Editorial: Errors of Comedy

Criminalising offensive jokes and filing FIRs for unleashing the full police force on the accused are not the solution

Like all other professions, India’s comedy scene too has its share of flaws. Quite often, body-shaming, cherry-picking certain demographics for mocking and putting up an air of condescending and self-righteousness are passed off as comedy. Compared to its Western counterparts, Indian stand-up comedy is still in its infancy in terms of the range of subjects and the depth of content. It’s a profession that is struggling to shake up a rather rigid and patriarchal value system with strict moral guardrails. No wonder that a popular podcaster and entrepreneur Ranveer Allahbadia’s impulsive and crass comment on a YouTube show, ‘India’s Got Latent’, triggered nationwide outrage, prompting multiple FIRs being registered across a few States and the matter reaching the Supreme Court. There should be no two opinions about the fact that Allahbadia’s comment on parental sex was cheap, vulgar and represented gutter-level humour. However, criminalising offensive jokes, and filing FIRs for unleashing the full police force on the accused are not the solution. Allahbadia, better known as ‘BeerBicep’, has tendered unconditional public apology while the show’s host, Samay Raina, a popular comedian, has deleted all the videos of the show. The matter should rest here. It is a matter of individual conscience, not state enforcement. Faced with a dilemma between moral indignation and constitutional propriety, the apex court did some tightrope walking. While granting the podcaster interim protection from arrest over his outrageous comments, the court did not hold back on its criticism, asking, “If this is not obscenity, what is?”

Justice Surya Kant minced no words, calling Allahbadia’s comments “shameful” and reflective of a “perverted mind”. At the same time, the highest court of the land offered protection to Allahbadia’s personal liberty, though the hearing in the case was dominated by moral outrage. When the clip of the show’s teaser went viral, the police and the National Women’s Commission (NWC) summoned the podcaster and the show’s creator. It also triggered a massive backlash on social media with many angry users attacking the creators of the show for demeaning Indian values. An outcry from media houses and politicians has only added fuel to the fire. The podcaster also received death threats from enraged followers. However, the legal question is not whether Allahbadia’s language was distasteful — everyone, including his own lawyer, admitted that it was vulgar— but whether it amounted to a criminal offence under Indian law. It must be pointed out that the primary duty of the judiciary is to uphold constitutional rights, including free speech and personal liberty. The courts are not custodians of morality. The constitutional protection for free speech is invoked only in cases where unpleasant and unpopular speech gets prosecuted. Amid the raging controversy, an eyewitness who was among the audience of the show took to Instagram, revealing that soon after the show Allahbadia profusely apologised to the contestant multiple times.

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