For Indian content creators, there’s nothing quite as dangerous as a slow news day. As evidence, just take the ongoing episode of national mass hysteria triggered by a Ranveer Allahbadia joke.

The popular podcaster—better known as Beer Biceps—recently appeared as a panelist on an episode of India’s Got Latent, Samay Raina’s talent-hunt-meets-insult-comedy show. Eager to show that he can be just as edgy as his co-panelists, Allahbadia came prepared with the darkest, dankest joke he could find with a few hurried minutes of googling. And when the right opportunity presented itself, he majestically whipped it out with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Would you rather watch your parents have sex every day for the rest of your life?” he asked one of the show’s contestants, pausing for effect before delivering the punchline. “Or join in once to stop it forever?”

The reaction from the live audience was a mix of shocked laughter and ironic groans, as everyone grappled with the icky mental image Allahabad had suddenly conjured up in their minds. But it’s a comedy show after all, not a safe space for emotionally-stunted people who can’t deal with the reality of their parents as sexual beings. So the audience laughed or cringed, whichever was appropriate, and promptly moved on to the next bit. Except for Allahbadia, who looked exceptionally thrilled with himself, I doubt anyone even remembered the joke five minutes later.

That would change last Monday, when someone took a clip of the interaction—the episode itself was behind a subscriber paywall on YouTube—and put it on social media. Predictably, some people took offense, as they will. The line between humour and vulgarity is entirely subjective, and you can’t please all the people all the time. Every minute of every day, the internet is full of people complaining about media they don’t like. It’s our favourite global sport. Usually, it all ends up being a storm in a teacup, forgotten the minute the next bit of rage-inducing clickbait hits our timelines.

Unfortunately for Allahbadia, Raina and everyone involved with India’s Got Latent, this wasn’t one of those times. When the clip went viral on Monday, the Delhi election news cycle had run its natural course. Thousands of ‘political activists’, IT Cell functionaries and professional outrage merchants—a permanent lynch mob always looking out for new victims—were scouring the internet for a new topic to pontificate on, to prove their usefulness to their political or economic masters. And then the perfect bait landed in their laps: comedians (“chee!”), making dirty jokes (“chee chee!”) about parents having sex (“Hey Ram!”).

The fact that Allahbadia—who, despite being a semen-retentionist imitation of Joe Rogan without any of the latter’s charm or wit, does massive numbers online—was the one cracking the joke is just the icing on the cake. Immediately, India’s well-oiled consent-manufacturing machinery cranked into life. Posts from the outrage merchants were picked up by more “legitimate” political leaders who saw, in Allahbadia’s association with the ruling party, a convenient stick to beat the Maharashtra government with. Leaders from the Congress, the BJP and the Shiv Sena jumped on to the sanskaar-obsessed doggypile.
The Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Assam both weighed in. Complaints were filed with the Mumbai police commissioner and the National Commission for Women.

At this point, Allahbadia tried to appease the mob by issuing an apology (“comedy is not my forte” was his justification), but it was too late. A group of burly ‘activists’ turned up outside the venue where the show was shot to protest. The All Indian Cine Workers Association issued a press release demanding an immediate ban on India’s Got Latent. MP Priyanka Chaturvedi promised to bring the issue up in front of a Parliamentary panel.

All this ersatz rage does is fuel the very real erosion of our rights, especially the right to freedom of expression.

And then things got even crazier. The Assam police, for some reason, filed an FIR against Raina, Allahbadia and the other panelists for obscenity. Not wanting to be upstaged, the Mumbai police sent a team to Allahbadia’s home, and then followed it up with their own FIR, which names not just those on the episode but anyone who’s been involved in the show’s first six episodes. Newspapers Mint and Times of India both started a live blog tracking developments in the case, because obviously this is the most important issue in the country right now.

