India and Kunal Kamra: When comedy becomes a crime

The violent reaction to comedian Kunal Kamra’s parody of an unnamed politician would be funny if it wasn’t a sign of a more disturbing trend in India - someone, somewhere will always be offended by something and they will not think twice before taking the law into their own hands. What makes the episode in Maharashtra even more shameful is that the ruling party’s goons indulged in the violence. Is there no rule of law in Mumbai, India’s financial capital? When the ruling party resorts to extra constitutional acts, what does it say about the state of affairs. Mob violence is being normalised and it has no place in our democracy.

Of course, it did not end there. The police immediately filed a case against Kamra for “promoting enmity”, “causing public mischief” among other charges. Leaders of the Shinde Shiv Sena were tripping all over each other to demand an apology from Kamra, justifying the violent retaliation and the completely over the top response. The venue where Kamra performed has shut down while the local municipal authorities used bulldozers outside to demolish “illegal structures” that they suddenly discovered, a move that also made a mockery of a Supreme Court ruling against “bulldozer justice”.

But hey, why are we even surprised? India has a long, complicated history with censorship, outrage and violence. Comedians by their very nature are meant to offend, to provoke, and public figures have to be ready to be at the receiving end of their jokes. Late night comedy in America always takes jibes at their political leaders but you don’t see them being thrown in jail for it. The constitution and India’s courts have clearly made a distinction between free speech and hate speech, a distinction that is much needed. But Kunal Kamra’s jokes are not hate speech by a long shot. So he made fun of some politicians ( who he didn’t even name) but isn’t that what democracy is all about?

As the Kamra horror played out in the national media, another story was making headlines in Chennai. YouTuber Savukku Shankar’s home was attacked by a group of men who dumped sewage inside. Shankar has been a vocal critic of the ruling DMK in the state. The DMK normally wastes no time in attacking the BJP for being intolerant. But Shankar has been arrested in the past as well. His videos have often been criticised for being defamatory and those are the laws that should be used to act against him by those aggrieved. Instead, there has been a heavy handed response.

This is true of most political parties. Under the Congress government in 2012, a cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was infamously arrested for sedition. In 2019, a BJP worker in Bengal was arrested for posting a morphed photo of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Some years earlier a professor was arrested in Bengal for forwarding a cartoon about Mamata didi to his friends.

When it comes to dissent and criticism, most of our politicians have a thin skin. But resorting to violence as the ruling Sena did in Mumbai against Kamra is next level madness. I argued only a few weeks ago in this column that no matter how offensive or distasteful you may find a joke, like Ranveer Allahabadia’s comments on a show, arresting people is not the answer. But India is a remarkable country. We have even arrested comedians BEFORE they actually utter a joke. Ask Munawar Farooqi. We are truly the republic of outrage.