Spare AIB– it isn’t their fault

Let’s be clear- comedians, especially those swashbuckling satirists, have as much as a duty to resist assaults on free speech as much as they have a right to practise their freedom of expression. If you are flaunting irreverence and raining cuss words, you better not flee the scene at the first sight of having to face the heat. But, by making them the linchpin of the spirited resistance to the intolerance brigade, are we glossing over the culpability of others? 

It didn’t take too long for the adulation of the AIB cast — for sticking two fingers up to propriety, political correctness and others’ gamut of sentiments — to turn into condemnation for lacking the “scrotal strength” (an Op-ed writer’s words, not mine) to stand up for their (and in the same reckoning, others’) right to free speech when it really mattered. Their grovelling apology to the Archdiocese of Bombay for supposed slurs against the Catholic Church, its clergy, and the laity invited accusations of pusillanimity, and worse, for muddying the waters for others while they themselves tried to slither away. 

Exactly a week ago, adman Rahul da Cunha incurred the wrath of free speech advocates and believers for dispensing gratuitous advice to the AIB cast. Among other things, he told them to pick their battles carefully, and be wary of the vile and violent, especially because they would have to fight it out themselves. The intended beneficiaries were quite incandescent at what they perceived to be a suggestion to chicken out, and worse, an analogy of the wife-beater’s defence– practise insult comedy and hurt people, by all means, but don’t hit too hard. 

But the subsequent events seem to be vindicating Da Cunha. First, Vinod Tawde, Maharashtra’s minister for education and cultural affairs, directed the Mumbai Police to conduct a thorough probe into the “vulgarity”. The Pune Police, not to be left out, also jumped into the fray by using tendentious logic, lodged FIRs against both AIB and YouTube. A PIL in the Bombay High Court by an enraged and little-known Sharmila Ghuge, a law teacher, demanding stringent criminal prosecution for a slew of alleged offences- obscenity, deliberately and maliciously maligning religion and hurting the sentiments of the faithful, and even what could possibly count as sedition.

Last heard, a Girgaum court directed the police to register FIRs for a mind-boggling list of offences against 14 people- everyone who could be shown as having anything to do with the show.  

So, doesn’t the state and its machinery– the courts, law enforcement agencies, have any role to play in the hounding? Can it be said with certitude that especially the state of Maharashtra, with its past track record, should not shoulder any blame? 

See the bewildering array of offences listed in the FIRs and the PIL. Obscenity, instigating communal hatred, and thanks to the creative (and mendacious) interpretation of the Pune Police, the notorious Section 66A of the Information Technology Act.  The Girgaum court, taking giant leaps of logic, has thrown in environmental laws, too.

All the respective legal provisions dealing with these offences clearly state that they are cognisable- that is, the police isn’t required to secure a warrant from a Magistrate before executing an arrest. Stiff penalties follow if one is convicted– imprisonment for two years at the bare minimum is considered quite serious. Worst of all is the excruciatingly slow and terribly complicated process of the slothful courts, compounded by the devious strategies adopted by the “offended” complainants as well as the prosecution. Now tomorrow, there’s no stopping someone in either Satara, or even Ratnagiri to file yet another complaint, there’s no stopping another court in yet another region of Maharashtra from donning the garb of the saviour of the sentimental and the hurt. This means that the accused might be required o put everything on hold, and embark upon a cyclical yatra of the state’s courts and police stations. Not doing so– ignoring summons or not “co-operating in the investigation”, would invite a non-bailable arrest warrant.

Now, for the Maharashtra government’s tacit support, even encouragement, to the hordes of opportunist busybodies who crawl out of the woodwork of obscurity. Remember rationalist Sanal Edamaruku, who in 2012 stressed that the water dripping from a Christ statue was something as undivine and scientific as capillary action? Three groups with credentials which were dubious at best and nil at worst were about to have 17 F.I.Rs- across different police stations of Mumbai, lodged against him on a single day. The Bombay High Court declined to grant him anticipatory bail, for Section 295A of the IPC which criminalises deliberate and malicious attempts to hurt religious sentiments, which is considered a grave offence. Although finally only two F.I.Rs were registered, the police showed remarkable alacrity and enthusiasm to arrest, and abysmal apathy towards his legal rights. In court, the government clearly sang from the same hymn sheet as that of those who were out to get him. We are seeing a repeat now. The very same three groups are now pushing for the AIB cast’s prosecution (despite the apology) and the government, abdicating its constitutional duty to protect citizens’ freedom of expression, is playing tango. In case that sounds too lofty, how about practising minimum diligence and applying even a modicum of common sense? True, that Section 295A entitles even a single individual to file charges, but surely it isn’t naivete which is holding back the police from looking at these groups’ antecedents and figuring out their motivations? On its part, the Diocese has distanced itself from these ragtag groups, while some influential members of the Bombay Catholic Sabha have vouchsafed for their propensity towards mischievous attention-grabbing. 

But when the Chief Minister himself promises penal action if any variant of obscenity was depicted, there’s little chance that the police will exercise due caution and reasonableness before going out on a limb to file charges.
Another state institution which has escaped all scrutiny is the Rangbhoomi Prayog Parinirikshan Mandal or Stage Performances Scrutiny Board. Maharashtra is the only state to have a body empowered to demand that written scripts are submitted for prior verification (and censorship). Apparently, the AIB folks hadn’t run their script through this body, so they have set themselves up for legal action. We do not know how this body exercises its mandate, but the profanity-laced AIB Knockout would never have been permitted, because, in 2012, this august body of censors didn’t allow the staging of Yonichya Maneechya Gujgoshti (Vandana Khare’s Marathi translation of The Vagina Monologues).

It could well be the case that the AIB folks realised they didn’t have the wherewithal to fight on so many fronts at the same time, and hence threw in the towel before being asked to do so. But unless we desist from demanding their martyrdom, unless we train our guns on the real machinations of various motivated players, we shall have an encore, not of the “roast”, but of what is now clearly a round of tomfoolery which has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.