attack? Rana Ayyub’s Gujarat Files sees down-rating on e-retail sites

A major chunk of the reviews are critical of the book with most users down-rating it by giving it a 1 star.
Troll attack? Rana Ayyub’s Gujarat Files sees down-rating on e-retail sites
Troll attack? Rana Ayyub’s Gujarat Files sees down-rating on e-retail sites
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Journalist Rana Ayyub's new book "Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up" has been garnering a surprising number of reviews on Amazon and Flipkart, the e-commerce sites on which the book is available for purchase. 

Interestingly, a major chunk of the reviews are critical of the book with most users down-rating it by giving it a 1 star. 

On Amazon, while there are over 100 positive reviews for the book, the negative ones stand at over 300 (at the time of writing the copy). A very small number of reviewers have been marked as verified purchasers.



Books can be given ratings between 1-5 stars and on Flipkart too the percent of one-star rating is the highest. 




It however seems most unfavourable reviews were made by people who had not actually bought or read the book. Several of the comments have nothing to do with the content of the book with many simply terming it "fiction" and "propaganda" and providing no explanation to back their statements.

It is important to note that journalist Barkha Dutt's, “This Unquiet Land: Stories from India's Fault Lines”, too had to face similar reviews when it released last year. 

Following this, Dutt put up a statement on Facebook stating, 

"So the 'bhakts' and trolls have decided in their pathetic way to try and target me on Amazon by down rating This Unquiet Land (without reading or buying it of course) . Someone on the inside leaked me the message they are circulating about me and is being mass shared in their 'groups'. Read and judge for yourself what apalling toxicity drives these people. I am of course chuffed that i matter so much to them :) "This is the msg that's being floated around for your book. All pls give one star to Barkha's book Type 'This unquiet land' go to Amazon and in reviews give one star Pass this in all groups"


“Gujarat Files”, according to the description mentioned on Amazon, "is the account of an eight-month long undercover investigation by Rana Ayyub into the Gujarat riots, fake encounters and the murder of state Home Minister Haren Pandya that brings to the fore startling revelations. Posing as Maithili Tyagi, a filmmaker from the American Film Institute Conservatory, Rana met bureaucrats and top cops in Gujarat who held pivotal positions in the state between 2001 and 2010. The transcripts of the sting operation reveal the complicity of the state and its officials in crimes against humanity."

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