Tag: Dhruv Rathee

How Legal was IndiGo’s Quick Suspension of Kunal Kamra?

The rulebook stipulates a three-month ban for verbal ‘harassment’. Why, then, was the comedian slapped with a six-month suspension?

New Delhi: On January 28, shortly after stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra’s video of Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami on an aircraft went viral on Twitter, the private airliner – IndiGo – took to the social media platform to announce that it had put Kamra on its no-fly list “for a period of six months” for his “unacceptable behaviour”.

Almost immediately after Indigo’s Twitter statement, in which it tagged the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and minister Hardeep Puri, came another announcement on Twitter by the minister himself. Puri said his ministry had “advise(d)” other airliners too to put him on their no-fly list. Soon, airliners like SpiceJet, Air India and GoAir had taken Puri up on his advice.

The jury is out on whether Puri asked the airliners to act against Kamra for his “offensive behaviour designed to provoke and create disturbance inside an aircraft” or whether he was being targeted for being a known critic of the BJP government at the Centre, going after the head of a TV channel who is pro-government.

Though similar incidents have occurred aboard flights involving opposition leaders like Shashi Tharoor, Tejaswi Yadav and also with former student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, neither the government nor the airliners have taken such a drastic step before. Ironically, Tharoor and Yadav had both been heckled by reporters of Republic TV, footage of which was later broadcast on shows hosted by Goswami himself.

Also read: IndiGo Grounds Kunal Kamra for ‘Slandering’ TV Anchor, 3 Other Airlines Join Ban After Minister’s Diktat

However, the initial question to be asked here is: what were the rules that allowed IndiGo take the decision against Kamra within a matter of hours?

In 2017, MoCA had tailored a set of rules to act against disruptive and unruly behaviour of passengers on board. The decision to revise the existing rules was triggered by the unruly behaviour of former Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad in an Air India flight and former TDP MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy in an IndiGo flight.

Then civil aviation minister P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju had reportedly said, “…the no-fly list in India is unique and first-of-its-kind in the world. It is based on the concern for safety of passengers, crew and the aircraft, and not just on security threat.”

The revised rules defined an unruly passenger as:

“A passenger who fails to respect the rules of conduct at an airport or on board an aircraft or to follow instructions of the airport staff or crew members and thereby disturbs the good order and discipline at an airport or on board the aircraft.”

Essentially, the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revised the existing sections of the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) as per the provisions of the Tokyo Convention of 1963 and mandated that they would be applicable to all domestic and international airliners. Three categories of unruly behaviour by passengers and punishment for such conducts were included in the revised rules.

A Level 1 offence included being unruly verbally, which would attract three months debarment of up to three months. The rules defined the Level 1 offence as “physical gestures, verbal harassment, unruly inebriation, etc.”

A Level 2 offence includes physical unruly behaviour which would attract debarment of up to six months. These offences were defined as “pushing, kicking, hitting, grabbing or inappropriate touching or sexual harassment, etc.”

A Level 3 offence can attract debarment for over two years. The offence reportedly includes life-threatening behaviour. “Damage to aircraft operating systems, physical violence such as choking, eye gouging, murderous assault, attempted or actual breach of the flight crew compartment, etc.” were defined as offences under this category.

As per CAR rules, the pilot in command of the aircraft would have to file the complaint against the passenger. If the pilot felt that the offence was serious, she or he could relate it to the ground control room of the airliner and seek to land at the nearest aerodrome. On landing, an FIR can be filed and the person handed over to the police.

For minor unruly behaviour too, the pilot would have to first lodge the complaint with an internal committee, which is to be set up by every airliner (under the revised rules) to deal with such issues. The committee is to be headed by a retired district and sessions judge with representatives from a different airline, members of the consumer dispute redressal forum or passengers’ forum or a consumer association. Within a month’s period, the committee must reach a decision, and impose the duration of the no fly period of the passenger in that airline.


The airliner must then communicate the decision to the passenger who would then get a period of 60 days to challenge the committee’s decision to an appellate committee set up by MoCA. The MoCA committee should have a retired high court judge as the chairman aside from members from consumer dispute redressal forum, passengers’ forum, etc.

For any repeated offence, the duration of debarment of a passenger would double. The airliner has to share its no fly list with the DGCA which, in turn, has to put it up on its website. However, there won’t be pressure on other carriers to also put the passenger on their no fly list.

