Where’s Our Funny Bone? Comedians Who Have Faced Flak For Their Stand-Up Act

New Delhi: For a long time, comedy in India was restricted to mimicry and people had a good laugh. But now, in the era of stand-up comedy where intelligent comics have given comedy a whole new meaning, we suddenly seem to have lost our funny bone.

The growing community of comedians has joined other celebrities like those from Bollywood facing threats, being trolled and getting into legal trouble.

Vir Das is the latest to have invited ire for his ‘Two India’ satirical monologue at the John F Kennedy Centre in Washington DC recently.

Here are others who have courted controversy:

Munawar Faruqui was arrested on January 1 this year for passing allegedly indecent remarks about Hindu deities during a comedy show in Indore on New Year’s Day. Faruqui was lodged in Indore Central Jail following a complaint by a BJP MLA’s son for making the alleged remarks about Hindu deities and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. He spent a month in prison.

Kunal Kamra, a stand-up comedian and satirist had pleas seeking contempt of court action against him for tweets against the court and the judges. Last November, Attorney General K K Venugopal consented to the initiation of criminal contempt proceedings against Kamra for a series of tweets following the Supreme Court giving interim bail to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.

Agrima Joshua received rape threats and was abused online after an old video of her performance in 2019 surfaced in which she made a joke about the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian sea. She had to later apologise for her comments.

Kiku Sharda who appears on “The Kapil Sharma Show” spent a few days in judicial custody in 2016 for mimicking Dera Chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who ironically is in jail himself. Sharda, 46, was booked under section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code (outraging religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief).

Tanmay Bhat, a co-founder of the now inactive comedy company All India Bakchod, landed in trouble when he uploaded a Snapchat video mimicking cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar and legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) filed an FIR against him. In 2015, Tanmay’s AIB had also landed in trouble over a “roast” programme featuring some prominent Bollywood celebrities.