The Supreme Court’s decision to consider a possible ban on ‘sardar jokes’ has brought the focus back on what is ‘permissible humour’...
The Supreme Court’s decision to consider a possible ban on ‘sardar jokes’ has brought the focus back on what is ‘permissible humour’...
A day after the Supreme Court agreed to look into a PIL that asked for “sardar jokes” to be banned from a number of websites, on the grounds that they hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community, the spotlight has turned back again on the issue of what constitutes “permissible humour”. The honourable court observed that, “Since the Sikh community is behind you, we have to consider the plea seriously”. While “sardar jokes” may be in focus right now, on several occasions — like the All India Bakchod’s Knockout Roast and the Charlie Hebdo cartoons — questions have been raised about: What is okay to joke about and laugh at What isn’t And who gets to decide what should or shouldn’t be joked about
For those of whom making jokes is serous business indeed, these questions certainly aren’t a laughing matter. And they seem to agree that while certain types of humour may not be to everyone’s taste, taking the legal route is perhaps an extreme measure. “The public has all the right to be offended at anything,” says comedian, writer and playwright Anuvab Pal.
“I personally find so many things and so many jokes offensive. But that doesn’t mean I should go to the court and file a case. If you find a joke offensive, then ignore it. Or there are myriad ways in which you can assert or avoid them. But going to the courts is not acceptable.”
Sorabh Pant of the East India Company Comedy collective agrees. He says that while the collective ensures that any comedian whose humour is found to be offensive is blacked out by the group, seeking judicial intervention in these matters is “immature”. “If it is politically correct, it cannot be humour,” Sorabh states.
He adds that while the East India Collective does try to ensure its content is “tolerant of everyone”, tolerance levels themselves differ from person to person. “What was happening with the people of North East in Delhi They were being subjugated and that can’t be accepted. Sardar communities are quite often the source of these jokes, and persecuting someone on a regular basis with these jokes would be a big issue,” Sorabh says.
Anuvab Pal also says that several communities and groups may find themselves the object of a joke — but if everyone were to take offence or seek bans, soon no topic would be left on which it would be okay to make a joke. “Take the case of mother-in-law jokes. How would it sound if mothers-in-law filed a case against mother-in-law jokes ” asks Anuvab. “Yes, it is also true that jokes lead to straight-jacketing and stereotypes but that doesn’t mean you should ‘ban’ a joke.”
Of course, tolerance may be easy to preach, but it can be difficult for the individual/group which is the butt of a joke to practise. This is what comic actor Gurucharan Singh — popular for his turn as Mr Sodi in the TV show Tarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah — believes. “Humour is good; laughter in all forms is good. But not at the expense of hurting someone’s sentiments. When a joke is made about the religious inclinations of people, it can hurt. When I was a schoolboy, I would be deeply hurt by the 12 o’clock jokes made about sardars I did not understand why people would crack such jokes Later, my family explained that it was all a tactic to make me feel bad and then those jokes stopped bothering me,” Singh says.
Davinder Kaur Bhasin, the vice principal and head of the department of Philosophy of the G.N. Khalsa College opines that jokes about certain cultural groups have been around for a long time and filing petitions certainly isn’t the way to go. “As long as there’s no moral attack or character assassination of the community, I think these jokes are fine — the jokes shouldn’t be vicious and one should not take them too seriously. The Parsis, for example, know how to laugh at themselves,” says Davinder, and adds, “However, I do feel that people should be aware of the context of such jokes. For example, there’s a popular joke on ‘sardaro ka bara baj gaya’, which comes from the guerrilla tactics that the Sikhs would practice during the Mughals’ reign. Since Sikhs were much fewer in number, they would go out at night to save women who had been abducted by the Mughals. So the enemies would be cautious at midnight But now, nobody knows these stories.”
