In one of his shows, the stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui makes a dark joke about his native Gujarat and the deadly religious riots in 2002.
“Junagadh is a very lazy city. People go for siestas, close shops, nothing happens,” Faruqui said of his hometown, a former princely state.
The cartoon, which is a Muslim, says that when he was a boy, he got stuck in his mixed neighborhood for 12 days during an evening bell. A Hindu friend of his mother was their only togetherness.
“We were eight children in the house. I was happy because I did not have to go to school. The electricity had gone before, the telephones had gone dead, the elders in the house were concerned about their safety. But when the riots ended , [we found] no one was killed in Junagadh.
Do you know why? People were too lazy to even riot. ‘
The same cannot be said of other parts of the state. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed when riots broke out after a train fire killed 60 Hindu pilgrims.
Faruqui, now 30, is part of India’s youthful and lively comedy scene. It’s still rough around the edges and sometimes dull, but it’s full of energy and ambition and is not afraid to pull its strikes. More importantly, it began to draw an audience willing to pay for an evening of jokes, even from a relative newcomer like Faruqui. The problem is that not everyone in India appreciates a joke.
Therefore, the cartoon spent 26 days in jail for jokes he simply did not make.
On the evening of January 1, he embarked on a 14-city tour with a ticket show in a cafe in the central Indian city of Indore. A leader of a local Hindu fringe group showed up and stopped the show, complaining that the cartoon ‘insulted’ Hindu religious sentiments. Indore is a prominent city in Madhya Pradesh, ruled by the Hindu nationalist BJP. Hindus make up the vast majority of India’s population.
A cellphone video recorded by an audience member shows Faruqui pleading with Eklavya Gaud, the son of a ruling BJP politician, that he also jokes about Muslims in his shows and that he should be allowed to continue go. “I just want to make people laugh. If someone takes offense, I will never do it again,” he told Mr. Gaud.
“Let the show begin,” shouted impatient audience members.
Hindu-Muslim bhai bhai” [Hindus and Muslims are brothers]”” is heard a woman in the audience telling Mr. Gaud.
According to reports, Mr Gaud left the show within minutes and called police. That night, Munawar Faruqui and four others, including another cartoonist, were arrested and charged with furious religious sentiments and the execution of a ‘negligent act likely to spread the infection of life-threatening diseases’, referring to after the pandemic.
“He is a serial offender. He has made immoral remarks about Hindu deities and goddesses in the past,” Gaud later told reporters. Last July, a lawyer filed a lawsuit against Faruqui in the state of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Federal Interior Minister Amit Shah and injuring Hindu religious sentiments in various videos.
Eyewitnesses told reporters that Faruqui did not crack any jokes regarding religion when he was picked up, and that he did not even start his routine when Mr. Gaud did not stop the show. Police later admitted that they had no evidence that the cartoon had done so, and that the complainant had heard some jokes that the cartoon had prepared for the show.
“He was arrested for jokes he did not crack. Munawar did not even start the show when he was interrupted. A suspicion and expectation of a so-called criminal act can not be an offense. The police registered a case and arrested him without verifying the facts, Anshumaan Shrivastava, the cartoonist’s lawyer, told me.
During January, two courts have so far refused to grant bail, and the Supreme Court in Madhya Pradesh is hearing a new plea. Police say the release of the cartoon will lead to a ‘law and order situation’, although it is not clear. “It will have a cold effect on comedians. They will be constantly forced to police themselves,” Amit Varma, a writer and podcast, told me. “Stand-up comics will now tend to stay away from politics.”
On stage, Faruqui is a smiling, personal figure with a sense of whimsy. He is also a work in progress. He exploits contemporary Indian realities for his jokes and often sharpens his perceptive humor with explicit ones. He is a challenge to equal opportunities and mockery of all religions. He is also a rapper, and in a windy video he sings about stereotypes about a Muslim ghetto in Mumbai. He has half a million subscribers on his YouTube channel and is quickly gaining followers on Instagram as well.
In his shows, Faruqui produces a breathtaking eclectic series of jokes, some of which are half-finished. But there is no lack of trust. He mocks Punjabi pop music depicting women as ‘gold diggers’. He says every social media platform in India is finally becoming a dating platform. On one show he says: “If your girlfriend wants something from you, just give it to them, do not try songs about it”. He takes playful digs to the government, saying it is “responsible for wasting water” by using water cannons on protesting farmers.
Mr. Faruqui’s jokes are often peculiar and dark.
In one show, he tells the audience a joke about how his father found a notebook in which notes were found on how to make a bomb.
‘He threw the notebook at me and asked me who taught you everything? The chapter is missing here, he said. And it was political support [to make a bomb]”The audience cheers approvingly.
Amit Varma says: “I like him a lot. For someone who is so young, he has a sense of comedy and black humor, and he also knows how to connect emotionally with the audience. He jokes with everyone, he is honest and refreshing. “
Fellow comedians supported Faruqui. Followers posted messages of solidarity on his YouTube channel. “Do not see if you do not like it,” says one. His arrest is seen as the latest attack on freedom of speech in India, encouraged by vigilant activism by Hindu crowds and exacerbated by trolling by online hosts on social media. Last year, at least half a dozen comics apologized for hurting religious sentiments.
Jaideep Varma, a filmmaker who made I Am Offended, a documentary on stand-up comedy in India, says provocation is an essence of stand-up comedy, and Faruqui is no exception. “But they will only do their best if they are not chained. So this may be the way to go pragmatic from there. From now on, the group of topics that make people ignite is pretty narrow. to avoid it and the space for comedy from other sides. ‘
Stand-up comedian Sanjay Rajoura believes Faruqui’s jail sentence should concern all Indians. “In a civilized society, such unnecessary acts have no place. If you do not like it, do not go for it.”
“For now,” says Rajoura, “the joke is locked up in India.”