Buzzing Blogopshere: Tanmay Bhat Snaps Freedom of Speech

In the democratic regime that every Indian lives in today, each one us has been granted the right to freedom of speech under the aegis of Article 19 of the Constitution. The freedom given to us imparts us the dignity to carry out debates, opine on issues and have pivotal discussions about the progress of India on various platforms. Yes, we revel in the liberty to speak and express, yet the two lines etched in our Constitution are still up for explanation as to where the boundaries lie. While the country allows politicians to indulge in hate speech, demeaning the opposition and defaming communities, fueling riots and much more, yet we the people of India do not have the right to outrage without borders when our idea of freedom is hurt.

A few months back, the JNU issue pushed the country into raging debates on what nationalism is and now we are back to finding the true boundaries of our right to speak, with Tanmay getting roasted on Twitter, in newsrooms and in the papers for his Snapchat video. When Tanmay chose two Bharat Ratnas for his latest comic outing, none of us could laugh.

Through his disrespectful mockery on Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar, the media refused to sit on the couch and laugh along, taking up the issue with a vengeance. It was however interesting as to how the supposedly fun act was completely irrelevant to major national issues, yet managed to expose a serious question -Where does one draw the line? The opinions on this issue were multihued, from people questioning the very right to express to those who see this incident as another bout of intolerance and growing sensationalism in the country. Vidisha Joshi wrote,

“We sat back and enjoyed our favourite stars being ridiculed by this group, this is the ‘in’ thing. But when you take on the people who we revere and respect, things are going to get rough. Recently, Tanmay has been in the news owing to his disrespectful jibes at popular and cult Indian figures like Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar. Neither were the jokes that were cracked funny, nor were his digs about Lata Mangeshkar, who’s better known as the Nightingale of India , and Sachin Tendulkar, considered the God of Cricket by many, in any way pardonable. Just to come to think of it, there’s just about no one who can bear Lata Mangeshkar being compared with Melisandre and being asked to die. Or ‘Sachin’, a man who never lost his calm or for that matter swore on the ground even once, actually going around abusing Virat Kohli.”

The general consensus was that Tanmay who was earlier in the news due to his famous AIB roast, went a little too far this time with his mimicry of the two most loved celebrities in India under the garb of a comic tone. Outrage happened to be the first reaction on social media, owing mostly to the abundance of cuss words and irreverence in the video. While many claimed that targeting people’s idols is criminal, it was aptly put by Lonelydarinda that the country was indeed treating celebrities like untouchables. While political parties are known to add insults and crassness into their speech directories, where does the LOC get enforced?

“A lot of people are upset about Tanmay’s video saying that he cannot disrespect Sachin or he should not talk about Lataji’s death. The harsh reality is that everyone dies. God forbid if that day ever comes for these two legends, I have no idea how I will react, but I know one thing for sure, on that day, death won’t discriminate. If death does not discriminate between the successful or unsuccessful, the rich and poor, why should comedy? In a world of your word v/s mine, there are no winners. If you find it funny, laugh about it, if you don’t, just ignore it. A comedian’s job is tough. He will do anything to make you laugh. Make fun of his parents, wife, siblings, grandfather, political situation, religion, sportsperson etc. In this noisy world, people these days have become so snobbish that is difficult to make them listen to you, leave alone make them laugh. Under such circumstances, by tying a comedian’s hands further, we are muting few voices that are willing to speak up.”

The liberty given to the citizens of India was woven in the country’s best interest- to open up doors of thoughts for the nation’s development and cohesion. But recent newsroom debate by Arnab Goswami on Times Now gave us all a glimpse of what shape freedom of speech has taken. Is one Snapchat moment that doesn’t even touch a fraction of the reputation circle of those mimicked more important than the bigger problems facing the world?  Farzana Versey gave us a blatant answer on this very thought-

“The worst is dragging in the drought. Media people who were pained about the time wasted on such stupid debates as against the drought went on to host shows discussing Tanmay Bhat. Do they even have a spine, forget a conscience? The drought vs. Snapchat idea is opportunistic and insensitive. Nobody is censoring the drought, so give it attention, and not only when it is ‘happening’ to do so. Then there were those saints who said if you don’t like it don’t watch it. They seem to have reached a Zen state where they know without watching whether something is likeable or not. ”

With performers like AIB going under public scrutiny, there is no denying the fact that we are treading an increasingly hazardous terrain when it comes to freedom of expression. Yet, does banning and stopping people from voicing their idea solve the problem? A mere Snapchat video, which would have gotten lost in the void of the web in 24 hours of its upload, cannot be termed as a national threat that requires political parties to intervene at such a riotous level. The incident simply highlights how eagerly political parties jump into the fray when their ‘pride’ is concerned. Samrat Roy Chowdhuri presents his view on the whole tussle.

