Following Tanmay Bhat’s controversial Snapchat video posted on Thursday that showed him mocking Indian icons cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and singer Lata Mangeshkar, comedians who perform in India that spoke to tabloid! on Tuesday, fear being muzzled, with some already being asked to sanitise their content. Tendulkar and Mangeshkar jokes are now strictly off the table, they said.
Nitin Mirani, the stand-up comedian who founded the Komic Sutra group in Dubai, said he has been advised to tweak his material for his forthcoming gig in Mumbai.
“[The organisers] called us yesterday and asked us if we had heard what happened and it’s better that we didn’t touch on Sachin Tendulkar. My jokes on him weren’t offensive in the first place, but we won’t be cracking them because of what’s happening here. My thing is to make people laugh, but if they are not in the mood then let me not force myself,” said Mirani, who added that he didn’t find Bhat’s video funny but failed to understand the uproar that it triggered.
Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya, Tanmay Bhat and Rohan Joshi of AIB. Image Credit: Gulf News archives
Delhi-based comedian Jeeveshu Ahluwalia, who performed in Dubai last week, said his gigs have been cancelled ever since the Bhat scandal broke.
“Don’t touch upon Sachin Tendulkar, Snapchat, Lata Mangeshkar, religion ... and in worst-case scenarios, they are just cancelling our shows. This is not good,” he said. “And remember, the ones who criticised the video — actors Anupam Kher and Riteish Deshmukh — were in a film called Apna Sapna Money Money in which Riteish was dressed up as a woman and Kher’s role was to grab her fake [breasts] in the whole film. So when bad films aren’t being banned, why are jokes, whether good or bad, being banned?”
Bhat, who is a member of the controversial comedy troupe AIB, posted a video lampooning the two Indian icons, mimicking an argument between them by using Snapchat’s Face Swap feature. Bhat joked that the 86-year-old singer Mangeshkar was “5,000 years old” and her face looked like it had been kept in water for eight days. He also spoke as Tendulkar, dissing Indian cricket star Virat Kohli.
The video has sparked widespread outrage and once again triggered a debate about freedom of expression. Bhat and his AIB teammates were under fire last year for a sexually explicit comedy “roast” featuring Bollywood stars Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Karan Johar.
Comedian Ahluwalia said Bhat was courageous to take on two Indian legends and that it wasn’t fair that he was being crucified for it.
On Monday morning, Indian police claimed they had asked Youtube and Facebook to block Bhat’s satirical video. They have received complaints from several political groups, including one from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Sources tell Gulf News tabloid! that members of a right-wing political group, who are up-in-arms about the video, are hunting for him. Bhat has refused to comment after the row.
“If you don’t like the video, don’t watch it. But why are you seeking his arrest and being so hostile towards him? We are in a strange land where there are rapes and such crimes being committed. And you all have an issue with his joke?” Ahluwalia added.
Creating fear
UAE-based comedian Salman Qureshi, who has been performing stand-up in the region for seven years, believes that such episodes create fear in the minds of artists.
“People should just calm down and learn how to take a joke. If you don’t like his video, don’t watch it. Creating a space where we are scared to crack jokes isn’t going to serve any purpose. Why not try to learn how to take a joke, even if it is offensive? After all, it’s a joke and we all need to learn how to move on,” he said.
Radhika Vaz, who has performed in Dubai, believes that Bhat is being persecuted because he doesn’t have political clout or wealth.
“This is selective outrage. You can’t cherry pick about the issues that you get offended by. Everyone is baying for his blood now. Had he been rich, or was a big shot or affiliated to a political party, he wouldn’t find himself attacked. And all this outrage makes me think: do you all have so little to do in your life that you would file a police complaint over a video? This is a case of freedom of speech being curtailed,” Vaz said.
She was also critical of Bollywood actors such as Deshmukh, Kher and Celina Jaitley coming down hard on Bhat. The actors expressed their disapproval of Bhat’s video over Twitter.
“It’s scary that Bollywood is not supporting freedom of speech. They should have been the first ones to support and not persecute him,” Vaz added.
While a number of Bollywood actors have been critical of Bhat’s video, some came out in support as well. Actress Sonam Kapoor took to Twitter on Tuesday to chide Bhat’s haters. Her tweet read: “Being living legends, I know Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar don’t even know and care about what’s going on! Stop spewing hate on their behalf.”
Delhi-based comedian Sanjay Rajoura claims that Bhat’s video has unnecessarily been pegged as a national debate.
“Such reactions against Tanmay Bhat are juvenile. Stand-up comedy is about making fun of people. So now, people have a problem with jokes on singers, politicians, religion, intolerance, India ... This is just getting ridiculous. So there will come a time when only jokes on poor people are allowed because their voices are rarely heard. They have nowhere to go, but since everyone else is easily offended that could be our reality,” Rajoura said.
Oman-based comedian Adnan Nalwala said humour is subjective.
“There are no boundaries in comedy and the question to ask is whether Indian audiences are really ready and prepared to take things with a pinch of salt,” he said. “It’s not possible for a comedian to be appealing to everyone.”
Nalwala, an Indian national, has been performing across the UAE for the past seven years.
At the time of writing, Tendulkar and Mangeshkar were yet to comment on the video.