Since IndiGo’s decision on Kamra came within hours, the relevant questions to be asked to the airliner are also these:

  • Does IndiGo have an internal committee to look into such grievances? If yes, did it meet before the airline reached that decision? Did Indigo communicate it to other airliners as per the revised rules, aside from tagging the Ministry? It is clear from the minister’s tweet that the other airlines had to follow the Ministry’s instructions, though as per the revised rules, they are not bound to put a passenger on its no-fly list even after the information is shared by the concerned airline.
  • The CAR rules say verbal unruly behaviour may attract debarment of a passenger for a period up to three months. The punishment up to six months is only for physical unruly behaviour. So why Kamra slapped with a six-month suspension, even if he didn’t do any “pushing, kicking, hitting, grabbing or inappropriate touching or sexual harassment, etc.”?

A further question that needs an answer is:

  • Though the CAR rules were revised in 2017 to specifically handle unruly and disruptive behaviour of passengers aboard a flight, were they not taken fully into cognisance while taking the decision against Kamra?As per section 23 (i) of the Aircraft Rule, 1937, “no person shall on board an aircraft assault, intimidate or threaten, whether physically or verbally, any person” which “is likely to endanger the safety of the aircraft or of any person or jeopardises the good order and discipline on board the aircraft.”However, it didn’t seem enough to stop unruly behaviour, the reason why the revised CAR rules were issued in 2017 under the provisions of Rules 22, 23 and 29 of the Aircraft Rules 1937.

While it is not yet clear under which rules IndiGo debarred Kamra, it seems from the minister’s instruction that the British-era Aircraft Act, 1934, might have been invoked to make the ban applicable to rest of the airlines too. The Act, which handles air operations in the country, allows the DGCA to issue directions from time to time to the airliners under various conditions.

The Wire has sent the same set of questions above to IndiGo, for answers. The report will be updated if and when the replies are received.

Update: The Wire also wrote to the DGCA Group Captain Pankaj Pant, who heads the media cell, on his official email. The questions posed to him were: Did Indigo violate the revised CAR rules while taking a decision to put Kunal Kamra on its no fly list? As per the rules, it is to set up an internal committee. Could it do so in such a short period of time? Also, is six months debarment of the passenger not a violation of the rules for level 1 offence?

The DGCA was also asked if it or the MoCA can pass such an instruction to the airlines under the Aircraft Act 1934.

The DGCA is yet to respond to the queries. However, in an official note, it states that Indigo will now have to form an internal committee to take a decision on the matter. It essentially confirms that the airliner’s decision was not taken by an internal committee. The statement, however, is quiet about which rules the airliner used to announce a six month debarment for the comedian.

Indigo Grounds Kunal Kamra for ‘Slandering’ TV Anchor, 3 Other Airlines Join Ban After Minister’s Diktat

Civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri has asked other airlines to ban the comedian for six months as well after he posted a video of himself berating Arnab Goswami during a flight.

New Delhi: IndiGo on Tuesday announced that it was suspending comedian Kunal Kumra from flying on the airlines for six months.

The airline also advised passengers to avoid “personal slander” of other passengers.


The announcement came in the aftermath of Kamra sharing a video where he is seen having a one-sided conversation with journalist Arnab Goswami on a flight.

In the video, Kamra remains unseen and his voice is heard berating Goswami for his stance on various political issues. Among other things, he calls him a “coward” and mimics Goswami’s style of speaking in the video.


Although Goswami does not react or acknowledge him in the course of the video, Kamra uploaded a statement on Twitter which says he called the comedian “mentally unstable.”

In the statement, Kamra also said he delivered the monologue at Goswami when the seat belt signs were off and that when it came to inconveniencing fellow passengers, he apologises to “every passengers except one.”

His statement and the video’s caption mentions Rohith Vemula, the Dalit Hyderabad University scholar who took his own life in 2016, triggering a nationwide protest movement against the Modi government.

Kamra has tweeted several times on the issue. Reacting to the IndiGo ban, he wrote that a six-month suspension was “very kind” and sought to bring up the fate of Air India.

Tharoor says Arnab’s reporters did same to him on two flights

While Kamra has been criticised by both supporters of the Republic TV anchor as well as detractors, and drawn praise from the latter, the comedian’s action drew public praise from the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who tweeted that Goswami’s reporters had twice accosted him during flights:

Minister wants total flight ban on Kamra

Union minister for civil aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri, whom IndiGo had tagged in its tweets with the announcement has asked other airlines to impose similar restrictions on Kamra.

The minister’s swift intervention led some to question why the government had overlooked earlier instances of disruptions, on flight or off. The commentator Dhruv Rathee posted a video clip of a Times Now journalist getting up from her seat on a flight and going up to where RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav was seated in order to extract an “exclusive” interview.

Journalist Swati Chaturvedi raised the issue of BJP MP Pragya Thakur refusing to cooperate with in-fight crew on a matter of flight safety, leading to a delay in departure and ager among her co-passengers.

Some airlines, though, complied with Puri’s demand. Air India said Kamra will be not be allowed to use the airlines indefinitely.

SpiceJet and GoAir too have followed suit, barring Kamra from flying “till further notice”.

Vistara has said it will review the demand and follow due process.

Kamra reacts

Reacting to four airlines banning him, the stand-up comedian on Wednesday said he was never “unruly or disruptive”.

He also said the flying suspension was not “shocking” for him.

Shortly after SpiceJet suspended him from flying with the airline, the comedian posted a sarcastic tweet: “Modi ji, can I walk, or is there a ban even on that?”

In a statement issued on Twitter, Kamra said at no point did he not follow the orders of the cabin crew in the (Mumbai-Lucknow) flight.

“It’s not shocking at all to me that for exercising my right to speech, which falls under Article 19 of our constitution, 3 airlines have given me a temporary ban from flying. Fact of the matter is that at no point was I disruptive and at no point did I not follow the orders of the cabin crew or the captain,” he tweeted.

“At no point did I endanger the safety of any passenger on board, the only damage I caused was to the inflated ego to the ‘journalist’ Arnab Goswami,” he stated.

Kamra said he had not travelled with SpiceJet or Air India in this event and there is no “pattern of him being unruly”.

“This was the first time something like this has happened, so why have they jumped the gun and banned me? I’ve travelled SpiceJet and Air India in the past. There have been no complaints against me ever, only selfies and love has been shared by the crew,” he tweeted.

Kamra has also asked Vistara to suspend him in a fell swoop. The airline is the only one which has not banned him yet and has said it will resort to ‘due process’.

(With PTI inputs)

Proceedings in Defamation Case Against Kejriwal Stayed

A criminal complaint was registered against Kejriwal for re-tweeting an allegedly defamatory video in May 2018.

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Tuesday stayed proceedings in a criminal defamation case against chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for re-tweeting an allegedly defamatory video by YouTuber Dhruv Rathee in May 2018.

Justice Suresh Kait issued a notice to the state and the complainant Vikas Sankrityayan.

Kejriwal had approached the high court seeking quashing of summons issued to him as an accused in the case and challenged two orders of a trial court which had refused to quash the summons against him.

Also read: How Real Are AAP’s Chances in the Delhi Assembly Elections?

A magistrate court summoned Kejriwal to appear before it on Aug 7, after a criminal complaint by the founder of social media page, ‘I Support Narendra Modi’, alleged the AAP leader had re-tweeted the defamatory video.

The chief minister challenged the magistrate’s order before a sessions court, which dismissed his plea.

He then challenged the sessions court order in the high court, saying the trial court failed to appreciate that his tweet was not intended or likely to harm the complainant.

Policing or Protection: Parents Ponder as SC Refuses to Stay Delhi Govt’s School CCTV Project

The petition, by National Law University student Amber Tickoo stated that the move would violate students’ fundamental right to privacy.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea to stop the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Delhi government school classrooms and the live streaming of footage to parents.

The petition, by National Law University student Amber Tickoo stated that the move would violate students’ fundamental right to privacy and jeopardise the safety and security of the very children it seeks to protect. It also cautioned that streaming footage of girl students and female teachers could lead to “stalking and voyeurism.”

The petition also claimed that the scheme lacked adequate safety measures for stored recording and warned that unless the data was secure, it would be prone to hacking. The plea, therefore, sought a stay on the September 11, 2017, decision of the Delhi government in the matter. However, a bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Aniruddha Bose refused the stay.

Concerns raised earlier too

Concerns regarding the move were being raised from the time when it was first announced. In January, 2018, when Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was reviewing the progress of the project, several academics and lawyers had questioned it as well.

Talking to The Wire, Meeta Rai, who has been a school administrator for more than 40 years, noted that cameras should ideally only be restricted to the corridors and common areas and not cover the classrooms. “They will burden the teachers. Constant monitoring can turn them into nervous wrecks,” she had said.

If cameras must be installed in classes, then they should be done in a way that allows only the faces of the children to be captured, as “that is enough to convey how the classes are being conducted,” Rai had held.

A lawyer, Apar, had warned that live streaming from classes would result in “policing of children” and impact their “moral choices and behaviour” as well. “It will condition children into becoming fearful clients not full individuals,” he had said.

The concern over constant surveillance was something YouTuber Dhruv Rathee commented upon as well. Back when the move was announced, he had called it a “dystopian nightmare”, adding, “Constant fear in children will hamper their development.”

Move could stop crimes, says govt

While announcing the measure, the Delhi government spoke about how it was necessitated by the rising incidents of crimes against children in school. It cited the murder of a seven-year-old student by a 16-year-old at Ryan International School in neighbouring Gurugram in Haryana, and the sexual assault on a four-year-old girl in a Dwarka school.

Also read: Ryan International School Case Highlights All the Things Schools Aren’t Doing

The government also said that the new system would “ensure safety of kids” and make the system transparent.

Despite concerns around the move, the Delhi government went ahead with it. Last year, a pilot project was carried out in five schools in north Delhi. During the pilot, the footage was, however, not live streamed to parents.

Then too, teachers had expressed misgivings, says Akshay Marathe, a member of the Delhi government’s Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC) task force on school education. “They were concerned about the cameras in the classes, but adjusted to them soon and their fears were allayed,” he tells The Wire.

Representational image of students in a school. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Launching the CCTV project on July 6, at Shaheed Hemu Kalani Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya in Lajpat Nagar, Kejriwal assured that there would be no privacy breach. “Children go to school for education, to learn discipline and become good citizens of the country… they do not go there for anything private,” he added.

1.2 lakh cameras to be installed 

The project, it was announced, would cover 200 schools by the end of July end and all the 1,041 Delhi government schools by November this year. At a cost of Rs 600 crore, as many as 1.2 lakh cameras will be installed across schools – two in every classroom.

Parents can receive live feed from CCTV cameras in their wards’ classes through the ‘DGS Live’ app, which can be downloaded from Google Play Store. On downloading the app, they will receive an SMS from the government control room and then upon verification, they will be able to access the feed.

Between safety and artificial behaviour

Following the inauguration of the project, parents of children studying in the Lajpat Nagar school where Kejriwal unveiled the project, lauded the move. One of them said they felt relieved that their child would be safe, thanks to the fact that they could watch the feed whenever they wanted to, on the phone. Another spoke of how the move would prevent injuries in class fights.

Also read: Kejriwal’s Move to Install CCTV in Classrooms Raises Concerns About Impact of Surveillance

Some, of course, expressed concern. Santram, an office-bearer of the Delhi Government School Teachers Association, wondered if the installation of cameras would make students and teachers “behave artificially”.

A member of the Delhi Parents Association, Harish Mehra, was apprehensive of what would happen if parents were tricked by others to share the password for the feed.

‘Opportunity to excel’

Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia has called these issues “hypothetical” and said no one would see anything but “40 kids studying” on the live feed.

DDC member Marathe, who is also an AAP spokesperson, has written that there are many benefits of parents being able to access their kids’ CCTV feed. He said it would help curb “bullying, corporal punishment, inadequate attention spans, teacher absenteeism and even student truancy.”

Marathe said this in response to sociologist Sanjay Srivastava, who in a column in a national daily asked if the installation of CCTVs in classrooms amounted to “pervasive surveillance”.

Marathe also tells The Wire that children and teachers who were consulted about the project before its launch did not express any discomfort. “As far as the issue of the scheme impacting the relationship of boy and girl students is concerned, there is not much at stake as only 5% of the schools are co-educational,” he says.

In fact, he says, the project empowers parents as it ensures that their children get good education in a secure environment. “Moreover, we should not forget that most students coming to government schools are not from very rich backgrounds. They do not have parents with very deep pockets to support them if they do not do well educationally. So this project provides them with an opportunity to avail themselves of the best services and excel,” he adds.

Why Education Should Not Be a Barrier for Contesting Elections

If you erect entry barriers to contesting, you are effectively curtailing the right to vote, by pre-emptively selecting the pool of people from whom the voters can decide.

After YouTuber Dhruv Rathee took to Twitter to slam the Rajasthan government’s decision to scrap the minimum education criteria for civic poll candidates, Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia wrote a thread to break down why the move is actually in the spirit of democracy. 