“The BJP and Shiv Sena ordering FIRs against Tanmay Bhat, the Government under Modi seeking to ban the video by writing to Google and Youtube reflects how wrong our political leaders can get when it comes to the issues plaguing the country. These political leaders wanted to jump into it, make their political point, win some brownie points – just to ensure their failures go unnoticed. And we Indians have always fallen for it. These are the same politicians who would go on a drought tour and instead of trying to solve the problem, click their selfies. The raging inflation, corruption, unemployment and poverty are just the least significant part of their life.”

The funniness of Tanmay’s remarks on the nightingale of India is suspect at best. This version of humour tries to get laughs using a combination of cheap expletives, provoking phrases and big names. While the video can be accused of not being funny or even in good taste, yet it is nowhere near being a criminal act and is miles away from deserving threats of being killed. But as movies and cricket both are considered religions in India, any perceived insult of the Gods in this field is considered blasphemous. Baradwaj Rangan becomes the devil’s advocate and nails it, considering Tanmay’s sole fault being not living up to his job as a comedian.

“But at what point does humour tip over into insensitivity? We are too vast, too diverse a people to be truly united by humour – unless it is just banana-peel comedy – and even the same people may react differently to different kinds of “defamation.” Tamilians react with exasperation when Shah Rukh Khan, playing Shekhar Subramaniam, tops his noodles with curd. The same Tamilians note, with a sense of pride, how Rajinikanth memes break the Internet. Because this isn’t a mockery of the man. It’s a gentle ribbing of his screen persona. Bhat’s video is another reminder that there are two distinct India’s today. One is the Westernised India that wants India to be like the US or the UK (in their heads, they may already be living in that India), and thinks Saturday Night Live-style skits – the kind peddled by Tanmay Bhat and his cohorts, where anything can be said about anyone – are cool. The other is the Indian India, where Lata Mangeshkar is Mata Saraswati incarnate. It would help if both India’s were just a little more understanding of each other. ”

Comedy can span a variety of types, but it takes special maturity to dispense, and consume satire. However, we see that the modern genre of comedy has taken the easiest route to LOLs – scandal and cheap shots that make the younger generation laugh. The whole Tanmay Bhat controversy is a wind vane that tells us the direction that comedy is taking with the advent of new tools, as expressed by Pallav Gogoi,

“The advent of face swapping apps like Snapchat and MSQRT are undoubtedly becoming addictive for the younger generation but do you think using such apps to affront somebody with below the belt criticism is right? The whole controversy is adding perplexities for the youth of our country who thinks it’s cool to follow AIB and TVF on YouTube and it’s perfectly alright to do anything in the name of Freedom of Speech and democratization of Internet that AIB supports. They are perfectly exploiting the power of digital masks/filters to hide their face and do mimicry. Face Swapping Apps are allowing the introverts to do video blogging because when you are inside a mask, you have no fear of condemnation. Unlike yesteryears, video blogging is becoming a modish activity. Youtubers are making a living from advertisements and sponsorships and being an uncensored platform, you have the freedom to be original. ”

What has been bizarre in the whole cacophony of opinions is the undue importance shed on a video and the sole targeting of a single comedian. Tanmay, however, has unfortunately been dragged too deep, while many comedians have slipped past the public scrutiny, without any questions asked. Also, the Bollywood fraternity seems to have been most deeply hurt by the video, which was expressed by their many denouncements on Twitter. It is impossible to get our hands on this much support from them at times of real disasters in the country. Hasn’t Tanmay somewhere succeeded in unmasking our shallowness as to where we, as intellectuals, spend our precious opinion and time? Blogikpratik blogs,

“Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin don’t care about the video. Why should we invest our valuable time in it? There should not be any problem on him mimicking Sachin and Lata, many comedians in the past have done it in comedy shows. Even now they do it in Kapil sharma show. But yeah, they don’t abuse. Abusing has offended us, so just don’t watch the video. Don’t ban him. He has done very comical videos before(Except the Roast) which were loved by people, we should not simply ignore that. People are tweeting against Tanmay Bhat because celebrities like Ritesh Deshmukh, Celina Jaitley, etc have also tweeted against him. They are like, if celebrities are saying he is wrong, he MUST be wrong. Come on, you have your own brain, decide for yourself.”

