What is happening to Kunal Kamra is completely indefensible

I don’t like returning to the same subject again and again but the current state of free speech in India leaves me with very little choice.

The last time I wrote about the subject was when there was an uproar over remarks made by Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina.

 

As the BeerBiceps guy, Allahbadia has spent the last two or three years kissing the toes of the government. There was a certain amount of smugness and schadenfreude among those who disapproved of his relentless chamchagiri (sycophancy) of his powerful benefactors.

 

   I said then that it was dangerous to defend free speech only for those we approved of. The point of free speech was that we defended it even when we disagreed with what was said and who said it. As for ‘offending sentiments’, one explanation that is frequently offered for locking people up, that is a total non-starter. The Constitution was not written to prevent uncles and aunties from being shocked or offended.

 

   I hope those who gloated when Allahbadia was persecuted have recognised how wrong they were now that the authorities have gone after comedian Kunal Kamra, a liberal hero. You always defend the principle, not the individual, because otherwise those who you approve of – and you yourself – will be the next targets.

 

   What is happening to Kunal Kamra is completely indefensible. It is instructive that even the government’s loyalists on social media have not defended the persecution. Instead, they have been instructed to fall back on ‘whataboutery’. Their arguments are restricted to ‘but did you say anything when (insert name of Right-wing figure here) was arrested or banned?’

 

   It’s the logical equivalent of saying that we can’t arrest murderers because some have gone unpunished, or that it’s okay to justify genocide because not all genocides have been equally condemned.

 

   Nor is it fine to say that there is nothing unusual about mobs of political goondas trashing performance venues or offices because it happens all the time.

 

   Yes, it does happen frequently and it is always disgraceful when it does. But there is a difference this time. The goondas are acting in the name of Maharashtra’s sitting deputy chief minister and former CM, Eknath Shinde. Even current chief minister Devendra Fadnavis joined in the attack and blamed Kamra. The basic arguments offered by the state government were:

 

1) Even freedom has some limits.

2) Kamra made a classist attack on the deputy chief minister, who rose from being a rickshaw driver to a position of influence and wealth by virtue of tapasya (penance) and eschewing all worldly goods. (Okay I made up the last bit)

3) Err, that’s all we can think of at the moment but give us some time and we will invent new reasons.

 

   If this sounds foolish and silly, it’s because it is.

 

   In fact, the real reason is completely different. Attack a politician and he or she will find a suitable counter argument or at least a vague defence. But make fun of him or her and they will lose all sense of proportion and perhaps their mental balance.

 

"Kamra’s ’crime’ is that he dared turn a powerful politician into the subject of a joke."

   Most politicians have no wit, and no sense of humour. They can handle criticism but ridicule drives them mad. They have plotted and schemed and manipulated their road to power with so much effort that they cannot bear to think that even after they have got to the top, they are still figures of fun and the punchlines of jokes.

 

   This was true of Soviet rulers, who locked up comedians. Take this old Soviet joke: “Did you hear about the man who ran around Moscow shouting ‘Brezhnev is an idiot’? He was sentenced to 25 years in a gulag. Five years for ridiculing our great leader. And 20 years for revealing a state secret.”

 

   And it was true of Adolf Hitler, who was prepared to face criticism from the Allies but was driven to apoplexy by Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, a 1940 comedy film in which Chaplin (whose moustache made him something of a Hitler lookalike) sent up the Nazis and the führer himself.

 

   That’s what is happening in Mumbai today. Kamra’s ’crime’ is that he dared turn a powerful politician into the subject of a joke. And because of one man’s fragile ego, many innocent people have paid a terrible price as the full might of the state has been unleashed upon them. The municipal authorities suddenly found reasons to turn up at the venue because of alleged irregularities. The venue has had to close down and people have lost jobs. The police now want to interrogate members of the audience at the show.

 

   The taxpayer has had to pay the cost of this clownish police investigation into this so-called crime, including an abortive raid on an address where Kamra has not lived for years.

 

   I doubt if anything will come of the many FIRs filed against Kamra because, over the last several months, the Supreme Court has demonstrated an admirable commitment to the principles of free speech.

 

   But as Kamra pointed out in a tweet, the damage has already been done. Which venue will now host comedians like him and risk political wrath? Which promoter will risk the violence that politically sponsored goondas will bring to any Kamra event? Which company will sponsor his shows? Who will have the courage to give him corporate gigs? And how many people will attend his shows if they think they are going to be interrogated by the police afterwards?

 

   I oppose campaigns against free speech by individuals based on perceived offences to religion or morality. But this is much worse. It is not a battle about ideas or morality. It is about one man who can’t bear to be made fun of. And who is, therefore, using the full machinery of the state against those who crack the jokes and worse still, against those who laugh at them. Kunal Kamra has actually said worse things about Narendra Modi and yet nobody has closed down his shows despite the central government’s notoriously thin skin.

 

   This particular battle is not just about free speech. It is also about how we have allowed politicians to waste taxpayer money and hijack the institutions of government to protect their own egos.

 

   It is much worse than anything that happened to BeerBiceps. It is a new low. And unless we speak out against it, this will become the norm.