[After Das uploaded his six-minute speech to YouTube this week, it has gone viral on social media in the country and become debate fodder on prime-time television. Liberal politicians, performers and writers emerged to cheer Das’s jabs at India’s authoritarian turn and swelling nationalism. On the other side, critics lashed into Das for broadly painting India as, among other things, a country plagued by rape.]
By Gerry Shih and Niha Masih
Before closing his sold-out show,
Vir Das told his Washington audience he needed to talk about his homeland. He
didn’t come from one India, Das said, but two Indias, seemingly at odds.
Today’s India is a country that is
proudly vegetarian yet oppresses protesting farmers, Das said. It’s a country
that worships women but grapples with horrific rape cases. It’s a country
brimming with a huge, young population but is led by septuagenarian leaders
with outdated ideas.
Now, two Indias are responding to
Das’s soliloquy on the Potomac: one with rapturous applause, another with
sputtering rage.
After Das uploaded his six-minute speech to YouTube this week, it has gone
viral on social media in the country and become debate fodder on prime-time
television. Liberal politicians, performers and writers emerged to cheer Das’s
jabs at India’s authoritarian turn and swelling nationalism. On the other side,
critics lashed into Das for broadly painting India as, among other things, a
country plagued by rape.
Das, a high-profile 42-year-old
comedian who has released several specials on Netflix, was savaged on social
media and quickly issued a clarification. On Wednesday, angry citizens filed
two cases against him with the police in Mumbai, where he is based, and in New
Delhi.
“I don’t mind if he makes mockery
of Indian politicians, but he made a mockery of India, which is my country, my
pride. He hurt the sentiments of India,” said Ashutosh Dubey, a lawyer for the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who filed a defamation case in Mumbai in a
personal capacity.
“If an Indian goes outside the
country, I want him to show the positive side,” Dubey said. “He must apologize
to India.”
As the controversy mounted this
week, Das’s “two Indias” line became a meme embraced by many of the BJP’s
opponents to vent about the ruling party’s shortcomings. But the sides of the
debate weren’t neatly split along political lines. Abhishek Singhvi, a member
of the upper house of Parliament and a former spokesman for the left-leaning
Congress Party, weighed in to compare Das to people who portrayed colonial-era
India to an international audience as a country full of snake charmers and
bandits.
“Vilifying the nation as a whole in
front of the world is just not done!” Singhvi thundered on Twitter.
Uproar over India’s portrayal
abroad is nothing new in a vast and proud country that has long been keenly
aware of its international image. But the unexpectedly heated reaction this
week to Das’s monologue dismayed performers, who said it pointed to more than
prickly nationalism. They said it showed that the space for political speech is
shrinking in the world’s most populous democracy.
“The problem is when you start
using the force of law as a sledgehammer,” said Akash Banerjee, a political
satirist and founder of the popular Deshbhakt, or
Patriot, YouTube channel. “The lines of freedom of expression are constantly
being shifted. You can’t talk about this; you can’t mock that.”
Earlier this year, Munawar Faruqui,
a Muslim stand-up comic, was jailed for more than a month over a joke about
Hindu gods that he had practiced in rehearsal but did not tell onstage.
Recently, several of Faruqui’s shows were canceled in Mumbai after Hindu right-wing groups
threatened the organizers.
Das’s video erupted into a source
of controversy this week shortly after the U.S. State Department changed its
travel advisory for India and cautioned travelers on its website that “Indian authorities report rape is one of
the fastest growing crimes in the country.” Americans were also warned to avoid
the India-Pakistan border.
Banerjee, the satirist, said
outrage surrounding Das was not necessarily about “what he said, but where he
said it.”
“He has gone and spilled the beans
at Kennedy Center,” Banerjee said.
This week, Das, who is in New York
on his “Manic Man” tour, released a clarification saying his performance was
satire. “Any nation has light and dark, good and evil within it,” he said.
“None of this is secret.”
He pointed out that he ended his
show in Washington by appealing to the crowd to cheer for his country.
In the Friday monologue leading up
to the finale, Das largely avoided direct attacks on India’s political leaders
even though he dinged them for not wearing masks in public. Speaking in the
cadence of a slam poet, he remarked that India’s Hindus and Muslims and other
religious minorities seemed only to be united in their struggles with high
gasoline prices.
“I leave you tonight, and I go back
to India,” he said. “Which India will I go back to? Both of them. Which India
am I proud of? One of them.”
Finally, he asked members of the
audience to cheer for the India that they believed in, and “make some noise for
the India you want to live in.”
Then he put the mic down and walked
offstage to a standing ovation.
Read more:
Indian police detain fans cheering for the other team: Pakistan
In India, protesters are singing the national anthem and waving
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