TLDR: Two comedians are on the dock for making jokes. Actually scratch that. Munawar Faruqui is in jail for jokes he did not make. And Kunal Kamra is being hauled up for contempt for a series of tweets criticising the Supreme Court. And they both point to a new escalation. It isn’t that a person is being punished for crossing the line. Rather, ‘the line’ has become a fluid lakshman rekha, redrawn at will to target individuals at will.

Meet Munawar Faruqui

The 30-year-old moved to Mumbai as a child from Junagadh, Gujarat—soon after his house was burnt down in the 2002 riots. Until his arrest, his story read like the classic Indian Dream. According to his friends:

“He had dropped out of school and worked at a utensils shop of one of his relatives in Dongri, a Muslim-majority area in Mumbai. They would pay him Rs 60 for a 13-hour long shift. After this he did a bunch of odd jobs, when he came across a course on graphic designing. He arranged money, worked hard, saved up and did the course. After working with this company for a few years, he gave it all up to do standup comedy at the end of 2019.”

Faruqui became popular quickly, as his reputation for “quirky and dark” humour gained him millions of YouTube views over the past year. For example:

“In one show, he tells the audience a joke of how his father found a notebook where had jotted some notes on how to make a bomb.

 

‘He threw the notebook at me and asked me who's been teaching you all this? The main item is missing here, he said. And that was, political support [to make a bomb].’ The audience cheers in approval.”

The ‘precrime’ arrest

The event: On January 1, Faruqui was readying to headline an event at a cafe in Indore—which included two other upcoming comedians. 

In the audience: Aklavya Singh Gaur, who heads the Hind Rakshak Sangathan and is the son of a local BJP MLA. Gaur openly admits he came armed with an agenda: 

“We had got to know about the event beforehand and five-six of us decided to attend it as an audience to catch him in action. We made a video of the event wherein stand-up comedian Faruqui, as expected, made indecent remarks against Hindu deities, Union Home Minister Amit Shah. He dragged Godhra riots in it, too.”

A sequence of events: None of the above is borne out by video clips of the event, or by witnesses who attended it (Firstpost has a detailed description): 

• In fact, Gaur rushed the stage the moment Faruqui came on—and proceeded to rant about his allegedly anti-Hindu jokes. 
• After a back-and-forth with a polite Faruqui, the organisers decided to cancel the show (clip here). 
• Next, the comedians and their fans in the audience were roughed up by Gaur’s posse (clip here). 
• Gaur then called the cops who arrested Faruqui and four others.  
• The next day, they arrested Faruqui’s friend Sadakat Khan as a co-organiser of the event. 
• As Indian Express notes: Of the six, only three were comedians set to perform that evening. One was the younger brother of one of the comedians who was there to watch the show. Sadakat was just Faruqui’s friend who was arrested when he went to court to meet Faruqui.

The charges: They were charged under six separate sections of the law—of "deliberately intending to outrage religious feelings," for “uttering words etc with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings,” “negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life” (in view of the pandemic), for “disobedience to order” and for “acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention.” If convicted, they could face up to four years in prison.

Evidence, what evidence?

What’s striking in Faruqui’s case is the continually shifting ‘case’ against him. This is an arrest in search of evidence of a crime.

Just see the video! As early as January 4, the Madhya Pradesh police admitted —contrary to Gaur’s claims—they have no videotaped evidence of Faruqui or any of the other comedians making any offensive statements: “There's no evidence against him for insulting Hindu deities or Union Minister Amit Shah." Also this: The two videos submitted by Gaur are of another comedian with him allegedly cracking jokes about Lord Ganesh.

Actually, he’s an organiser! At this point, the police changed its tack—and claimed Faruqui was arrested as the organiser of the event (where no one said anything criminally offensive). Except he did not organise the event, and was only invited to perform in Indore—which was the first of a planned multi-city tour.

It was during rehearsals: Ok, so it didn’t happen at the event. Actually, they made these statements during rehearsals—that became the new narrative by January 13, when the superintendent of police Vijay Khatri told Article 14:

“Khatri said ’it didn’t really matter’ if Faruqui had not made the comments that were the basis for the arrests. ‘There was hungama (ruckus) at the venue even before Faruqui could perform,’ said Khatri. ‘But, we were told (by the complainants) that when they (comics) were rehearsing before the show, they were cracking jokes about Ram, Shivji.’ This, Khatri said, indicated intent, that they were going to joke about Hindu gods.”

Also as NDTV notes, the witness statements are exactly the same—suggesting a hasty copy/paste job.

The ‘past crime’ arrest

Saddled with zero evidence on the alleged crime in Indore, the police is now pointing its finger at an older performance in April. Faruqui made a not-particularly funny joke about ‘Mere Piya Ghar Aaya, Oh Ram Ji’ (watch it here):

“‘What a strange song, isn’t it?...Ram ji doesn’t give a f**k about your piya (sic). Ram ji is saying I haven’t gone home for 14 years myself,’ said Faruqui, who then  joked about how Sita might respond to the song. ‘She will start doubting...she will say (to the actor singing the song), if your husband is home, why are you updating my husband, bitch?’”

