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In 2024, India Will Bank on Political Satirists – Its Remaining Truth-Tellers

It is no joke that in a country which is itself inching towards full blown satire each day, comedians have taken on the mantle of relaying news. 2024 will unveil who gets to tell the joke and have the last laugh too.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

It is 2024, and we have learnt that in a month when 146 legislators are suspended from parliament, the biggest news can still surround the pros and cons of the tragic art of mimicry. Little blurs the lines between the joke, the jester, serious political events unfolding and the business of narrating them. But who gets to tell the joke?

On September 29, the comedian Varun Grover said in Kolkata, “In today’s India, the most dangerous job is that of a comedian’s.” Four days later, his longtime collaborator, the comedian Sanjay Rajoura, was among 100 people raided and questioned by Delhi Police’s special branch over connections with the news site, NewsClick. 

NewsClick is accused of having terror connections – largely bolstered by an unsubstantiated line in a New York Times piece over its financial backer’s China ties. Its founder and an HR head have been in jail since. And a few days ago, NewsClick released a statement on how its employees’ salaries were held by central agencies’ freezing action on its accounts. Many of these employees had already had their devices seized by police in the October raids. 

It is as close to brow-beating an enterprise to fold up as it gets. Perhaps Grover is wrong. Perhaps the most dangerous job is that of a journalist’s – and the lone comedian who has thrown in their lot with journalists. 

It is a matter of some significance, therefore, that there are so many of those lone comedians who have thrown in their lot with journalists, today.

On YouTube, on X, on Instagram and that ancient gossip haunt, Facebook, political satirists have been launching no-holds-barred spiels on the nitty gritties of polarising politics, unwieldy policies and the intolerant government. 

India is 161st out of 180 countries on the world press freedom index. At a time when news organisations are labouring under changing digital landscapes, malicious defamation suits and prohibitive laws that make functioning a pain, you feel as if a handful of the online satirists of the day have taken over the onus of speaking truth to power – even if it comes with a dose of snideness. 

For many of them, it does not take much to launch into satire. It is not that our moment is so grotesque that it is impossible to satirise. It is that our moment is so grotesque, it is impossible to not satirise. Does this fact weigh on the tellers to the point of hopelessness? Can news really be entertainment?

“Satire has become like regular news for people. People would rather listen to jokes around the news. it also helps in making news more reachable to people who don’t want to go deep into details but want to get context with a little lightness,” says the person behind the 122,600 follower-strong @NarundarM account on X. @NarundarM tweets quickly and there is nary a ridiculous decision taken by the inspiration behind his name that does not find a mention in his account. 


That satirists do it under the full glare of the ever active Hindutva social media force is not a fact that escapes anyone. Nor are they able to ignore the reality of a mainstream media up in arms over an MP’s mimicry of the Vice-President while burning issues remained burning and three contentious laws were passed. Times are tough for laughter.

“I think political satire comes forth from a place of intelligence – the kind of intelligence which threatens a hyper-masculine narrative. Currently the idea of protection, of dharma, country, is such that it stands against all forms of laughter. The idea of ‘disrespect’ has become so associated with their sense of self that it comes from this idea of being macho or being presented as macho.”

Thus putting her work in perspective is Dr. Medusa – @ms_medusssa on X, where her deadpan crusade against the Modi government’s excesses and its defendants has thousands of takers. Dr. Medusa, an academic and teacher, first went viral on Twitter with her portrayal of outlandish news in the Doordarshan style with a show she called ‘Dookhdarshan’. 

Her ‘NTPC Helpline’ – the acronym stands for National Troll Prasheekshan Centre – has her offering pocket-sized advice to trolls on a wide spectrum – from Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (six steps to avoid accountability over bombing Gaza) to the average man with a phone. 

 

It’s the “get power quick” model followed by politicians and their acolytes that has her work cut out for her, Dr. Medusa feels. Clearly, this resonates, because she has 118,500 followers on X alone.

Dr. Medusa began satire when her own sense of helplessness at the news made her want to do something. The Hathras gang-rape in which a Dalit teenager died after an attack by upper caste men, the arrest of journalist Siddique Kappan as he travelled to the site – horrific news flowed into her and came out as something you could muse at, think about, and share with others.

Also read: Backstory: Journalism and the Power of Laughter

This necessity to do something while the truth is drowned in noise also drove national tennis champion and media professional Ranting Gola – @therantinggola – into comedy. She has 113,700 followers and it is easy to see why – there is an extraordinary straightness in her delivery. After Sakshi Malik gave up her boots to protest against Brij Bhushan Singh’s continued reign over the wrestling federation despite sexual harassment accusations, the 22-year-old issued a straightforward missive in a video – “just say, when you popularise Beti Bachao, that it is you who the beti [daughter] needs saving from.”


Ranting Gola tells The Wire that her work is mainly to seek some relief from a vicious cycle “where you complain about something that the government is doing wrong, but then the government gets angry with you, and then it slaps the UAPA on you.”

This is the exact sentiment that pushes newer satirists like GuruMa (who is @Kabiran_ on X) towards making small videos to channel their outrage. GuruMa has 2,284 followers and like Dr. Medusa and Ranting Gola, she says that her motivation for satire had more to do with the personal need to tell the truth than the necessity to poke fun. 


Despite their choice to not reveal their names – even though some of their faces are in full display – it is easy to see that all of them engage with the news viscerally. Even when they don’t share their own videos, they share each others’ and post incessantly on policies, promises, communal behaviour, and politics – in a way that will make you shake your head at current affairs, but also accept the information they put out.

Thus, news is made altogether more palatable. You ruminate less but engage more and are that much more likely to perhaps bring it up later.

Also read: If a Comedian Can Be Arrested for a Remark He Didn’t Make, Is the Joke on Us?

The popular account Kroordarshan (@kroordarshan, with almost 75,000 X followers), for instance, has been running a 75-day fitness-style ‘Convince a Bhakt’ challenge where the goal is to impress ‘real issues’ upon a Modi fanatic. Nothing is off the table, including how mainstream media channels discuss minor developments as if they are the biggest issues.


On this last peg, a stalwart is Bhagat Ram. Ram portrays various characters – among which his spoof of a controversial mainstream news anchor is wildly popular among his (@bhagatram2020) 160,000 X followers. News presented to intentionally communalise an audience – this is the same anchor who had presented ‘forms of jihad’ as a flow chart on primetime news – is painful to watch for those who know better. But, somehow, its spoof fosters deeper understanding of the wrongs afoot – without the attendant despair.


A journalist himself, Ram is testament to the fact that the presentation of news itself – in some quarters – is absurd enough to blur the lines between comedy and journalism. Where practitioners of the former can step into the latter, two prominent members of the journalism wing have also stepped into the liminal comedy space. 

Newslaundry editors Atul Chaurasia and Manisha Pande host the YouTube shows NL Tippani and TV Newsance – both of which roam around the promise that they watch TV news so we do not have to. Chowrasia’s shows often have him narrating with deadpan earnestness the events of the day – partly fictionalised and presented by Sanjaya, who was the veritable journalist in the Mahabharat, as the blind Dhritarashtra’s informer. Satire drips from Chowrasia’s pristine language.

Pande, on the other hand, launches head first into the exaggerations of news on TV, often including smooth fact-checks of anchors’ outlandish claims. 

You watch these shows and feel that maybe the time for telling the truth is not over yet. 

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