Many people, including me, may view some of the jokes as being in terrible taste. But bad taste, while it is subjective, is certainly not criminal and is common in democracies. Jokes and cartoons on politicians are the rule, not the exception. The Bengaluru police arrested the students on charges of trespassing, promoting enmity between groups, unlawful assembly and hurting religious sentiments. Dare we laugh at such an overreaction to humour?
The right to be funny can probably be extrapolated from the constitutional right to free speech and expression. The Supreme Court has already taken out the right to information from this provision. Why not even the right to joke or laugh?
Justice Swaminathan
war on humor
The ruling BJP is not alone in this. The play was opposed by the Congress party, the Janata Dal (S) and the BSP. There is a political consensus on the intolerance of humour. The Bengaluru arrest is part of a long list of arrests of comedians over the past decade. Parties seek votes from lobbies who claim to be humiliatingly humiliated. There is no retaliatory vote bank for humour. Congress spokesperson Pawan Kheda was arrested last week for mispronouncing the name of the prime minister. He could have defended it as a common joke in a democracy. Instead he called it a slip of the tongue and tendered an unconditional apology.
Congress criticized the arrest of Pawan Khera, but did not defend the right to joke. TV comedians like Kiku Sharda and standup comedians like Kunal Kamra have been served contempt notices just for tweets. Standup comedian Munawar Farooqui was jailed for four months. The punishment was actually not for telling a joke, but for uploading a joke to YouTube about a year ago. However, he was later dropped.
Very sensitive India needs help
How can such excesses be stopped? In 2017, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment explored the right to privacy in existing constitutional provisions on liberty. Similarly, let us petition the court to discover the ‘right to joke and laugh’ in the constitutional provisions on freedom of expression. The case for such a right was explained in 2021 by Justice GR Swaminathan of the Tamil Nadu High Court. He was actually presiding over a comical affair. Mathivanan, a CPI(ML) functionary, had gone on an excursion to the Sirumalai Hills with his daughter and son-in-law. He had uploaded pictures of the trip on Facebook with captions. ‘Travel to Sirumalai for shooting practice’ The word ‘shooting’ created a ruckus. But since he represented a Maoist party, the police interpreted this as a threat to ‘wage war’. After this he was arrested!
Why not even the right to joke or laugh?
Mativanan had to appeal to the High Court for relief in this matter. Rejecting the allegations, Justice Swaminathan said that the right to be promiscuous can perhaps be derived from the constitutional right to free speech and expression. The Supreme Court has already removed the right to information from this provision. Why not even the right to joke or laugh? All such provisions are subject to reasonable restrictions. Hence the misuse to spread enmity in the true sense can easily be stopped. But declaring such a right would put a stop to the overt political abuse that is so common today.
‘Duty to Laugh’ in the Constitutional List
Justice Swaminathan also suggested that the ‘duty to laugh’ could be added to the constitutional list of fundamental duties such as upholding the dignity and sovereignty of India. This would provide a defense against arrest for the comedian. Justice Swaminathan’s judgment is itself a classic piece of humour. ‘Holy cows graze here from Varanasi to Vadipatti. We dare not make fun of them. A real cow, even if undernourished and emaciated, would be sacred in the yogi’s field. In West Bengal, Tagore is such an iconic figure from whom Khushwant Singh learned a lesson at some cost. Coming to my own Tamil country, Periyar, the all-time iconoclast, Mr. E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker is the most sacred cow. Marx and Lenin are beyond the limits of criticism or satire in today’s Kerala. Chhatrapati Shivaji and Veer Savarkar have got similar protection in Maharashtra. But there is one holy cow all over India, and that is national security. Weak people could be arrested. We really need the joke right.