Context: Producers of entertainment content, especially stand-up comedians, are increasingly becoming the target of legal action. To take just two examples, while Kunal Kamra is facing contempt proceedings for remarks about the Supreme Court, fellow comedian Munawar Faruqui had to spend more than a month in jail on vague charges before getting bail.

 

Background:

• The culture of taking offence started right around the time stand-up comedy began picking up an audience on the Internet.
• In 2011, comedy was still happening mostly in clubs. As soon as comedy began reaching out to the masses on YouTube, some mainstream comedians began attracting huge amounts of outrage.

 

Changes since 2015:

• Initially, it was just people coming on stage and talking about their nagging wives, women drivers, and so on. But as a particular art form evolves, you start to explore different topics, the depth and richness of your material increases.
• As comedy as an art form began to gain traction, it led to people doing satire, making observations on society, questioning power structures. It was no longer limited to elites in a comedy club.
• It was picking up a mass audience and creating conversations online, which is why comedy started getting a lot of attention.

 

Is there something wrong with our laws? There seem to be so many that empower offence-takers.

• The offended members of society are spoilt for choice when it comes to legal provisions they can invoke in an attempt to criminalize creative expression.
• Under the IPC, there are provisions relating to offending religious sentiments, the criminal defamation law, the obscenity laws, and provisions for statements that amount to public mischief.
• If the objectionable content is available online, there are also implications under the Information Technology Act.
• The problem is that the law affords protection to the prickliest common denominator in society.

 

How is offending someone’s ‘sentiments’ a crime when that person is not physically or otherwise materially harmed?

• Offending someone’s sentiments is itself recognized as a harm under criminal law. This is unfortunate because the role of art and comedy is often to provoke and to offend.

 

Is Section 295A applicable only for official religions? Can I say that Sachin Tendulkar is my god and sue someone who has made fun of him, on the grounds that my religious sentiments have been hurt?

 

• There is no restrictive reading in the law as to what qualifies as a religion. It’s not been defined under the IPC.
• The consequence is that it can be applied to, for instance, a self-proclaimed godman or a cult.
• While Tendulkar is still a stretch, it could apply to situations where it was never meant to really apply, as there is no tight definition as to what could amount to religious feelings, which is what makes this provision so prone to misuse.

 

Under what provision of law can a comedian be penalised for making ‘anti-national’ jokes?

• Often, criticism of the government is elevated to the status of sedition. And that’s what is used to prosecute individuals who criticize the government.
• Though the ‘anti-national’ label has no legal status, the labeling feeds into the prejudice that’s created against these individuals through the media.

 

So is it fair to say India is criminalizing comedy?

• Comedy has existed in India in other forms. Long before YouTube and stand-up, there used to be Haasya Kavi Sammelans, which are satirical poetry gatherings.
• I would encourage everybody who has a problem with stand-up comedy to check out the works of these Hindi poets. Surender Sharma, for example.
• They make allusions to gods and goddesses, to mythology. They use religion as an allegory to comment on inequalities.
• There’s no such thing as a pro-government comedian because the very essence of comedy is to make fun of the people in power.

 

https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/is-india-criminalising-comedy-and-entertainment/article33875470.ece