Has satire become equivalent to terrorism?
By: Mihika Yadav
Comedian Vir Das performing ‘I Come From Two Indias’ at the John F. Kennedy Centre
“I come from an India where we worship women during the day and gang-rape them during the night.”
This shocking statement is part of a 6-minute stand up set performed by an Indian comedian at the John F. Kennedy Centre in Washington DC titled, “I Come From Two Indias.” A video of the speech was then uploaded onto YouTube on the 15th of November, instigating severe controversy worldwide. As of the 14th of December, the video has received over 5.4 million views and 577 thousand likes.
The comedian, Vir Das, describes what he sees as two duelling sides of India. One that longs for liberal progression and one that continues to embrace Hindutva (right-wing extremism) dogma.
A quote from the piece exemplifying this idea states, “I come from an India that has the largest working population under 30 on the planet but still listens to 75-year-old leaders with 150-year-old ideas.”
The comedian also joked about these two sides of India and their contrasting views on broad concepts such as sexuality, government, cricket, and journalism.
Vir Das, known for being a stand-up comedian, moved into Bollywood and acted in several successful films. He’s also starred in many Netflix specials such as ‘Losing It’ and ‘Abroad Understanding’.
Some prominent figures from India have come to Vir’s defence following the intense backlash he has faced for this set. The most supportive response has been from Shashi Tharoor, a writer/politician, who said that Das “spoke for millions” in his monologue. To describe him Tharoor added, “A stand-up comedian who knows the real meaning of the term "stand up" is not physical but moral.”
Tweet by writer/politician Shashi Tharoor commending Vir Das’ performance
However, Das is being faced with a lot of pressure and criticism from particularly members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (nationalist political party) who claim he is “defaming and spoiling the name of India in the USA”. A legal advisor of the BJP has tweeted that he has filed a police complaint against Vir Das’ inflammatory statement. Concerning this, #StandUpForIndia has been trending on Twitter, with many tweets exclaiming, “Shame On You Vir Das,” with the aforementioned hashtag.
Another tweet against Vir Das’ speech by filmmaker Ashoke Pandit stated, "I see a terrorist in this man called #VirDas." Pandit also added that he believes Vir should be tried against terror laws.
After facing this level of condemnation many would assume that Das would have come out with an apology for retracting his statements against India, however, a recent tweet from him proves otherwise. He mentions that, “the video is a satire about the duality of two very separate Indias that do different things.” In summary, he tries to assure everyone that he takes pride in his country and that when he asked the audience in the crowd to cheer for India, it was with ‘hope’, not ‘malice’.
Tweet by filmmaker Ashoke Pandit strongly against Vir Das’ statements
The public certainly has mixed reactions to the ‘I Come From Two Indias’ video, however, Das is largely being supported by younger, more liberal audiences who see eloquence in his words, as opposed to slander. Many have left comments on the video in the style of his monologue such as, “I come from an India where comedians do politics and politicians do comedy.”
In terms of the audience in the original video, his most applauded line was, “I come from an India that is going to watch this and say ‘This isn’t comedy. Where is the goddamn joke?’ and yet I come from an India that will watch this and know there is a gigantic joke, it just isn’t funny.”
Stand up set performed by Vir Das
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