Are you a coward, a journalist, or a nationalist?” This question by standup comedian Kunal Kamra posed to Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami on an IndiGo flight has been watched online more than a million times this week. It has spurred a debate among India’s liberals on how “we should not become what we loathe”.
I did this for my hero…
I did it for Rohit pic.twitter.com/aMSdiTanHo
— Kunal Kamra (@kunalkamra88) January 28, 2020
At the same time, Kamra’s act also appears to have kick-started a wave of heckling against those known for spreading Right-wing propaganda. On Friday, three women at Mangaluru airport ‘heckled’ Postcard News co-founder Mahesh Vikram Hegde, who has twice been arrested for spreading fake news in the past, and asked him to sing Vande Matram and “prove his nationalism”.
Three women confronted one of the most infamous Fake News peddler and RW social media propagandist Mahesh Vikram Hegde. They asked him to sing Vande Mataram and he….pic.twitter.com/FmPLEXftl8
— Ravi Nair (@t_d_h_nair) January 31, 2020
This is why Kunal Kamra is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
On Tuesday, comedian Kunal Kamra, of the Waah Modiji Waah fame, broke the Internet when he posted the video of Arnab Goswami sitting unusually speechless as he hurled question after question at him. It was a monologue.
Also read: Not Kunal Kamra, the real test for Indian liberals is Sharjeel Imam
What’s left to know about Arnab
Ironically, Goswami’s Republic TV is notorious for monologues masquerading as debates that are no more than shouting matches among politicians and political analysts. Goswami has a huge fan base across India, but he has also been accused of being the Narendra Modi government’s mouthpiece. Goswami has carved a niche for a different brand of journalism, one which is deprived of any objectivity. Emulating Fox TV-style daily hectoring of liberals and the Left, he leaves no doubt for viewers about his personal inclinations.
Reactions to Kamra’s mid-air ambush have spanned the spectrum. Some lauded him for producing priceless seconds of an uncomfortable Arnab Goswami; others accused him of heckling the anchor and compromising the security of fellow passengers on board.
“The viewers want to know, Arnab,” Kamra pestered Goswami, deriving from the anchor’s popular catchphrase and giving him a taste of his own medicine. The comedian expressed no regret for his actions and asserted that he “would never have made peace with himself” if he didn’t question the anchor.
Soon after the video went viral, IndiGo airlines put Kunal Kamra on its no-fly list for six months owing to the comedian’s “unacceptable behaviour”. Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri quickly rushed to Goswami’s defence. In a tweet, Puri ‘advised’ other airlines to impose similar restrictions on Kamra. Naturally, and unfortunately, Air India, SpiceJet and GoAir followed suit, dutifully tagging Puri in their tweets announcing that they had banned Kamra from flying indefinitely.
Also read: Kunal Kamra’s behaviour unsavoury but did not warrant being banned, says IndiGo pilot
The ‘punch up’ comic
The Mumbai-based comedian has been the host of a political-comedy podcast called Shut Up Ya Kunal. The show has had visitors like Ravish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal, Yogendra Yadav, Javed Akhtar, Shehla Rashid, Kavita Krishnan, Asaduddin Owaisi, and Sachin Pilot among others.
The comedian is also popularly known for teaching Congress MP Shashi Tharoor the art of standup for an Amazon Prime Video show called One Mic Stand. “If anything goes wrong, blame it on Nehru,” Kamra explained to a nervous Tharoor before his standup act.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also tweeted in solidarity with Kamra, who has lampooned him relentlessly too. Some journalists saw this as proof of Gandhi’s steadfast liberalism.
You need to be brave to be a liberal. @RahulGandhi has proved a point today. It is when Mr Kamra has been overtly critical of him in a very personal way. https://t.co/UYU0p1V9tK
— Kartikeya Sharma (@kartikeya_1975) January 29, 2020
By virtue of his unabashed views on the current political dispensation, Kamra has not been a stranger to controversy. In January 2018, the comedian had to deactivate his Twitter account after users started retweeting his ‘old’ and not-so-‘woke’ jokes on Muslims, Sikhs and Mother Teresa. Kamra was self-aware of his unimaginative and problematic jokes like, “what do you gift at a Muslim wedding? Condoms.” Soon, he realised that he had to stop laughing at the expense of the ‘lesser privileged’ and maintained that he wanted to “punch up and not punch down”.
In July 2018, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda cancelled his standup after the Vice-Chancellor received a letter from some alumni calling Kamra’s content “anti-national”.
Also read: Kunal Kamra, you only harmed yourself. Next time with Arnab, do what Arvind Kejriwal does
Split liberal discourse
Kamra’s jokes ranging from ‘waah Modiji waah’ to ‘India is a parody account of democracy’ are usually at the expense of the Modi government and always bring a chuckle to the liberals. However, Kamra’s alleged ‘unruly’ behaviour towards Arnab Goswami was something that was expected of Goswami, and not Kamra, liberals now say.
Many say that comedians have emerged as key players in expressing dissent and are doing the job that many journalists aren’t – in both Trump’s America and Modi’s India. When it comes to Twitter politics, satire has slowly become a safeguard against hyper-nationalists. And many called his Indigo act a masterful performance that shrunk Goswami’s larger-than-life persona.
But with an IndiGo pilot now saying that Kamra was not ‘unruly’ and didn’t warrant a ban, the nation wants to know who will have the last laugh.
Nice nice.. So its pretty clear now that this liberal rubbish is nothing but a band of bullies who in the name of freedom of expression simply want to curb the freedom of expression of the opposing views.. Nice and well done gangs of fools!
Hyping a coward’s unruly behavior as a heroic one shows how desperate this author is to get herself some light of fame. Sorry, neither Kunal nor you deserve any attention in the pro India discourse. You both seem to be absolute waste of time for a common man who wishes good for India.
