Vir Das: Manufacturing Outrage

“I come from an India where we bleed blue every time we play green. But every time we lose to green, we turn orange.”

In an era where real life is stranger than fiction, stand-up comedian Vir Das has been booked in India for his criminal act of busting the myth of ‘shining India.’ His recent biting satire of 7 minutes in Washington D.C, U.S has stuck in the craw of India’s right-wing brigade.

Das spoke about issues such as rape, farmers’ protests, media and cricket. Pointing to the dichotomies inherent in present day India, Das said, “I come from an India where we worship women during the day and gang-rape them during the night.”

The speech, which was incidentally greeted by a 6-minute standing ovation by Indian expatriates, led actress Kangana Ranaut, always eager to be a mouthpiece for the government, branding his act as “soft terrorism” and asking for action against “criminals.” Madhya Pradesh Home Minister promptly announced that Vir Das will not be allowed to perform in the state.

The frothing at the mouth cross section of Indian society congregated on social media to outrage. Writer Chetan Bhagat wondered sorrowfully, “I may fight or find many faults with my mother, but I won’t go criticising her in the neighbour’s house. I may find a hundred things wrong with my country, but I won’t go criticise it publicly on an international stage.”

Ironically, the manufactured outrage has only served to emphasise that Das was speaking truth to power. During a Twitter Space session, furious journalists demanded that Das should be banned from performing in the country he was “defaming”. A female journalist demanded in a shrill voice that Das should be kicked out “just like we got rid of Pakistani actors in Bollywood!” Editor In Chief & CEO, Zee News Sudhir Chaudhry was pained enough to appear in a grim video titled “India is not a joke”.

The once vibrant Indian press is now reduced to being the cheerleaders for Prime Minister Modi. In 2014, a month after becoming Prime Minister, Mr Modi said “India’s democracy will not sustain if we can’t guarantee freedom of speech and expression.” But it was a sentiment cleverly manufactured to allay the suspicions of the masses given his track record as the “butcher of Gujarat” because the opposite happened.

The PM may have time to give an interview to the obsequious actor Akshay Kumar, but he made the importance of a free press clear when he did not have time to do a single press conference in 7 years. There was a time when journalists like the buffoon Arnab Goswami were a rarity, but now the media landscape is saturated by Arnabs.

The ones who do not toe the line and ask hard questions are termed “anti-national”. The colonial era sedition law is being used to crack down on dissent. Journalists reporting on excesses against farmers protesting new agricultural laws were arrested and had Twitter accounts frozen. According to the Free Speech Collective, sixty-seven journalists were arrested and 200 attacked in 2020.

Das did not forget the farmers. “I come from an India where we take pride in being vegetarian, and yet run over the farmers who grow our vegetables,” a reference to the government minister’s son who drove his car into protesting farmers, killing at least eight. The lack of accountability led journalist Rohini Singh to comment, “I come from an India where greater accountability is demanded from a comedian and none from an elected minister whose son mowed down protestors.”

Vir Das is not the only comedian targeted by the government. Stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui was jailed for more than a month for “indecent remarks” about Hindu gods and threats from right wing Hindu groups ensured that many of his concerts were cancelled. The fact that Faruqui had not even made these comments and was removed before the show added a surreal touch to the proceedings.

The Guardian’s prescient editorial of 23rd May 2019, titled ‘The Guardian view on Narendra Modi’s landslide: bad for India’s soul’, said, “The BJP is the political wing of Hindu nationalism, a movement that is changing India for the worse. The landslide win for Mr Modi will see India’s soul lost to a dark politics.”

It is time for India to stop hiding behind the fig leaf of being the world’s largest democracy. In the journey from Khushwant Singh to Arnab Goswami; from Dilip Kumar to Akshay Kumar; from Jaswant Singh to Yogi Adityanath; from Sunil Gavaskar to Gautam Gambhir, India must ask itself: what have we lost and what have we gained?

The writer is Oped Editor, Bol News