The controversy was debated on prime time television, with Arnab Goswami and Sudhir Chuadhary weighing in. Allahbadia has been inundated with death threats, including from former WWE wrestler Saurav Gurjar. Some people even invaded his mother’s clinic, posing as patients. And watching all this unfold, I sat and cursed every single individual involved in this absurd media circus for forcing me to defend Allahbadia’s rights as a fellow citizen.

Because under all the pearl clutching, this surreal, ridiculous circus is actually about whether we really do have rights and rule of law in this country, or whether the mob rules above all. It’s not really about the joke, or even the sanctity of the parent-child relationship in a country that watches a disturbing amount of child porn. Instead, Allahbadia, Raina and the others are just the scapegoats of the moment, a red rag to wave at the crowd in order to justify the state getting even more involved in what you eat, say, watch, get amused by.

All this ersatz rage does is fuel the very real erosion of our rights, especially the right to freedom of expression. Already, a Shiv Sena MP has demanded stricter laws for content on social media and OTT platforms. Expect the Parliamentary panel to follow suit. Meanwhile other comedians are cancelling their shows in fear of becoming the mob’s next targets—BhaDiPa, Anubhav Singh Bassi. Raina has already taken down all episodes of India’s Got Latent, It’s the chilling effect in action. Rinse and repeat to create a population that is too scared of offending the moral police to say anything of real substance, let alone to dissent.

So sure, I could spend time decoding Allahbadia’s joke, which wasn’t even an original one, and kind of tame for insult comedy. I could point out that it’s hardly more offensive than the kind of jokes that many of those protesting share in private living rooms, on Whatsapp groups and even on their social media, dripping with bigotry, misogyny and hate. And that, when this case finally makes its way to the courts, it’s incredibly unlikely to meet the bar for obscenity laid down by law.

I could also point to the many problematic guests that Allahbadia has platformed on his podcast. Nobody took notice as he allowed them to spout vile, ahistorical garbage, while he nodded along like a puppy with an immense ability to have his mind blown by the most basic sophistry. Or I could direct you to the latest report by India Hate Lab, which found that instances of hate speech against minorities in India jumped by 74% last year, largely driven by these same outraged political leaders and parties, and ask why that isn’t more worthy of round-the-clock news coverage.

I could do all of that, but what would be the point? We’ve heard it all before. When the mob came for All India Bakchod’s Knockout roast in 2015, with protesters gathering outside the Only Much Louder offices to burn effigies. When Munawar Faruqui was assaulted and arrested in 2020 for a joke he hadn’t even cracked yet. When comedian after comedian faced police chargesheets for the most milquetoast of jokes that poked fun at power or its sacred cows, alongside artists, musicians, activists and anyone else with an audience.

We’ve heard it all before but we let it happen anyway, again and again. And I’m too tired, too devoid of hope, to regurgitate all the usual time-worn platitudes about democracy and the importance of free speech. The problem of citizens offering up our rights, decency and common sense at the altar of foul-mouthed demagogues is too big, too complex to untangle within a single oped, and the antidote elusive even for the world’s smartest academics. We just have to hope that the pendulum finally swings in the opposite direction, and the cultural zeitgeist no longer rewards self-appointed moral policemen with so much attention and power.

Till that happens, and I hope it does soon, all I have to offer is a couple of warnings. First, if you think that this can’t happen to you, that you’re too careful or inoffensive or too connected for the mob to get to you, think again. No amount of self-censorship or toeing the party line will keep you safe, because the mob is a ravenous beast, always on the prowl, and it’s not particularly picky about who it eats. You can align yourself with the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party, invite its leaders onto your podcast, and appear in public meetings with their finance minister, thinking that they’ll only eat other people’s faces. But one day, the leopards will show up at your house, bibs tucked in and fork in hand. Because that’s just what they do.

Secondly, if you still have the cojones to put out content that pushes the envelope beyond the narrow slice of territory marked out as safe by our political and cultural guardians, just pray that it doesn’t drop on a slow news day.