What Kunal Kamra said the other day and raised a laugh from his audience was nothing new. Uddhav Thackeray and his loyalists, that is those who stayed with him when the Shiv Sena split, had said much the same. They called the splitters “gaddars” or treacherous. It was acceptable to all, probably because such outpourings in the heat of existential electoral battles are allowed. It was at par for the course during both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
But, when it comes much later from a stand-up comedian, it is a thorn that pricks the ever-thinning skin politicians’ skins. It insults a section’s sentiments enough to vandalise a Mumbai studio where the comedian recorded his show and later brazenly claim the right to do so. Later, the civic body pounced on illegalities, and dismantled, destroyed, or brought to ground the place where Kamra recorded the show. As if the comedian was a detector of irregularities on the premises for the civic body to swoop in.
How come the civic body was unaware on its own of the irregularities in the studio? Or, as in Nagpur, the prime suspect – the media and the law enforcers prefer the word ‘accused’ even though the person is not charged in court – Fahim Khan’s house is bulldozed within four days of a notice? Fahim Khan had petitioned against it in the High Court and before the judges could hear it, Fahim Khan had no house left.
This, however, is a new but harrowing trend in Maharashtra where bulldozers as a symbol of instant justice – if justice it could be called – is emerging. Recently, a scrap dealer’s shop was flattened because locals in Malvan did not like what they said were ‘anti-national’ slogans backing Pakistan in the Champion’s Trophy. It was arbitrary retribution in the form of demolition and the court just did not approve of it.
Without minding the court’s views, the local governments step in and do their job with remarkable efficiency. After the Nagpur demolition of Fahim Khan’s house, a balcony of another accused was demolished. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court asked the civic body not to touch any other structure, calling the action “high handed.” Before the demolition squads moved in with their bulldozers, those who had built the presumed illegal structures had no time to appeal.
It is unlikely that any civic body would ever step into any fracas, even communal unless told to act because here people are being singled out. This linkage is what makes the entire operation, so quickly executed, suspect. Who directed the civic bodies to act? Civic bodies are not known for such efficiency; in Nagpur, they came with even drones and had full police bandobast. These raise more questions about which answers would now have to come out in the courts. It has to unravel.
It is not that the Maharashtra government and the apparatus of that state are unaware of what the apex court has said so far about this bulldozer justice. Several states, most prominently Uttar Pradesh, have seen these incidents more frequently than episodes on general entertainment programmes on television or OTTs. That they are lawless steps that they are arbitrary, that they are against natural justice has been underscored.
A minimum requirement of 15 days’ notice from local authorities before a demolition has been prescribed and this order is applicable across the country. Maharashtra and within it, Nagpur and Malvan are indeed part of India’s geography and subject to the law as any other part of the country. Why and how did the zeal for such demolitions emerge in Maharashtra? Will law prevail after the Nagpur Bench fumed by saying demolition in the way Fahim Khan’s house was razed. Will Maharashtra mend its ways?
Maharashtra or its local self-government bodies would have to tie themselves in knots to come out of what clearly constitutes contempt of the court. It is likely that the petition in the Nagpur bench of the High Court may lead to such a situation should legal eagles decide to pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. A Supreme Court order on illegal demolitions of even illegal structures has to be taken seriously by the governments and complied with.
Back to Kunal Kamra. He now must, as per the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and later deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, express his apologies for slighting the eminent man he had targeted but did not name. Contextually, we can imagine who was in his crosshairs and the audience laughed realizing who the unnamed person was. Kamra is now on his right to free expression and the political leaders are bent on curbing it. For the latter, Kamra cannot just say what he wants and get away with it.
Juxtapose this with the American comedians who take to the nightly television shows and mock, roast celebrities including politicians, and slaughter reputations of even their presidents and raise a laugh. They often do better than a cartoonist can and everyone enjoys a laugh. Even Donald Trump who calls legacy media he dislikes “failed” and purveyors of “fake news” haven’t yet blasted them.