In a free society, the right to speech often comes with the right to get offended as well. When you rant about your entitlement to express things, you also grant an equal freedom to people getting offended, sentiments being hurt and rage flooding out. We cannot completely rule out logic behind such an unbelievable uproar that usually happens only with IPL! But such an outburst was never seen when comedians like Kapil rule our drawing rooms and virtually invade every nook and corner of our lives under comic masks. Sugandha Mishra has been seen mimicking Lata ji and no hullabaloo was seen then. Tarishi Verma walks the parallel road commenting,

“Is this about intolerance of comedy? Hardly. These people are educated enough to understand that this is AIB. Their full name states exactly what they do. Besides, publicity garnered for all involved, it is the selective outrage that is more worrying. It doesn’t seem to hurt these people when Kapil Sharma takes potshots at literally everything and everyone. His comedy is equally crass minus the expletives, but loaded with homophobia, sexism, casteism, racism and any other discriminatory -ism you can think about. Conveniently ignored, he sits at his throne and carries on undeterred. I’m forced to make a comparison here with Joffrey Baratheon Lannister. A mindless fool who continues to reign because of his blind followers. Except that the death of Sharma’s popularity seems hardly a possibility.”

Twitter was full of hate posts aimed at Tanmay, with many famous personalities looking forward to see him behind bars. Javed Akhtar was quoted to have said that Tanmay has the ‘mind of a cockroach’ while Om Puri asked why he is walking free. This gives a clear view of how Bollywood may not deserve the freedom of opinion it seeks. Does Bollywood demand censorship on joking about its idols? Last week’s melodrama has actually put up a big question – Why is it okay to joke about Rahul Gandhi but not about Sachin Tendulkar? Rishikesh Kulkarni gives his take on the brouhaha,

“But, does that shield them from “humour”, or so to say, insults? This is not the first time that comedians have cracked jokes on them and some of the previous instances can be considered equally offensive by those who found the Snapchat video blasphemous. No one is sacred and everyone’s as human as the next person and everyone has their own flaws. Both Mangeshkar and Tendulkar have been associated with their own share of controversies. With the FOE as granted by the Indian constitution, I have the right to insult, offend and mock anyone as long as I am not inciting violence, issuing rape threats, outraging the modesty of a woman or hurting the religious “sentiments” of any particular community. Of course, I might have missed out on a few caveats. I have the right to say things that can be considered immoral by many but saying those things isn’t a criminal act.”

Since every sensation comes with its own lifespan, the Tanmay chapter is also approaching its closure. But what still lurks around is an interesting wringer – Should there be a rulebook that legends cannot be joked about? Can offence be marked by the sentiments of fans and followers or should the fight be between Tanmay and the ones who were defamed? Jai Anant Dehadrai has his opinion on this front-

“Besides, why should anyone decide what is disgusting and disrespectful? If you don’t like something – don’t watch it! Kher’s obnoxious twitter remark that he is a 9-time winner of some obscure ‘comedian’ award supposedly qualifies him to judge what kind of humour is ‘respectful.’Humour is supposed to be irreverent – that’s the point Mr Kher! If Tanmay has truly said something defamatory or libelous, Mrs Mangeshkar and Sachin are free to protect their indubitable honour before the courts. However, bullying someone into silence because your own sense of humour (or severe lack thereof) cannot handle it, is grumpiness at its worse.”

When it comes to what is offensive, who gets to decide the borderline- is it the people behind such content or we who can get offended at anything which is even remotely against our belief system? The Tanmay story definitely puts a lot of question marks on our version of Freedom to Expression. While it is obvious that such a small incident can’t tarnish the achievements of both the legends involved, we need to ask ourselves “Till when will we keep giving undue importance to trivial issues and rush to others’ defence, leaving real issues writhing around unattended by the wayside?”