Dear Netas, Learn to Laugh Before Democracy Becomes a Joke

Dear Netas,It is time to lighten up. I mean, seriously. We know governing a country or a state is a difficult, dreary, time-consuming task. There are so many promises to fulfil, so many files to be signed, so many policy decisions to be made. Still, it is time to loosen up.You could learn from one of your own. The story I’m about to narrate is interesting and so is its lesson. It relates to how Jaswant Singh, a former powerful minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet, called Sudhir Tailang, one of India’s top political cartoonists. Singh spoke in his sardonic, baritone voice, soon after returning from Kandahar where he released three dreaded terrorists in exchange for passengers aboard IC 814, an Indian Airlines flight that had been hijacked after it took off from Kathmandu in December 1999.Jaswant Singh had seen Tailang’s unsparing cartoon in which he had been lampooned, wearing the Taliban’s trademark salwar-kameez pathani suit. The cartoon also showed the minister holding a rocket launcher on his shoulder. Singh liked the depiction so much that he called Tailang and asked for the original, so that it could be framed.That is how humour should be framed. Kunal Kamra — and the Chokehold on India's Political Comedy It May Not SurviveThere was a time, dear Netas, when you took wit in your stride. Think about it, it’ll even help you stay healthy because as they say, laughter is truly the best medicine.Why have you now allowed satire and parody to become handy tools to threaten and vandalise? Why do you take offence so easily? Why are you so quick to summon your goons? Why can’t you appreciate a cartoon or applaud a stand-up comedian? If you can’t, at least learn to ignore them. Seriously, the speed with which you allow FIRs to be filed are no joke.I mean, the haste with which your support armies race to reach venues which stand-up comics have long left, does no service to the nation or the state, or we the people. You do swear by the Constitution, don’t you? Freedom of speech is enshrined, isn’t it? Think before you dole out ‘instant justice’ because, frankly, the breathtaking speed is making Zomato and Swiggy blush.Pause and take a long breath. Think about the irony surrounding the Kunal Kamra brouhaha. It is so very delicious and in the case of the Shiv Sena, particularly so. The loyalists who rushed to The Habitat, the venue where Kamra had recorded his show, forgot that their supremo Bal Thackeray started his career as a cartoonist. He went on, in fact, to become an important illustrator, regularly published in the pages of The Times of India and The Free Press Journal.Among his famous cartoons was one in which he mocked Indira Gandhi’s ‘garibi hatao’ campaign and called it an election gimmick. Here’s another irony: Thackeray and RK Laxman, the celebrated godfather of quiet sarcasm, shared space in the same newspaper, The Free Press Journal. But the vandals, who used their sinews to showcase their anger and support for Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde being called out by Kamra as a “gaddar” or traitor (though not by name), forgot that their supremo, Bal Thackeray, had even launched a cartoon-only weekly called Marmik in 1960. The Shiv Sainiks ended up becoming the joke. A video of them hurling furniture has a funny line about how they may now have to go to Tamil Nadu to find their target.The problem, dear Netas, is that you’ll are constantly on the hunt for soft targets. In the process, you’re not just hurting free speech, you’re also clogging the courts and choking democracy. You are also curbing dissent and weaponising good old humour.Remember Ambikesh Mahapatra, a chemistry professor at Jadavpur University in Kolkata? It took 11 years for him to be discharged by a local court in West Bengal in 2023. He was arrested for forwarding, via email, an allegedly derogatory cartoon about Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.Take another case, that of Aseem Trivedi, who was slapped with sedition in 2011 during the UPA regime headed by Manmohan Singh. Trivedi was booked after his cartoons were displayed at Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex, where a throng of people had gathered to support Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption movement. He had also uploaded his work on the ‘Cartoons against Corruption’ website. In one of the cartoons, three wolves replaced the lions in the national emblem, and the inscription read, Bhrashtamev Jayate (long live corruption).I called Trivedi after the latest display of muscle by the Sainiks and heard him out patiently. One, he’s moved away from drawing cartoons after spending nights in Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail. Is he scared? “No, I just don’t want to be called anti-national,” he said, adding, “The only things missing at The Habitat were the guns. What if Kamra had actually been at the venue?”The questions are all very good and asked in good earnest, and then he made another point: the system is the same. So, what if you are ruling the state? That doesn’t give you the sanction to vandalise. Why do political parties, flush with victory, always look for constant validation of their power? Kamra used the words “gaddar” and “baap chori” because Uddhav Thackeray has