After communists and activists, are India’s next target comedians?
On twitter, a harmless comment can become an acrimonious source of abuse, be it a religious issue or a political one, nothing is spared. One such case took place and resulted in a fiasco which could have been easily managed.
On July 1st, Kenny Sebastian, a Mumbai based comedian, talked about the loss faced by content creators in India due to the Tiktok ban. This led to a series of events. From him being called religious slurs and being attacked for his Christian identity, to Agrima Joshua, another comedian who spoke in solidarity, receiving rape threats for a video dating back 16 months. The video was of her making jokes on the aggrandized rumours and false news regarding the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s statue.
The government trying to suppress people’s voices is not something new or shocking in India, but what is more shocking is the fact that someone could go around giving rape threats without a second thought. The fact that we live in a society where crimes against women are normalised, where a man can treat a woman however he wants without the fear of consequences is in itself, disappointing. But with Agrima belonging to the comedy industry, where women are, as it is, scarce, rape threats can have dangerous consequences.
When it comes to a woman representing a minority of her gender’s population in a mainstream profession which is dominated by men, or a profession that requires her to voice an opinion on anything and everything (or even speaking the truth), rape threats disregard not only her dignity and character as a woman, but also act as a setback to the woman’s career in the future as well as other women on the same path. Had Agrima been a man, would there have been such disregard of her human rights? Yes, there would be abuse and outrage too, but rape threats? Probably not.
This brings up the question about the “freedom of speech” in India, and to what extent is it applied in daily life? Are humour and jokes not free speech? Are political jokes not comedy? Are they not a nation that prides itself on its free speech policies? Then why does it have to escalate to rape and death threats, and people’s families being dragged into this and being endangered? Is it really such an intolerant nation?
But this doesn’t stop there, Hindu nationalist supporters on social media platforms then took to attacking stand-up comedians en masse. Years old videos were brought into light. Tweets nearly a decade old were dug out. Comedians were doxxed – their phone numbers were leaked – giving people access to their personal space and exposing them to derogatory abuse and harm.
This resulted in many comedians coming up and apologizing for hurting people’s “religious sentiments” and 7 deactivating their accounts out of fear over the past few days.
“This sort of environment is one reason why Indian comedy isn’t very political,” said Ravina Rawal, editor of DeadAnt, an online publication that tracks the Indian comedy scene,“Comedians are soft targets.” The fact that most of these comedians are leftist and liberals only adds fuel to the fire. These “woke” comedians have been penalised time and time again for sharing their opinion or speaking out against a political or religious issue. Repeatedly, the ruling party has been triggered to squelch their voices.
This makes one wonder, what’s the point of being a democratic nation if they pick and choose who gets to tell their stories and voice their opinions and who has to be subjected to censorship? If they cannot draw a just line for content and see it for what it is – a source of entertainment – they might as well just stop.
