Bad doggy: When AIB got trolled for a Modi meme it quickly deleted
It's honestly difficult to gauge what makes Indians laugh. In a country where the definition of jokes is mostly restricted to sexist attacks on women by muck-blabbering artists like Kapil Sharma and Co, the barrage of stand-ups unleashed on social media too seem to be far from funny most of the times.
On the contrary the comics, at the end of the day, mostly come to find that the joke's actually on them.
So, when All India Bakchod, or AIB co-founded by Tanmay Bhat tweeted something, which was intended to be funny, if not controversial, it got into fresh trouble.
On July 12, the official Twitter handle of AIB tweeted a meme on Prime Minister Narendra Modi using the Snapchat dog filter. It was, however, removed later.
And as expected, within no time, the AIB invited the wrath of the Modi cabal on Twitter.
So much so that a user, Reetesh Maheshwari, tagged the Mumbai Police, reporting the incident as an “obnoxious” prank pulled at PM Modi which must follow legal proceedings.
प्रधानमंत्री जी के लिए इस तरीके का बेहूदा मज़ाक पर @AllIndiaBakchod @thetanmay पर सख्त कार्रवाई होनी चाहिए @MumbaiPolice @ippatel pic.twitter.com/jqIE200CBZ
— Reetesh Maheshwari (@Reetesh777) July 12, 2017
Thank you for bringing this to our notice.We are forwarding this to the cyber police station.
— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) July 12, 2017
And more backlash followed.
they made fun of sachin sir / Lata mam... so they think they r cool n they can do anything..
— Yogesh Singh Chauhan (@YCtwi) July 13, 2017
The Modi meme faced flak across Twitter. Some found it “sick” while others slammed the AIB for a “cheap mindset”.
While some did question the absurdity behind the whole high-drama.
What a joke this country has become . Cops would investigate jokes while vijay mallya & jatin mehta (adani's relative) loot India & run away
— DreamWalker (@hemantkapil) July 13, 2017
Agreed the image is distasteful. But PMO has to file the complaint. Imagine if press charges for insults to RahulGandhi, Soniaji & Dr Singh.
— DeepSearchingNeuron (@SpockSpeaks) July 13, 2017
But this wasn't the first time the comic outfit landed itself in trouble. Their previous attempts at an uncensored roast "AIB Knockout", and Tanmay Bhat’s imitation of Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar too had annoyed many.
After the meme was brought to the notice of the Mumbai Police, Tanmay Bhat took to Twitter to tell his side of the story in a series of tweets.
— Tanmay Bhat (@thetanmay) July 13, 2017
PS: Will continue making jokes. And deleting if necessary. And making jokes again. And Apologizing if necessary. Don't care what you think.
— Tanmay Bhat (@thetanmay) July 13, 2017
There were many who questioned Bhat for not taking a "stand" and deleting the tweet.
A comic typically stands behind their joke though....like Jon stewart always did
— Dhruv pandey (@dumbo_at_work) July 13, 2017
I am not Jon Stewart and I am not in USA :)
— Tanmay Bhat (@thetanmay) July 13, 2017
Whether the AIB's seemingly harmless meme was actually offensive or funny is not the real problem here. After all, the same filter has been on popular use for quite some time now.
Indians though can't be blamed for missing the funny bone.
There have been numerous instances when morphed pictures of celebs and political leaders were circulated. But only a few of them anger the general public. PM Modi is one such immensely followed celeb who never had to fight his own "I-take-offence battle". Social media is swarmed by followers who on a daily basis troll and hound anyone saying anything remotely against PM Modi or the BJP and its fringe outfits.
When the AIB posted that meme, it certainly knew what it was getting into and why.
So that should be the least of our problems when arguing against or defending the comic group.
However, what all such stand-up comics in India are actually guilty of is their failure to come up with original jokes or to stand by them. This, despite the fact that we can't deny the legal/moral repercussions of politically incorrect jokes of late.
While the US (our biggest source of inspiration from Hollywood to White House) has seen a spurt in comics firing off political jokes in the Trump-era, India is yet to see such unsparing humour. But then the "butt of the joke there" (no matter how obnoxious, especially with his short-fingered tweets) also seems much more tolerant than what could be expected in India with successive governments.
Cartoonists in the past have been the worst victims in India where humour has mostly been government-policed. Irrespective of their good or bad sense of humour.
Stand-up comedy, though many believe is new to India, has actually been entertaining audience for years. But earlier it mostly comprised Bollywood artists and "hasya kavis" trying to incite a laugh riot in Hindi.
Of course, stand-up comedy by Indians in English is relatively new.
And for some strange reasons urban Indians started to believe that stand-up comic acts are either in English or Hinglish.
But can one really blame Indians for such "jokes"? We are a bunch of people who keep themselves suitably entertained with inane and cheap jokes that are either directed at one gender or community (both Sikhs and women being the most-abused sections). Just like we consume and disseminate WhatApps propaganda as news with repeated forwards, derogatory wife-jokes, fat-woman-thin-man memes and those much-disclaimed "non-veg" jokes (why on earth anyone would call adult jokes that, only a sanskari India can explain) are enough to tickle our missing funny bone.
And to add to all such non-jokes, the new-age stand-ups arrived with their bold lines laced with profanities. Some of them do, however, manage to draw huge crowds, who, in turn, feel obligated to laugh to be a part of the "urban Indian joke" — the much-apparent but unacknowledged class divide.
Jokes in India should be officially banned, unless re-invented and rebranded. It's time we are spared the horror of forced-guffaws over uninnovative morphed images and inane forwards.