used them, so why are the vandals only going after Kamra? Why are there no FIRs against Uddhav? All good questions, once again. Shinde defected from the parent Shiv Sena to set up another faction which is now in alliance with the BJP-led Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra.Let’s also recall what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in August 2014. The Sainiks may have forgotten, but Modi had actually rued the lack of humour in Parliament, and by extension, in political discourse, I’m presuming.Speaking at a function in which leaders like Arun Jaitley, Sharad Yadav, and Karan Singh were awarded for being outstanding Parliamentarians, Modi had said, “Humour and wit are gradually fading away from Parliamentary proceedings, as members are apprehensive as to what colour the 24x7 media would give to even one proverb they utter.”Mind Your JokesA lot has changed since that speech. 2025 and the years preceding it, have come as a reminder of the fact that the BJP does not take kindly to humour. It is now seen as an criminal offence. How else can one describe what happened to Pawan Khera, who was arrested after being lured off a flight in 2023? The Congress party’s chief spokesperson, who later got bail, was taken into custody after he mashed-up two names and referred to the PM as “Narendra Gautamdas Modi.”His alleged sin was that he said “Gautamdas” instead of Damodardas, while criticising the PM’s refusal to set up a joint parliamentary panel to probe business magnet Gautam Adani. Khera apologised for saying “Gautamdas” but the questions are larger. Can there be no interplay of words? What is wrong with some wit and humour? Why can’t you’ll, dear Netas, expand your dictionary to add words like satire, parody and jibe?Despite calling for “wit and humour”, it is quite clear that the BJP and its allies are thin skinned when it comes to digesting wry humour. The additional solicitor general, Aishwarya Bhati, had a tough time explaining to the Supreme Court why “Narendra Gautamdas Modi” was criminal in nature. Eventually, this is what Bhati said: “It shows disloyalty…Your lordships may see the facial expressions and the laughs all around. This is the PM of the country…”Are you struggling not to smile? In case you get me wrong, this question is for those reading this piece and not for the Netas I’m addressing. I’m sure you can smile. Can you forward this as an email? Do so at your own risk. Just remember that the West Bengal module is already in the public domain.The law will probably provide relief, like it did for the Jadavpur professor and Khera, but it is the executive that needs to lighten up. There was a time when stalwarts took aim at each other; when jibes — even personal ones — did not lead to a flurry of FIRs.Rewind and rejog your memories, dear Netas. Jawaharlal Nehru did not dial the police when he was called “bald” by Ram Manohar Lohia. Rajiv Gandhi, similarly, did not take offence when P Upendra, a Telegu Desam MP, referred to his many foreign trips by saying, “I would like to welcome the Prime Minister on one of his rare visits to New Delhi.” Then, everyone just laughed. They used their facial muscles, and they used them well.Lohia and Upendra spoke tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Both referenced serving Prime Ministers, mind you, without the fear of being reported; or of being dragged to police stations and courtrooms. Political bouts, laced with humour, were an intrinsic part of politics. Levity was never seen as a crime. Manmohan Singh, who was referenced as ‘Maun-Mohan’ Singh by Modi, replied with civility when he said history would judge him more kindly. It did.For those who have doubts about the camaraderie that existed between political opponents — or between cartoonists and their subjects of scorn and humour — they can check with Murli Manohar Joshi. He will, if he is fair, point out that the intolerance on open display today is a recent phenomenon.Joshi, a former BJP minister, actually once called Sudhir Tailang, who passed in 2016. Joshi, according to Tailang — who often narrated his experiences — wanted to know why he had not been cartooned in over six months. “Have I become so irrelevant in politics?” the former minister apparently asked.That is the attitude with which comedy needs to be embraced. To borrow from the popular branding of author and journalist Khushwant Singh’s column, wit — even if derisive — is meant to be delivered “With Malice to One and All.”Postscript: Don’t come looking for me after reading this column. We, the media, were referred to as ‘Presstitutes’ by former minister and former Army Chief, General VK Singh. The only implement we reached out for, when we were thus called by the ‘Gentleman cadet’ who passed out of the Indian Military Academy, was our pen. We did not take to the streets or file FIRs. We just smirked.(Harinder Baweja is a senior journalist and author. She has been reporting on current affairs, with a particular emphasis on conflict, for the last four decades. She can be reached at @shammybaweja on Instagram and X. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Dear Netas, Learn to Laugh Before Democracy Becomes a Joke

There was a time, dear Netas, when you took wit in your stride, writes Harinder Baweja.

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