Blown ridiculously out of proportion? Bhat of course!

A comedian uploads a Snapchat video on Thursday morning, reposts it on Facebook later that day, faces backlash on social media over the weekend and is being threatened by politicians and investigated by the police on Monday. Talk about escalating quickly.

Last week, Tanmay Bhat, a member of comedy group All India Bakchod (AIB), posted a video titled “Sachin vs Lata Civil War”. Using the face-swapping feature of Snapchat, Bhat masqueraded as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and singer Lata Mangeshkar. The not-so-flattering portrayals of two Indian idols did not go down well with their many fans. And when something does not go down well, you know what to do. That’s right. You take to Twitter and express outrage.

So, from being the darling of SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) for his rant on feminism from the co-driver’s seat of a car, Bhat became one of India’s most hated and a trending hashtag. Never mind that the trend was ‘Tanmay Bhatt’. Par for the 21st century course, the hate did not stay restricted to public figures and the general populace on social media.Before long, mainstream media stepped in, as did political parties.

Shiv Sena leader Neelam Gorhe wrote a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in which she said such videos are made by people with “deranged mentality”. Not to be left behind, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) filed an FIR against Bhat, with Ameya Khopkar, president of the party’s Chitrapat Sena, issuing a not-so-subtle threat: “Whenever we will see Tanmay, we will beat him.” The women’s wing of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to Mumbai Police asking internet service providers (ISPs) to block the video. Mumbai Police is not investigating this comment. Instead its Special Branch is looking into the complaint against the comedian. Meanwhile, the cyber crime cell is “in touch with Google,Facebook and Youtube” to get the offending video blocked.

Amidst all this, it is astounding that certain sections of the media have managed to stand out.

Deccan Chronicle, for instance, has been quick to dub the comedian’s work “mediocre”. This was not, mind you, just a review of just this one video, but of his oeuvre. Kudos to the reporter(s) who painstakingly went through years’ worth of material and made that judgement call. Indian Express, on the other hand, is convinced that whatever was depicted in the video was, in fact, an insult to and not a parody of the two public figures. The evidence on offer?A series of tweets by people from the film fraternity.

Neither of these reports compare to the reactions to this tweet on Monday afternoon.  Bhat’s tweet – “Please pay me @Snapchat” – was obviously a joke. Right? Not if you’re NewsX.

In its bid to be seen as the most jingoistic English-language news channel of them all, NewsX decided to miss the forest for the trees, or in this case, the funny for the flag. Someone at the news organisation clearly thought he was being “greedy” – the proof of this pudding is in the URL, not the actual headline which someone had the sense to edit. Small mercies, right? Wrong.

AajTak, too, took the tweet a tad too literally (Update: This tweet has since been deleted):

Perhaps it is this eagerness of the media to “break” news on television screens and generate clicks on the internet no matter what. Or maybe it’s the belief that mainstream media lacks a sense of humour. Whatever be the reason, comedians are increasingly sceptical of being quoted out of context by reporters and would rather play it safe by airing their views on social media platforms.

Newslaundry contacted four comedians. Two of them ranted about the irresponsibility of the media, one hung up and the other didn’t take our call.

Actor and writer Ratnabali Bhattacharjee was one of the few who had no qualms about voicing her opinion. Asking people in general and the media in particular to “please calm down a bit”, the comedienne of How I Raped Your Mother fame feels everyone should take a leaf out of the Bong book of adda. “Every evening, people start debating and almost come to fisticuffs. But then they go home, sleep it off and come back the next day to do it all over again over cups of chai.”

Instead, these dayspeople seem to overeager to take offence. Politicians take up the cudgels on behalf of vote banks with delicate sensibilities. People take to social media and follow the herd. None of this is new. It’s just when the funny men and women of the country have to think twice before airing their views, you know the country has got an FoE problem.

P.S. That’s a pun and short for ‘freedom of expression’.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @causticji