If you can accuse Arnab Goswami of being Narendra Modi government’s mouthpiece, from the list of visitors to his show, I would conclude that he has been the mouthpiece of left-liberals who provide inputs to tukde tukde gang. Kunal Kamra proves himself to be an uncouth boor. A jetliner was hardly a forum for airing his antagonism. Disagreement need not result in public misbehaviour. But then, these days, people are forgetting to be civil to each other.
This is nonsense . Public place nuisance. In democracy everyone has FOE. If you don’t like it does not mean you resort public heckling .
I never know of this person, till this incident happened. What a easy way to get 15 minutes of fame; make a pest of yourself, post it online, wait for the left liberal cabal to lap it up and become their hero overnight. If he and Rahul Gandhi are best that can be thrown at this government, Modi is in for the long haul for sure.
Firstly Rohit Vermula – his story no way validates any of the communist, leftist, hinduvata theories. Infact in totallly Indian worldview it repudiates aĺl this ist and ata way of looking at things. By using it Kunal has just shown how desperate he is. Secondly he has pushed the bar ..now journalists are fair game…for heckling and more and further blurring the line between professional journalist and do nothing weirdo who thinks he is journalists. Next would be mera challan katoge mein Rahul Gandhi ko janta hou.
Watching the video clip of Arnab Goswami being heckled by Stand up comedian Kunal Kamra tells us two things. The uncouth stand up comedian Kunal Kamra shamelessly heckling Republic TV’s Founder Arnab Goswami and the amazing cool that Arnab Goswami has maintained in the face of this shameless public shaming of Arnab Goswami by Kunal Kamra. While many not agree with Arnab Goswami’s style of Journalism and may be within our rights to criticise him but nobody has any right to publicly shame anyone on his or her face. There is law and there will be lawyers which Arnab Goswami may seek legal advise to seek legal remedy against this abuse by Kunal Kamra but the best action against Kunal Kamra would be to stop him not only from travelling in any airlines but also any mode of travel on the ground that this stand up comedian has lost the basic sense to distinguish between practicing his profession as a stand up comedian and perpetrating unwarranted insult on a professional journalist by forgetting that there is a point upto which one can exercise one’s liberty to make someone the subject of your jokes as we all do in our own restrained manner but heckling a person on his face is clearly a prosecutable and punishable offence which Kunal Kamra must be tried for. Such stand up comedians if not stopped at this moment may become dangerous to the society because they can create a fear psychosis in us of being insulted anywhere anytime outside the media and the stage !! The ban on the travel of such people is within the power of the State to impose reasonable restrictions on the movement as enunciated in the very Article 19 of the Constitution of India which permits free speech.
Syed Naqvi
Advocate
Supreme Court of India
advocatenaqvi@gmail.com
Thanks s article has no content, no information and no insight. I don’t even think the writer knows what she is writing. That’s why I think journalism is the most over hyped profession in India. Poorly educated people wanting quick fame and an illusion of a career are fit for journalism.
Watching the video clip of Arnab Goswami being heckled by Stand up comedian Kunal Kamra tells us two things. The uncouth stand up comedian Kunal Kamra shamelessly heckling Republic TV’s Founder Arnab Goswami and the amazing cool that Arnab Goswami has maintained in the face of this shameless public shaming of Arnab Goswami by Kunal Kamra. While many not agree with Arnab Goswami’s style of Journalism and may be within our rights to criticise him but nobody has any right to publicly shame anyone on his or her face. There is law and there will be lawyers which Arnab Goswami may seek legal advise to seek legal remedy against this abuse by Kunal Kamra but the best action against Kunal Kamra would be to stop him not only from travelling in any airlines but also any mode of travel on the ground that this stand up comedian has lost the basic sense to distinguish between practicing his profession as a stand up comedian and perpetrating unwarranted insult on a professional journalist by forgetting that there is a point upto which one can exercise one’s liberty to make someone the subject of your jokes as we all do in our own restrained manner but heckling a person on his face is clearly a prosecutable and punishable offence which Kunal Kamra must be tried for. Such stand up comedians if not stopped at this moment may become dangerous to the society because they can create a fear psychosis in us of being insulted anywhere anytime outside the media and the stage !! The ban on the travel of such people is within the power of the State to impose reasonable restrictions on the movement as enunciated in the very Article 19 of the Constitution of India which permits free speech.
Syed Naqvi
Advocate
Supreme Court of India
Dada ek baar hi kaafi hai.
Kairvy of The Print is as expected basking in a vicious glee as the Kamra episode once again highlighted the intolerance of the anti Modi brigade. The intolerance which these self confessed liberals call as their FOE. It is only when a person like Arnab speaks up he is labelled as Modi’s mouthpiece. What double standards. The writer has forgotten that Shekhar Gupta from her own stable is a well known mouthpiece of the corrupt and communal Gandhi family since ages. He has been called a wheeler dealer by many in Delhi and else where. So before she picks on Arnab and jails Kunal Kamra as some sort of here she needs to look inwards. 2hike Arnab fights for the issues that are dear to the nation, the print, congress, Kamra, this writer, her boss and many in Lutyens Delhi chose to be with the tukde tukde gang, those who want to break up India. The dormant nationalists are also waking up and now there will be many such episodes going ahead. The 120 crores pumped into PFI to keep Shaheenbaug protests alive would have surely seen the pockets of some in the friendly media. Everyone knows who is corrupt in the media to take anti India stand. And if Kunal Kamra using the Hyderabad University’s student’s death to prop up his own sagging career is wisdom and master stroke then so be it. Left vultures often feed from misery of others. So be it.