India?s ex-TikTok stars ?feel lost?, ?forgotten? a year after ban

We became confident human beings … It wouldn’t have otherwise been possible for street food vendors living in a small town like Beed.”Ever since its launch in September 2016, TikTok’s popularity exploded across the globe, leading to an enormous, mystifying but unique community of unlikely stars who shot to fame with their 15-second videos.The app’s tools were simple to use for those who do not speak or read English or Hindi, and it worked well on low-speed internet.India soon became TikTok’s biggest international market with 200 million users, most of them coming from marginalised backgrounds that did not have an online platform or any digital access to showcase their talents in a society that remains stratified with caste and class.TikTok helped thousands of such people gain confidence, experience moments of joy, and earn respect.But just as TikTok stars such as Gunjal and Pooja, had begun to get used to their stardom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned the app, along with 58 others, amid deadly border tensions with China.The ban was in retaliation to the killing of 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops in hand-to-hand combat on a disputed Himalayan border between the two nuclear powers in June last year.June 29 this year marks a year of India banning TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps.In the past year, Gunjal and Pooja were among the TikTok stars who tried to find other substitutes for the popular app.Facebook-owned Instagram released a TikTok-like Reels feature shortly after India’s ban. But the crowd on Instagram is different from TikTok,” said Pooja, explaining how TikTok had more people from her socioeconomic background.“People in Beed, for example, are slowly joining Instagram, but it will take time.”Arman Rathod, a 29-year-old former TikTok star with 230,000 Instagram followers now concurs with Pooja.“I would hit a million likes on TikTok in a day,” he told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview from Valsad town in the neighbouring Gujarat state.“Instagram has also been great over the past year. Some of the TikTok stars lost their limelight exactly the way they had earned it: suddenly and unexpectedly.Sangita Gaikwad recently got that unpleasant reminder when she turned 36 on June 1.A post shared by Sangita Gaikwad (@sangita_gaikwad17)From her home in a small cotton-growing village about 100km (62 miles) from Beed, Gaikwad, with at least 100,000 followers on TikTok at the time of the ban, had become a raging sensation in Maharashtra’s Jalna district.“My daughter insisted I get on TikTok,” Gaikwad told Al Jazeera. This time around, I didn’t even get a cake from anyone.”Dejected with her depleting fame, Gaikwad held a live session on Instagram, where she has more than 50,000 followers but does not quite get the response she used to.“It seems like people have forgotten me,” she rued, reminiscing the good old TikTok days.India’s government imposed initial ban in June but now reportedly says it is ‘not satisfied’ with companies’ responses.India’s ban on popular video-sharing app deprives a number of social media stars of their followers and fortune.Surveillance begins on app users after a trafficking gang that lured girls into the sex trade in India was busted.Pakistan’s media regulator reinstates access to the Chinese app after a court last month banned it for ‘vulgar’ content.Follow Al Jazeera English: