29 Jul 2025 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
On the eve of 23 March 2025, hours after stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra released a video titled Naya Bharat (New India), dozens of members of a right-wing ruling party of Maharashtra barged in and vandalised the Habitat comedy club where the show was performed.
The workers, who represented a faction of Shiv Sena, a right-wing Marathi regional political party in India, alleged that the comedian made fun of their party leader and the deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde.
Kamra, in his show, sang a song referencing the word gaddar or traitor. The song did not name anyone directly, but its lyrics referenced Shinde’s separation from his party in 2022 and allying with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Shiv Sena spokesperson Krishna Hegde urged Mumbai police to arrest Kamra, lock him up behind bars, and open a case against him as his jokes insulted the people of Maharashtra.
After the event, a First Information Report (which initiates a potential criminal case) was filed against Kamra. He was later granted bail. The police also arrested a number of Shiv Sena party members who were also granted bail by a Mumbai court.
The attack on Kamra is just the latest instance of comedians in India being targeted and penalised simply for telling jokes and using satire. More broadly, it reflects an ongoing assault on freedom of speech, especially when it challenges the moral framework upheld by dominant political groups.
Responding to the threats against him, Kamra issued a statement saying, “Attacking a venue for a comedian’s words is as senseless as overturning a lorry carrying tomatoes, because you didn’t like the butter chicken you were served.”
He added, “I don’t fear this mob & I will not be hiding hide under my bed, waiting for this to die down.”
The incident at the popular Habitat club comes amid a spate of attacks against comedians in India. All highlight that while their humour may push boundaries or tackle bold themes for their audience, there’s only so much room for expression in a space where jokes are heavily scrutinised and the repercussions for comedians are severe.
Radhika Vaz, a stand-up comedian, highlights that freedom of expression can’t have any limits and there is an urgent need to protect it.
“We are at the lowest ebb. Comedians do not hold the same power that a politician does in terms of being able to influence police and judicial movement. It is not a fair fight. This is truly a David and Goliath situation, and the Goliaths should all be ashamed,” she said.
Vaz points out that censorship is not new to India. Writers, filmmakers, artists, and journalists have long been muffled, she says, but what has changed is the public complicity. “We, the public, should be held responsible because we only care when it is our team that is being censored. Freedom of expression can’t have any limits, and it certainly can’t be convenient.”
Growing censorship
What happened with Kamra is not just an isolated incident in the Indian stand-up comedy scene. Just a few weeks back, Samay Raina, who hosted a show titled India’s Got Latent, which featured a different set of judges in every episode, also faced severe backlash. The show has a huge audience in India and is infamous for its risqué humour.
The joke, made by one of the judges and India’s famous podcaster Ranveer Allahabadia, otherwise known as BeerBiceps, led to filing of multiple police reports against him and other show judges, a visit by Mumbai police to Allahabadia’s house, and also the removal of the video from YouTube based on a request by a member of India’s National Human Rights Commission.
Back in 2021, comedians Kunal Kamra and Munawar Faruqui were forced to cancel several shows across different cities after right-wing groups threatened violence and state authorities declined to provide security. That same year, Vir Das faced political backlash for his satirical poem Two Indias, performed during a show in the USA, which critics accused of tarnishing India’s reputation abroad.
Earlier in 2021, Munawar Faruqui was arrested in Indore before even performing, accused of making offensive jokes about Hindu Gods.
In 2020, Agrima Joshua became the target of death and rape threats after a stand-up video surfaced where she was alleged to have mocked the revered 17th century ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji. In reality, Joshua’s jokes had critiqued exaggerated claims about a planned Shivaji statue on Quora, not the historical figure himself, though she was well within her rights in either case.
Going back further, in 2016, Tanmay Bhat from Mumbai-based comedy collective All India Bakchod (AIB) drew criticism after a Snapchat spoof involving Indian legends Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar, which offended some sections of the public. The previous year, AIB had faced a barrage of FIRs for a roast event, where the use of profanity was labelled a threat to Indian cultural values.
Manjeet Sarkar, a stand-up comedian, says he never feels safe on stage when he performs political or critical material.
“It’s not about Kunal Kumra, it was always there. Journalists are doing the story now because the Kunal Kamra situation is happening. For comedians like me, who aren’t in the same position as Kunal Kamra, we have felt this for a long time,” he said.