A thread on why this view is not correct:

There is no evidence to demonstrate that people with a formal education can do a better job as elected representatives than those without. In fact, anecdotal evidence at the time the law was passed suggested the contrary.

See, for instance, Radha Devi. There were many such examples – especially – of women panchayat leaders who drew upon their own experiences of deprivation and lack of opportunity, to ensure that that did not continue.

That, alone, is a good enough reason for why this law was wrong. Formal education has no necessary connection with the qualities required for good and competent political and administrative leadership.

But actually, this framing is itself suspect.

It is suspect because we live in a democracy, and at the heart of our democracy is the concept of representation: voters decide who will best represent their interests, and elect them to legislative bodies accordingly.

Also read: New Rajasthan Cabinet Scraps Education Criteria for Civic Poll Candidates

Therefore, when you say that formally uneducated should be barred from contesting elections, what you are effectively saying is that you don’t trust the voters to decide who will best represent their interests. This is arrogant and presumptuous.

Now you may argue that there is a distinction between the right to vote and the right to stand for election, and that nobody is taking away the right to vote. But they are two sides of the same coin. If you erect entry barriers to contesting, you are effectively curtailing the right to vote, by pre-emptively selecting the pool of people from whom the voters can decide. It is, effectively, a restriction on voting, just that it’s done indirectly.

Third reason: such laws are discriminatory. They discriminate on lines of gender and caste, because those who have been deprived of access/opportunities to education, are inevitably the most vulnerable members of society. This is documented.

So, the Haryana law disenfranchised 68% of Dalit women and 50% of all women from contesting. It’s not these peoples’ fault that they were unable to get a formal education. Deprivation is function of social discrimination, not individual character flaws.

For these three reasons – that it has no tangible effect on the quality of decision-making, that it is counter to the fundamental logic of democracy, and that it is discriminatory – this law was bad.

Now, to some objections.

Objection A: Will you also get rid of age-based restrictions?

Answer: No, because the logic of an age restriction is entirely different. We agree that participation in democratic politics requires a degree of *mental maturity* that is a function of age.

And, more importantly, everybody reaches that age. I address this in a more detailed fashion here.

Objection B: What about convicted criminals?

Answer: Again, the logic is different. Somebody who has broken the law and *is undergoing his sentence* is in the process of paying back a debt to society. It is a legitimate argument to say that the integrity of the electoral process requires them to be kept out while they serve their sentence. After they have finished serving their sentence, and have technically rejoined society on equal terms, I see no reason why they should continue to be kept out.

Objection C: How will they perform tasks that require a formal education, such as, for e.g., signing documents?

Answer: The Panchayati Raj Acts have detailed provisions for providing legislative and technical assistance to people who are elected.

Final point: remember, there is a long history of denying, curtailing and interfering with the democratic process because the people in power believe that other people are incapable of using the vote in a “fitting manner”. This was the logic of the British regime that imposed property qualifications on the vote, tried to impose a “wifehood” qualification, and all kinds of restrictions. For a magisterial treatment of this phenomenon, see Alexander Keyssar’s book, The History of the Right to Vote.

Also read: From Restoring Right to Contest, to Education, Rajasthan Congress Reverses BJP Decisions

When our constitution was being framed, some of the members of the Assembly wanted to restrict the franchise, because they feared giving it to a vast number of “illiterate Indians”. Fortunately, they were overruled, and a great leap of faith was taken.

This leap of faith was to transform India into a full-blooded democracy, and not a hollow shell of a democracy. This means that, at the end of the day, to respect the autonomy and decision-making capacity of the voter.

I think that covers all aspects. For those interested, each of these arguments are developed in a much more detailed fashion on the Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, from back in 2015.

This article is a compilation of tweets published by Gautam Bhatia, a Delhi-based lawyer. They have been reproduced here with permission.

The Year Indian Comedians Took Politics Seriously

For comedians, 2017 has been a breakthrough year, when they didn’t shy away from taking down the rich, the famous and the powerful.

For comedians, 2017 has been a breakthrough year, when they didn’t shy away from taking down the rich, the famous and the powerful.

Left: Shyam Rangeela; Right: East India Comedy’s ‘The Modi Song’. Credit: The Wire/YouTube

As we bid farewell to 2017, The Wire looks back at some of the markers of disruption that affected different spheres, from politics and economics to technology and films.

