The world of Indian English Language Stand-Up Comedy is on fire again. In the last few days, we have seen a number of comics suspend their Twitter accounts faster than the speed of light. It all started with a clip of the comedian Agrima Joshua going viral on social media. The clip shows her making fun of the Shiv Smarak that is dedicated to the Hindu king Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
And on cue, there was an outrage on social media which was followed by an immediate apology by the comedian. But whom did Agrima Joshua apologize to? Did she say sorry to the followers of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj? Did she say sorry to the millions of people across India who revere Shivaji Maharaj deeply? Well, the answer is Yes and No.
She does tweet an apology to the followers, but she ends up apologizing to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his son Aditya Thackeray, Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, Congress leader Nitin Raut, and MNS supremo Raj Thackeray. This was followed by similar tweets by other comics like Sahil Shah and Aadar Malik.
Now that the can of worms has been opened up completely we had the army of non-left twitter searching the tweets of all the comics which leads to the #HinduphobicComedyIndustry
In a normal scenario if someone would be getting pummeled like this in real life the reaction would be of anguish and deep outrage. But why is that not happening? Why are so many people angry and fuming at this entire set of people? And the answer lies in their behaviour.
The Indian stand up comedy scene claims that they’re truth-tellers, they are the ones who speak truth to power. For them, stand-up comedy is all about punching up. Sanjay Rajoura says “By not reading enough and challenging the status quo, they risk becoming a mirror of society rather than showing the mirror to society. ” At the time I am writing this Opinion piece the same Sanjay Rajoura has protected his Twitter account. Talk about punching up and showing a mirror to the society!
So let us test the claims of Indian Stand-Up Comics. They claim they speak truth to power and they punch up, but do they really do that? Everyone knows that whenever one criticises Shivaji Maharaj they will face the wrath of Indian regional political outfits like Shiv Sena and MNS. They are the ones who have built their political capital around Shivaji Maharaj. So a person punching up would not end up apologising to the same people. Punching up, in this case, would be taking on the Shiv Sena and this entire political setup. But what we see is all these comics using the classical cop-out “when in doubt, invoke the IT Cell card“.
And this leads us to a larger discussion. If one was to read the newspapers in India and other international publications that India is being governed by a fascist government that is led by Hitler reincarnated. Heck, even Hitler would be a softer person if compared to Narendra Modi! But we see all the stand-up comics criticising Narendra Modi with far more ease than any other leader. This leads us to the larger truth of Indian politics.
When it comes to tolerance to criticism, India’s regional political outfits are the most ruthless, intolerant, and brutal. Does that mean BJP, Congress, and other national parties are angels? Not at all, a cursory look on the internet will show us that they are guilty of suppressing people when it comes to freedom of expression. But what distinguishes the national parties from the regional ones is the potential of violence. Regional parties will not shy away from using violence as a tool of negotiation and that is why you see a slew of comics apologising to the politicians in Maharashtra.
Similarly, Indian stand up comics mock Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and to some extent Christianity (Yes I know what happened to Sanal Edamaruku) with much more ease than they criticise Islam. And the reason in that case also is the same i.e. the potential of violence. If you do not believe me please study what happened to Kamlesh Tiwari.
So punching up would mean challenging and mocking not one particular religion, but the entire edifice of religion itself. The challenge would not be criticising Modi alone, but the entire political class. And this is where the stand-up comics fail. They are selective, cowardly, and biased to the core but they claim to be objective, neutral, and brave. If they were to say that they are biased and selective and they will only criticise Modi and Hinduism because they dislike Modi and find criticising Hinduism easier, things would be a lot smoother for them. But it is their smugness that leads to the utter lack of support for them.
Indian stand up comedy suffers from classical delusions of grandeur. Here are the classic characteristics of any delusion as per Healthline:
- The person having the belief believes it to be true, even when the existing norm and other people know it to be untrue.
- The person having the delusion will not listen to any other viewpoints about the belief and will not consider change when evidence challenges the delusion.
- The content of the delusion is impossible or implausible.
- The delusion impacts the person’s daily life.
I will leave it to each and everyone’s imagination to decide whether these characteristics fit the stand-up comics or not. I would like to end this piece by saying that in spite of their hypocrisy, selectiveness, and cowardice, these people, that I have spent the last few minutes of my life criticising deserve the right to speak selectively and hypocritically. Because cracking bad jokes can’t be illegal, being a hypocrite does not mean one deserves to be beaten up or given rape threats. Anyone who supports such actions is as wrong as these comics who have a record of sympathizing with violent movements themselves. In this game of competitive and selective outrage, we are destroying the very fabric of our society.
Unfortunately, very few people actually want the freedom of expression in India. We’re surrounded by authoritarians of different shades all around. Till now the leftists had a stranglehold on authoritarianism. Now authoritarianism is competitive and the results are here to be seen. I have no respect for the so-called liberals in India. They are biased, careerists, and opportunists who’ll lie with impunity and then claim moral superiority. But in spite of that, I want them to have the right to be morally mediocre. Because that is how freedom works. And that is the price we have to pay for freedom. Unfortunately, the non-left does not learn from the lefts’ mistakes and basically wants to become the mirror image of the left. “How dare you crack a bad joke” is not an argument. It never was, it never will be one.