He added that stand-up comedy as an art form talks about the current realities of the country.
“If a particular democracy is doing well, the jokes would reflect that. If not, they’ll reflect what it is. Comedians don’t do it because they want to be activists; it is because they are being true to the art,” he said.
A shrinking space for dissent
The situation for comedians mirrors the broader erosion of democratic space in India. According to a recent paper published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies by Abdul Fahad and Siti Mustafa, stand-up comedy has increasingly stepped into the role that traditional mainstream media once occupied: challenging the government, critiquing societal norms, and raising uncomfortable questions.
In a media landscape where many outlets now function as “government public relations” rather than independent watchdogs, comedians like Kunal Kamra, Vir Das, and Varun Grover have become some of the few remaining critical voices. The paper notes that these comedians “use humour to address sensitive topics, empowering audiences to engage with critical political issues,” making comedy a powerful tool for free expression beyond the reach of traditional media censorship.
But this visibility comes at a cost. As Fahad and Mustafa document, comedians in India today face serious risks: legal harassment, threats of violence, show cancellations, and loss of income.
Threats and economic retaliation are not just random acts; they are often orchestrated. Government supporters and political loyalists regularly organise social media campaigns to discredit and intimidate comedians. Sarkar highlights how platforms, too, play a role in censorship: “Social media platforms shadow-ban people like me. If they put people in jail, it’ll be hard to reach audiences, right?”
Meanwhile, the government is using incidents like Kamra’s to justify further tightening of digital spaces under the guise of “protection”. The new Digital Personal Data Protection law, critics argue, could make online dissent even riskier by giving authorities broader powers to monitor and restrict speech.
The broader message is clear: artists who mock, critique, or even simply question dominant narratives do so at their own peril.
Hope, resistance, and an uncertain future
Despite the risks, comedians are not giving up. They continue to find ways to speak, sometimes more subtly, sometimes more defiantly, pushing back against an environment that increasingly demands silence.
“I guess I look at countries with better standards and hope that by chipping away we can one day walk amongst them,” Vaz said, adding with a wry laugh, “maybe in 100 years.”
For Sarkar, change must come from those with privilege. “The most privileged in our society should push back, because they can afford to,” he said. “Until there is a shift in their awareness, it’s going to keep going in this direction. It will eventually impact them too – and that’ll be the funniest moment.”
The research by Fahad and Mustafa also underlines this need for solidarity. They suggest that alliances among comedians, other artists, and civil society can create pockets of resistance that protect free expression. Comedy, after all, thrives on community, and its survival may depend on collective defence against growing censorship.
In the meantime, the stakes for telling a joke in India have never been higher. What was once considered harmless or even patriotic satire is now treated as sedition in all but name. “We cannot attack or accost any journalist for what they’ve said,” Vaz warned. “We cannot attack or accost a comedian for a joke they made. Both deserve to be protected by the law of the country.”
As India’s democracy becomes increasing authoritarianism, comedians find themselves unlikely warriors for free speech. Armed only with a mic and a sharp sense of humour, they continue to stand on stage and say the things others dare not, even as the space to laugh – and to dissent – keeps shrinking.
The Winter 2023 issue of Index on Censorship, Having the last laugh, looked at how comedy is being censored around the world. Explore the issue now.
11 Jan 2024 | Asia and Pacific, Malaysia, News and features, Volume 52.04 Winter 2023
If Rizal van Geyzel’s life has felt like a comedic farce recently, it’s best physically exemplified by the black paint that was splattered not across the door of his comedy club, but of the bank next door.
“They vandalised the wrong door! The bank’s CCTV picked it up. If you are going to throw paint over a door, at least pick the right one,” he laughs.
Van Geyzel is a Malaysian comedian who was the co-owner of the now closed Crackhouse Comedy Club in Kuala Lumpur, the site of the intended paint job. Days before the protest in July 2022, old clips of his stand-up were uploaded onto social media, a move which landed him in court, changed his life and inspired his recent show, Arrested.
“There were three videos overall. In one, I made a joke that despite having a Chinese father, I am what you would call a “privileged Malaysian”, those with government benefits usually entitled to people born to Malay heritage, which I also am.”
