Skip to main content

Laughter dies in a country of jokers


Last year India arrested a stand-up comic for a joke that he didn’t tell. The Time reported that Munawar Iqbal Faruqui was all set to enter the best year of his life hitherto with subscription to his YouTube channel crossing 500,000. On the evening of the New Year’s day in 2021, a group of nationalists put an end to Faruqui’s jokes. Soon he was arrested by the police for a joke that he didn’t crack. They said he would crack jokes that might hurt Hindu sentiments!

Faruqui is not the only comic who has been arrested in Modi’s India. From Vir Das to Tanmay Bhatt, quite a few comedians have landed in trouble for the crime of possessing a sense of humour. Laughter is banished from nationalist India.

The latest is a letter written by a Press Information Bureau official to the editor of the Deccan Herald for the newspaper’s subtle sense of humour. The following image speaks for itself. 


The loss of laughter is the biggest calamity that can befall a nation, I think. There are too many jokes and jokers in the country now right from the top places to the village streets. The problem is that all these jokers take themselves seriously. They think they are philosophical giants or saintly ascetics. They have appointed themselves as the custodians of the nation’s morality and culture. So we are not supposed to laugh at their jokes. On the contrary, we are expected to take them seriously. Even an occasional comic relief like what the Deccan Herald provides is being snatched from us. [Here is a collection of a few jokes – just a sample.]

Genuine and innocent laughter is killed. Now our jokes are distorted opinions and standpoints foisted upon us by people in high positions. Those jokes are murders without bloodshed. Or sheer manipulations.  

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 412: Our jokes are often our disguised stands or mysterious confessions or murders without bloodshed... Or sheer manipulations. #OurJokes

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanMay 21, 2022 at 1:43 PM

    Hari OM
    The DH rsponded very well to the letter - but it is indeed sad that political correctness (and correcting) is reaching into the one area of speech where we can all let off steam... as an aside and matter of interest, in posting a video to YTube earlier this week, I was given a notice that "if the video contained any matters of news or current affairs, an approval would be required from..." and I can't quite recall the exact wording now, but it was an office of media affairs or similar in INDIA! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 21, 2022 at 2:42 PM

      India seems to be on the highway to dictatorship.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMay 29, 2022 at 6:43 PM

    Its just because of people like you , so called urban naxalites/librandu/communists, country suffers. Never highlights what country suffers from anti nationals like Munaver Faruqqui. Which world you are living in, boss? How can you allow people cracking jokes on your gods, can you crack jokes on Allah or Quran? You know what happens. We have been more tolerant and that is the advantage these Islamists have taken. Hindu Rashtra is the need of the hour, if we at all wish to see India a strong nation, economically, militarily, etc.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...
9 comments
Read more

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...
8 comments
Read more

The RSS and Paradoxes

The oldest racist organisation in the world is all set to celebrate the centenary of its existence. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 with the specific goal of unifying the Hindus in India under a religious and cultural banner. The Indian Independence struggle that was going on in full force at that time was no concern of the RSS. Though it gave the liberty to its individual members to take part in the struggle, the organisation’s official policy was to stay clear of it altogether. That was only one of the many paradoxical ironies that marked the RSS which was a nationalist organisation that cared little for the Independence of the nation. Today, the Prime Minister of India is a man who was trained and nurtured by the RSS. Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book on the paradoxes that underscore the personality of Mr Narendra Modi. The RSS and paradoxes go hand in hand, if we take Modi as a specimen of the organisation’s great achievements. Tharoor’s final asses...
8 comments
Read more