The shifting lakshman rekha of fear

As the Supreme Court throws out an FIR against Congress MP Imran Pratapgarhi, filed in January by the Jamnagar police over an Urdu poem — which the Gujarat High Court had subsequently refused to quash — and Kunal Kamra refuses to apologise for his comments on his social media show, the top-of-mind question this week is, How far has the lakshman rekha of fear been internalised by India that is Bharat?

Each of us manage our own lakshman rekhas, of course, and shift them up and down depending on how the season turns out. Supreme Court justices Abhay Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan kept it simple.

“…75 years into our Republic, we cannot be seen to be so shaky on our fundamentals that mere recital of a poem or for that matter, any form of art or entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, can be alleged to lead to animosity or hatred amongst different communities. Subscribing to such a view would stifle all legitimate expressions of view in the public domain which is so fundamental to a free society,” they said, weighing in on the Pratapgarhi matter.

On Friday, the Delhi High Court also set aside the Centre’s order cancelling the OCI card of Swedish citizen, noted academic and Modi critic Ashok Swain — he wanted to visit the country to meet his ailing mother and couldn’t. It’s not clear what happens now because the court has allowed the Centre to issue a fresh show-cause notice to Swain.

By day-end, Friday, even the Madras High Court had delivered its own thumbs up, by giving Kamra the anticipatory bail he had sought that morning. The bail was in anticipation of the Mumbai FIR against the word “gaddar” or “traitor” that Kamra had used for Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde without naming him.

Not that Kamra has apologised for his impudence. Unlike Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina barely a month ago, whose tasteless mother-father jokes had nevertheless left a “kya yaar” feeling in India’s mouth, Kamra said, “I don’t fear this mob and I will not be hiding under my bed, waiting for this to die down.”

So, the question at the tail end of this week: Is freedom of speech and expression in danger of breaking out of its stifling confines? Is something turning in the heart of the Republic, symbolised by both Pratapgarhi and Kamra waving identical red-and-black copies of the Constitution, as if to remind the nation that Articles 19 and 21 continue to empower them and could you, too?

Question is, could the lakshman rekha of fear be shifting again?

Fact is, because he now lives in Tamil Nadu, Kamra, at least for the moment, is safe. MK Stalin’s DMK government will protect him, although it won’t defy the courts, all the while politically challenging the BJP.

Perhaps, Bhagwant Mann’s Punjab could have been in the same sweet spot. The chief minister started off public life as a brilliant comedian, learning fast from the ‘Laughter Challenge’ stand-up show — his “Pushpa” jokes remain the stuff of political folklore — and implementing those life lessons in the Lok Sabha. He remains extremely shrewd and still has the capacity to deliver an impeccably-timed punch, except, sometimes, it seems as if the sand is slipping from his fingers.

Fact is, Punjab is far too debt-ridden, far too addicted to both buprenorphine or plain heroin, far too dependent on the distorted fortunes of its agricultural patterns as well as its Canada diaspora, and therefore, far too fallen on the table of grace for the rest of the country to take it seriously.

For the moment, Tamil Nadu, with its unfunny socio-economic parameters that are the envy of the country, wins.

As for whether “life begins where fear ends,” a gratuitous Osho proverb at the end of the Kamra episode after which all hell broke loose earlier this week, life seems to have quickly moved on since the Supreme Court’s Friday free speech rap. In Parliament at least, the newest debate was on the 14th-century Rajput king Rana Sanga’s credentials, with a Samajwadi MP calling him a “traitor” for allegedly inviting Babur into the country to defeat Ibrahim Lodi.

Only 10 days ago, proceedings in the Maharashtra Assembly were roiled over Aurangzeb’s rule, while in Nagpur property was damaged and people were injured as people clashed over their right to be offended over the long-dead Mughal emperor.

In the circumstances, who cared for data on present-day urban unemployment (at 17 per cent), serious hunger and malnutrition (105th out of 127 countries on the Global Hunger Index) and free speech (159th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index.)

As for whether something has shifted in India with the latest Kamra edition, the jury is, naturally, still out. But one has to only think back to Munawar Faruqui, who was arrested on January 1, 2021, for a joke he didn’t crack, but because a Hindutva group said it had overheard him say things at a rehearsal; to Nalin Yadav, just for being with Faruqui; to Kiku Sharda, arrested in 2016 for mimicking the Dera Sacha Sauda chief; to Vir Das, who in 2021 spoke in favour of the farmers’ siege of Delhi and against rape.

Perhaps the Supreme Court must be applauded for its defence of both poetry and comedy. After all, satire works because it pokes fun at the powerful and glorious and insists that gods have feet of clay. Comedians remind us that we’re all too human and that tomorrow is another opportunity not to take ourselves too seriously.

Perhaps Kamra has done us all a favour this week by reminding us that laughter is the great equaliser. It rearranges our lakshman rekhas and releases us from our fears. It allows us to be free.