Once upon a time, the Indian comedian was harmless. He made faces, mimicked servants, joked about wives and mothers-in-law, and called it entertainment. And the audience laughed. Today, the Indian comedian is often a mirror. She speaks of unpaid emotional labor, queerness, religious bigotry, and caste privilege. And the audience files an FIR. What changed? India didn’t stop loving comedy. It stopped tolerating truth.
Watch any classic episode of The Kapil Sharma Show. Jokes fly about wives being loud, fat, nagging, or jobless. Sumona Chakravarti’s character is the archetype of the mooh phat aurat, routinely mocked for being single. The iconic characters of Gutthi and Palak, played by men, use queerness not to critique but to caricature. Raju Srivastav, a national favorite, built entire routines around domestic violence and servant-master slapstick. On The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, comedians like Sunil Pal made regional accents—Bihari, Hyderabadi, Marathi—into laugh tracks. These were jokes that affirmed hierarchy, not questioned it. This brand of comedy was never protested. No police complaint. No brand withdrawal. Why?
Because it targeted those already vulnerable: women, lower castes, the mentally ill, regional minorities. It was safe because it kept power comfortable.
Today’s comedy doesn’t always make you laugh out loud. Sometimes it makes you shift in your seat. Take Supriya Joshi, who performs sets about fatphobia, loneliness, and emotional trauma. Aditi Mittal unapologetically talks about menstruation, orgasms, and social hypocrisy. Her set on tampons was both hilarious and revolutionary—and was met with online abuse for being “vulgar.” Urooj Ashfaq explores the Indian mental health crisis, therapy shame, and being Muslim in a Hindu-majority nation. But she doesn’t perform identity. She performs insight. And then there’s Munawar Faruqui. Arrested for a joke he hadn’t even told yet, accused of hurting religious sentiments. His real offense? Daring to mock power. These comics don’t punch down. They punch up, with nuance. That’s what makes them dangerous.
India’s comedic double standard is clear. Joke about a wife’s cooking and the crowd roars. Joke about the Prime Minister’s speeches? Legal notice. Why is it acceptable to laugh at a woman being scolded in a kitchen, but not at a man in saffron robes making sexist remarks? Because old-school humor affirms. It entertains the powerful and flatters the comfortable. It mocks the marginalised. It is performative ritual, as Ambedkar noted, repeating caste and gender hierarchies through laughter. Woke comedy disturbs this ritual. It points to what society tries to forget. And that disruption is perceived not as humor but as rebellion.
Today’s comedians speak under layers of control. Laws like Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, now retained almost verbatim as Section 293 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, criminalise “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.” Even more disturbing is the afterlife of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. Though struck down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) for being unconstitutional, it continues to be invoked in FIRs and arrests—a legal zombie that refuses to die. Meanwhile, Section 69A of the IT Act allows the government to block any online content it deems a threat to “sovereignty,” “decency,” or “public order.” This catch-all clause is routinely used to suppress political critique and satire. These vague terms have teeth. Comedians like Kunal Kamra and Agrima Joshua have faced suspension, harassment, and threats. Platforms aren’t safer. Instagram and YouTube reward “family-safe” reels about Zomato, Tinder dates, and gym bros. But mention caste, farmer suicides, or queer intimacy? Your reach drops. Your career stalls. This isn’t comedy. It’s compliance.
A troubling trend has emerged. Even politically aware comics now turn to “safe” jokes. Everyone’s talking about middle-class moms, chai addiction, and Swiggy boys. The more relatable a joke is, the more it’s shared. But relatability can be a trap. Relatable comedy avoids risk. It doesn’t mention rape culture, Islamophobia, or book bans. It avoids the word “Dalit.” It makes the viewer feel seen, but not responsible. As regional stand-up scenes grow—in Tamil, Marathi, Bengali—the trend repeats. Jokes on traffic, uncles, and local weddings thrive. But politics is absent. The regional comedy boom may be exciting, but it’s still apolitical.
One of the most invisible yet powerful forms of censorship in comedy today is corporate sponsorship. Brands want relatability, but not resistance. They love edginess, but only in aesthetics, not in substance. A comedian making jokes about their dating life is seen as bold. One joking about political surveillance is labelled controversial. Many comedians working with OTT platforms, YouTube monetization, or social media collaborations now receive direct feedback about what kind of humor “works” and what gets demonetized. The result is a chilling effect. A comedian may not be banned—but they will be algorithmically buried.
In cities like Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, and Hyderabad, a new generation of regional-language comedians is drawing huge crowds. Tamil comedians joke about autorickshaw drivers and local weddings. Bengali comics parody elite accents and food obsessions. But very few talk about caste-based violence in Tamil Nadu or political unrest in Bengal. Even in Marathi comedy, where tradition meets modernity, there is little space for jokes about the farmer crisis or Hindutva politics in rural Maharashtra. The regional boom in comedy has brought new voices, but those voices too often echo the safe laughter of the mainstream.
Here’s a simple test:
Joke about your wife yelling? Applause.
Joke about casteism in marriage? Troll storm.
Joke about Brahminical rituals? Legal case.
Joke about your mother-in-law asking for dowry? Viral meme.
It’s not about what’s funny. It’s about what’s permitted. Woke comedy threatens the myths India tells itself—that women are respected, caste is irrelevant, and freedom of speech is guaranteed. So it must be suppressed, not because it’s offensive, but because it’s effective.
In a recent interview with The Lallantop, Zakir Khan—India’s storytelling sensation—was asked, “Political stand-up kab dekhne ko milega aur usmein kendra mein kaun hoga?” (“When will we see you do political stand-up, and who will be at the centre of it?”). With his signature smile, Zakir responded playfully, “Agar main political comedy karunga toh aapko kaisa lagega?” (“If I start doing political comedy, how would you feel?”). The person replied, “Maza aayegi.” (“It’ll be fun.”) To which Zakir instantly quipped, “Aapke personal pleasure ke liye main apna career toh nahi kharaab karunga.” (“I’m not going to ruin my career for your personal pleasure.”)
The studio erupted in laughter. It was a perfect moment—light, clever, but loaded. That clip, now viral on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, captures the soft fear beneath the humour—the quiet truth that even the most loved comedians are constantly negotiating safety. That’s what woke comedy does. It doesn’t entertain with ease. It disturbs with intent. It doesn’t hand the audience a villain to laugh at. It asks: Are you the villain? And that’s exactly why it’s dangerous.
If a country can laugh at oppression but not at power, then its laughter is not joy. It’s denial. And that denial is dangerous—not just for comedians, but for democracy itself. Comedy is not just about catharsis. It is a thermometer of society. What we can laugh at reveals what we can live with. What we cannot joke about shows what we have been taught to fear. The louder we laugh at the powerless, and the quieter we get around the powerful, the more distorted that thermometer becomes. We haven’t stopped being funny. We’ve just stopped being brave. Until we embrace comedians who confront us, not just comfort us, Indian comedy will remain what it has too often been: not a mirror to society, but a mask for it. And the real question is—how long will we keep wearing that mask?
- The author is a Ph.D. Scholar and Senior Research Fellow at Dr. K. R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
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