In October this year, a young comedian, competing in a television show on Star Plus, was told that his act imitating Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be dropped. It had already been recorded and the video, which started doing the rounds on social media, showed that the judges were quite amused. But the segment was never aired, and nor was another, where he mimicked Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Shyam Rangeela was not fazed. He spoke about it to whoever asked, and in a video interview with The Wire, promptly did the same bit. Quite a change from even a year earlier, when it was a brave comedian who attempted Narendra Modi jokes.

“Stand up comics still hesitate to crack too many jokes about Modi, though it is much better than last year, when they were a strict no-no. It was too much of a risk to take,” a noted stand-up comic told me, but then promptly requested his name not be used. Attacking Rahul Gandhi, riffing on community stereotypes and geographical quirks is fine – Modi jokes are largely verboten, though some tentative steps are being taken.

It is another story online. The internet is awash with jokes by well known groups and obscure comedians who are going after the government’s policies with the glee of kids being allowed candy. Some are crude, others amateurish, but a few surprisingly smart and sophisticated. Many independent voices have emerged, such as Humans of Hindutva, who, on his Facebook page, makes trenchant fun of hardcore Hindutva-types – “bhakts”, often by writing in their voice. YouTuber Dhruv Rathee simply talks to the camera with a straight face, offering funny takes on the latest news, such as linking the game Kaun Banega Crorepati with the ‘prize money’ offered to harm the stars of Padmavati.

Then there are the groups. One such, which does some sharp satire is Aisi Taisi Democracy, a combo formed by Varun Grover, Sanjay Rajoura and the singer of the band Indian Ocean, Rahul Ram. With their po-faced sincerity, the three have not just become popular on stages all over the country, but have scored big hits with some of their songs.

Their latest, released recently, is the ‘History Song’, where Rajoura and Ram – Grover is a phantom presence represented by a handkerchief on a chair – talk about the brazen attempts to change established Indian history. It is a peppy number, but nowhere as catchy as their earlier ‘Ode to Demonetisation’, released in January 2016, which was based on a popular 1960s song. The song talks of how the poor were badly hurt by the government’s sudden decision to demonetise 86% of the country’s currency.

Demonetisation was a turning point, as is acknowledged by East India Comedy, a group of young comedians whose ‘The Modi Song’ cuts deep with its references to Amit Shah, Ambani and ‘Achche Din’. The language is sophomoric, with the occasion expletive, but it goes down well with the audience which roars its approval.

Demonetisation has featured in a large numbers of videos on YouTube, in English, Hindi, Tamil and many other languages. This year, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) found its way into a Tamil film, angering the BJP, which wanted the references edited out. Many female comedians have effectively used social media to poke fun at the government, though most videos by the likes of Aditi Mittal, Radhika Vaz and Mallika Dua (at least the ones available online) steered clear of political subjects.

In the US, which has a long tradition of political comedy, Donald Trump has come as a boon to late-night talk shows. Often the takes of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert and others hit home more sharply than the erudite editorials in the morning papers and the mainstream media.

In India, that trend has been slow in catching on, but comedians are latching on to the comic potential of taking on the government and the country’s popular prime minister, who is otherwise beyond limits in the media. In a country where the big mainstream media outlets, the respectable newspapers and the raucous channels tend to lean backwards to please the government, the comedians are emerging as a genuine and earthy oppositional voice. They not just speak truth to power, but also allow people to poke fun and ridicule at pompous egos.

Stand up comedy shows are limited in their reach, but the internet has opened up new vistas for not just established brands but newcomers who can assemble an act and put it out for the world to see and enjoy.

One such effort is by The Banned, a new outfit composed of a few activists who have been regularly releasing songs that make fun of the establishment. ‘Baar Baar Phenko’, another song inspired by demonetisation, is based on a popular 1950s number and is cleverly shot outdoors, with ordinary citizens participating. Their new one is ‘Oh Behre’ (O deaf one) and another, on Aadhaar, is in the offing. The videos are made with their own funds, but it is important, says a representative of the group, to get their point across.

For comedians, 2017 has been a breakthrough year and given their popularity, more budding comics – local and national, amateur and professional, mundane and clever – are bound to emerge. The large fan followings of most of these comedians showed that the audience too is in the mood for take downs of the rich, the famous and the powerful, whatever their affiliation. In an environment where dissent is viewed with suspicion and sentiments get hurt quickly, no-holds barred comedy – some subjects, like religion are still out of bounds – is a much needed safety valve to release pent up pressure.