These videos were then investigated by police, and van Geyzel was arrested on suspicion of sedition. Spending the night in a jail, he quickly found himself hauled into Kuala Lumpur’s Cyber Crime Court, where sedition was replaced with charges under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. The act criminalises “improper use of network facilities or network services” and can result in a maximum fine of 50,000 Malaysian ringgits ($10,000) or imprisonment, or both. He plead not guilty to all charges and was allowed bail set at 12,000 ringgits ($2,500) with one surety.
“It was such a hassle. It was hard because comedy is my sole income. I’m a single father, and my father was clinically ill,” van Geyzel said. His passport was taken by the court, which he had to request if he had shows in other countries.
After a court mix up, further indicative of the farce-like element of his experience, he was also banned from social media for three months. “The judge said I just couldn’t post anything about the ongoing case, but the official court documents stated I couldn’t post on social media period. It took three months to resolve,” he said.
Looking for positives though, van Geyzel laughs about the ban: “I have to say, not going online then was a peaceful time in my life!”
Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 has its critics, who believe it’s being used to target writers, performers and the public in general for expressing their views on social media and in the press. Making it an offence to create ‘offensive’ material that could make its way online and ‘annoy’ viewers means the act is too open to interpretation, according to the Malaysian writer, poet, and former President of PEN Malaysia, Bernice Chauly.
She said: “It is so broad that any Malaysian can make a police report because they are ‘annoyed’, regardless of whether they are the intended recipient. There is no legal definition of what ‘annoyed’ means.
“It is very disturbing that this provision is being used to silence dissenting voices in a punitive manner…and to target writers and others whose views are critical of those in power.”
Van Geyzel doesn’t speak about the act directly, but believes it’s had a negative effect on the comedy circuit in the country. While he feels comedians in Malaysia are comfortable making jokes about themes such as religious and race issues within the confines of a comedy club, the problem is when people start to record on mobile phones.
“The only paranoia or danger we should feel is what is put online,” he said. “People like to record and post on social media during a show, and this is where it gets dangerous because you don’t know which part they are recording. Fellow comedians will ask what we think about each other’s routines, because things can so easily be taken out of context.”
In July 2023, van Geyzel pleaded guilty to one charge of Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, for the “privileged Malaysian” joke, and was fined 8,000 ringgits ($1,700). As a result, he faced no conviction record and no further court proceedings.
Why did he plead guilty if he thinks he did nothing wrong?
“I had to view it as a very expensive parking ticket as I couldn’t deal with the court proceedings anymore, and I faced no criminal record. I also wanted my passport to be free!”
Van Geyzel took the positives from his experience and decided to tell his story in a new stand-up show. Arrested is performed around Malaysia, and in August ran at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he enjoyed anonymity as a performer, unlike at home.
“In Edinburgh people had no idea of the situation, so I could easily talk about my comedy club being shut down, vandalised, how I was investigated for sedition, then picked up by the coppers, put in lockup for a night and had charges in court, all for jokes that appeared online.
“But then I also talked about how my government perceives stand-up comedy to be a dysfunctional Western import, you know, like democracy, and how easy it is for comedy and freedom of speech to come under attack. It does sound very heavy, but it is a fun show. “Come see how I got arrested for comedy!””
Van Geyzel’s case was so prominent in comedic circles that other comedians under fire for jokes contacted him for advice such as Jocelyn Chia, a Singaporean American comedian. She was heavily criticised online after a video went viral featuring a joke about Singaporean and Malaysian relations, as well as the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. What did van Geyzel say to Chia?
“She asked if she should apologise. Despite what happened to me I said don’t, wait it out, in a few days people will move on to the next thing. Though I have a friend who ‘liked’ the video Chia was in, and he then got heavily abused online.
“When it comes to stand-up you should be able to joke about whatever you want, it’s proper freedom of speech. Unfortunately, though, once it’s online it’s out of your hands.”
For more articles about comedy and comedians under attack, read our new issue Having the last laugh here
2 Oct 2023 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
The war grinds on, the cemeteries grow bigger by the day and comedy as a critical engine of power has ceased to exist in Russia. Not so in Ukraine where Vladimir Putin’s 71st birthday will be celebrated – that isn’t the right word – on 7 October by the second VPDFO festival. The letters stand for Vladimir Putin Do Fuck Off, a phrase that Index readers won’t tremble to read but the digi-lords at Meta/Facebook don’t favour. In Cult Motive, an old grain warehouse in Podil, the Shoreditch of Kyiv, people will be treated over the weekend to the very latest in Ukrainian bands, fashion, cuisines, stories about the war – and jokes.
