There are a lot of comedians in India that have been to prison or have been issued legal notice for their jokes. These days, the charge to deliver right news to the audience has been taken by the Indian comedians. The comedians feel the Indian news channels are making a fool out of themselves by delivering unimportant and ‘Masala’ news. Here is a list of comedians that faced trouble in India, a country with freedom of speech.
Munawar Faruqui
Munawar Faruqui has been the most controversial stand-up comedian to land in jail for many days. Munawar’s life turned upside down when on January 1, 2021 he landed up in jail for a joke. On January 1, in a cafe in Indore where Munawar was going to perform, some Hindu Nationalist barged in and accused Munawar of hurting religious sentiments of Hindu. The nationalist was talking about a joke uploaded by Munawar on his YouTube channel that referred to Lord Rama and Goddess Sita. The joke goes like, “O Lord, my beloved, has come home.” Munawar was talking about a Bollywood song and further the joke continued, “Ramji don’t give a f*ck about your beloved. I myself haven’t returned home for fourteen years.” Munawar tried to explain the nationalist that he also jokes about his Muslim community, but the nationalist was not ready to listen. The audience tried to support Munawar but was of no use. Two police complaints were filed against Munawar. He stayed in jail for 37 days until he was granted bail.
Kunal Kamra
Popular comedian Kunal Kamra was sent a legal notice by the Supreme Court of India in November 2020. The notice was for Kunal’s tweets against the judges and the judiciary system. Attorney General K K Venugopal received multiple letters of request after which he granted consent for initiation of criminal contempt proceedings. Venugopal said that Kamra’s tweets were in ‘Bad Taste’ and it was time that people understand that attacking the court would attract punishment. Kunal Kamra told the court that “tweets were not published with intention of diminishing people’s faith in the highest court of our democracy” and that “the suggestion that my tweets could shake the foundations of the most powerful court in the world is an over-estimation of my abilities”.
Tanmay Bhat
In May 2016, Mumbai Police asked YouTube and Facebook to block stand-up comedian Tanmay Bhat’s video. The controversial video was a mock conversation of Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar. Shiv Sena, BJP and MNS demanded action against Tanmay Bhat and Tanmay’s company called AIB. The video was titled ‘Sachin v/s Lata Civil War.’ In the video, Tanmay was seen with a filter that made his face look like Sachin and Lata. The video had the conversation on if Virat Kohli is better than Sachin. In 2015, he had landed in trouble as an FIR was lodged against all those involved in AIB Knockout. AIB Knockout was a roast of Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor and was hosted by Karan Johar. The roast featured obscene and abusive language and hence a FIR was filed against the people involved in the roast.
Kiku Sharda
Kika Sharda is famous Indian comedian that features on Kapil Sharma show. Kiku was arrested in 2016 was hurting religious sentiments of followers of Dera Sacha Sauda leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. While acting in a TV show called Jashn-e-Umeed, which released on December 27, it was alleged that Kiku mimicked and made fun of Dera chief from his movie MSG 2.
Fear of Azeem Banatwalla
Azeem Banatwalla is yet another popular comedian that works on comedy sets that surrounds political stuff, said that earlier he used to laugh at the death threats he used to receive and also incorporate them into jokes. Now, he sometimes gets worried with these threats. Although, he continues to make sets around political stuff, but with better consciousness. Azeem said, “I keep telling myself, no more political stuff. Just quietly go about your business and live your life. But then some news story comes up, and you just have to say something about it.”
