A 27-year-old finance influencer's suicide in India has been mired in allegations of cyberbullying and started a conversation around who should give financial advice to investors. V Harish - who ran a hugely popular Instagram account called "Finance with Harish" - was found dead on Tuesday morning at his home near Chennai, capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu. His suicide came just weeks after his account was disabled by Meta after complaints of irregularities.
In a complaint lodged with the police, his father J Vinayagam has alleged that his son took his life because of online harassment by Jason Samuel, a YouTuber and CEO of tech-centric venture studio Zemuria. Police arrested Samuel on Thursday under suspicion of trying to "extort money from Harish" and posting "defamatory videos against him on social media". BBC Tamil has not been able to reach him for comment.
Earlier, he denier wrongdoing in a post on X. The case has brought into focus the growing influence of financial content creators in India, where millions of first-time investors increasingly turn to social media for market advice. Harish began posting videos about finance and investing around five years ago, building a substantial online following.
Over the years, he published more than 1,500 videos and amassed more than 1.3 million Instagram followers. He described himself as a financial adviser to "millionaires" and "high-net-worth individuals". He often used music, film clips and photos of global political leaders to make dramatic videos while talking about the rise and fall of the share market and prices of gold and silver.
The videos, which broke down financial issues in simple terms, became hugely popular as they coincided with a rapid expansion in India's retail investor base, especially since the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. The country's largest stock exchange, the National Stock Exchange, said earlier this year it now had more than 130 million unique investors registered with it as opposed to under 30 million in 2019. But in September, Meta took down Harish's Instagram page after receiving complaints he was not registered with Indian market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) - which is required under law to be able to offer investment advice or manage client portfolios.
A back-up account, which gained over 60,000 followers in a short time, was also subsequently taken down, external following complaints from social media users and others. A few other accounts in his name remain on Instagram, though with much smaller followings - and it's not clear who runs them. According to Harish's friends and family, he recorded a video message before his death in which he said that "five years of hard work has been stolen" from him, news channel NDTV reported, external.
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