Our two-day festival will do its best to reflect Ukraine’s unique sense of humour, anthracite-black as it is. Bleakness is all. For example, two soldiers, Dima and Vova, are discussing who is sending the best kit to Ukraine: the Americans, the Swedes, the Germans, the British?
Dima: “The British stuff is best.”
Vova: “But the steering wheel is on the wrong side.”
Dima: “Yes. The steering wheel is on the wrong side. So the Russian snipers shoot the passenger. What’s not to like?”
The festival will feature stand-up spots from four top Ukrainian comedians, Bohdan Vakhnyc, Ramil Yangulov, Max Vyshinskyi and Andrii Berezhko.
With soldiers dying at the front, the lion’s share of the humour will be directed at the Russian killing machine, at the tyrant who sent it to Ukraine and the Kremlin’s useful jellyfish in the West. Donald Trump will get it in the neck, the buttocks and the front bottom too but it’s bad form to write out comedians’ jokes in print.
Ukraine’s democracy is being forged in war and a robust honesty about the failings of civil society, from President Volodymyr Zelensky and the people around him down, comes as standard. Zelensky was a comedian, or, better, a comic actor before the big war. It is, to put it mildly, unlikely that whoever takes over from Vladimir Putin in Russia will have the same CV.
It’s hard to define Ukraine’s sense of humour but it’s a combination of Jewish and Yiddish themes of self-deprecation under terror, a Soviet or post-Soviet love of irony written in cement and a wonderful, anarchistic fuck-you-ness. Even in the darkest days of Russia’s war against Ukraine, when the Kremlin’s heavy metal was just 12 miles from the centre of Kyiv, jokes blossomed, memes about Ukrainian tractors stealing Russian tanks flooded the internet. A year ago, when fears of a Russian nuclear strike against Kyiv were at their height – Putin won’t send nukes to Ukraine because the Chinese have told him not to – the word was that the moment the nuke birds were in the air, there would be a massive orgy on an unpronounceable hill in Kyiv. The beauty of the hill’s unpronounceability is that it would defeat Russian spies from gate crashing the orgy. And, it has to be said, British journalists too.
If you wish to support the festival, go to VPDFO.ORG
21 May 2021 | Israel, Opinion, Palestine, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116788″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]I think that it is fair to suggest that Alexei Sayle isn’t one of my biggest fans. We agree on little politically and in the last few years I believe that his interventions on the issues of antisemitism and racism in the Labour Party were not only factually incorrect and morally wrong but also made my life, at a time when I was very vulnerable, even more difficult. So, it would be fair to say that I am not a fan of his either.
But… because there is always a but. Whatever my personal views of Alexei Sayle and his of me – he has a right to hold them. He has a right to articulate them and for him as for all of us – occasionally there may be consequences to his actions – but they should be proportionate and considered in the round. The consequences should not be a political football, used by people trying to get a headline. After all free speech is far too important for that – it’s not a toy that can be undermined at a politician’s whim. Especially a politician whose government is currently legislating to protect free speech on campus – would that not also apply to Alexei Sayle? Which is why I fundamentally disagree with the efforts of British parliamentarian, Matthew Offord, this week to stop the broadcast of an episode of Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4.
Alexei Sayle made his name by being controversial, by being anti-establishment and in my opinion contrary – and he has done so on the BBC for decades. I may not like him – but that simply means I don’t have to listen to him – not that he shouldn’t be allowed to speak. And if I want to listen to him, I have the right, as does everyone else, to robustly challenge him on his views and pronouncements. That’s the joy of free speech and why it needs to be protected.
If you don’t like someone’s views – challenge them to a debate, expose the weaknesses in their argument, demonstrate why you are right, and they are wrong. Don’t try and silence them, you just martyr them and their views. And for a politician to advocate silencing speech it’s not just contrary to our basic human rights – in this instant it’s also really bad politics.
We need to robustly defend and protect free speech. Because not only does it ensure that everyone has the same basic rights to free expression but also because we need to be able to challenge views that offend and hurt so that others don’t have the excuse of ignorance when they espouse them. Our words and arguments are the most powerful tools at our disposal to shape the type of community that we live. So, let’s make sure we use them – rather than silence our opponents.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