And he took this sharper crack at Amit Shah (watch it here):

“Faruqui joked about how he thought he was watching a popular Hindi movie from 1980, The Burning Train, when his father tried to stop him. ‘My father told me, don’t watch this nonsense. Flip the channel,’ said Faruqui, adding that he asked his father to explain why. His father, Faruqui said, told him that the clip was actually of the Godhra riots and that he was watching a news channel. ‘I thought it was a movie, directed by Amit Shah or something,’ Faruqui said.”

According to Khatri, these older jokes are proof of “intent”—even though the video has long been deleted from his YouTube channel due to the death threats he received at the time (but is still available and kept in circulation by his allegedly offended critics). 

Interesting aside: Faruqui was uncomfortable with the ‘Piya ghar aaya’ bit and wanted it deleted from the YouTube video. But his closest (Hindu) friends insisted that there was no reason to worry:

“I texted on the group that the justice system, our legal system was not that weak. That if people saw this video logically then it will not be an issue. We told him that there is enough common sense in our justice system that if you hear the joke then you will understand, it is about the song and not about the religion.” 

Bail, what bail?

Despite the lack of evidence, Faruqui has been denied bail twice. First, on January 5, a sessions court turned down his plea, saying their release “will create a law and order situation.” The reason: The police repeated unsubstantiated claims about his offensive comments during the show, and added a new one:

“They further pointed out that a few days back there was social unrest in Ujjain and Indore following remarks intended to hurt religious sentiments. In such a situation, comments made by Faruqui appear to be preplanned.”

To make it worse: Last week, the High Court turned down his plea for bail—and the ruling read like a guilty verdict: 

• It claimed that “scurrilous, disparaging utterances… were made by the applicant.”
• On what evidence? “It is not a case of no evidence. More so, the investigation is in progress. The possibility of collection of more incriminating material… cannot also be ruled out.”
• And if that doesn’t turn up, the court is content with Gaur’s claim that Faruqui told “outraging filthy jokes in social media deliberately against Hindu Gods, Lord Shriram and Goddess Seeta.”
• Last not least, please stop talking about rights and focus on your duty: “It is the constitutional duty of every citizen of the country and also of the states to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India.”

Enter, the UP police

When the April video went viral, two complaints were filed in Uttar Pradesh—by an RSS member—and Maharashtra, respectively. The Mumbai police didn’t find enough evidence to file an FIR. But the UP police filed one but did not act on it until Faruqui’s arrest in Indore—nine months later.  Now, they have a warrant issued by a local magistrate to produce Faruqui in a UP court. 

What this means: Even if Faruqui gets bail in Indore, he will be whisked off and thrown into another one in UP. 

The chutzpah of Kunal Kamra

Given what’s happened to Faruqui—and the chilling effect it is expected to have—Kamra filed an astonishing response to the Supreme Court notice issued to him.

The offence: The Court is considering several petitions filed by law students and lawyers—and greenlit by Attorney General KK Venugopal. Kamra’s crime: a series of scathing tweets on the Supreme Court’s order to give interim bail to Arnab Goswami—while many others languish in prison. To give you a taste, one such tweet read: “One of these two fingers is for CJI Arvind Bobde…ok let me not confuse you, it is the middle one.”

The response: Kamra finally responded to the Court’s show cause notice demanding a response. And on Friday, he personally responded to it, at great length and without a shred of remorse. You can read the entire statement here, but here is the most pointed passage:

“I believe that there’s a growing culture of intolerance in this country, where taking offense is seen as a fundamental right and has been elevated to the status of a much loved national indoor sport. We are witnessing an assault on the freedom of speech and expression, with comedians like Munawar Farooqui being jailed for jokes that have not even been made, and school students being interrogated for sedition... Should powerful people and institutions continue to show an inability to tolerate rebuke or criticism, we would be reduced to a country of incarcerated artists and flourishing lapdogs. If this Court believes I have crossed a line and wants to shut down my internet indefinitely, then I too will write Happy Independence Day postcards every 15th August, just like my Kashmiri friends.”

Reading List

• Firstpost has the most detailed account on what happened at the cafe.
• The Print reports on how Faruqui was essentially ‘set up’. 
• Article 14 has a must-read interview with the SP investigating the Indore case—and details on how the UP case could keep Faruqui in prison. 
• The Telegraph has details on the High Court ruling that shocked legal experts. 
• Quint talked to Faruqui’s closest friends who have been closely involved with his career. It reveals how four carefree young men can slide into a nightmare—that they still don’t fully understand. 
• LiveLaw explains why Faruqui’s case signals a clear and present danger to the right to free speech.
• Shrabonti Bagchi in Mint Lounge pens a must read on Muslim comedians—and what they are really up to.