Election a boost for Indian satire
Updated
India is now in its second week of a month-long rolling parliamentary election.
And the politicians aren't the only ones clamouring to be heard. Comedians are also crowding the airwaves with a more brazen form of satire than many Indians are accustomed to.
Presenter: Alana Rosenbaum
Speakers: Vir Das, comedian; Cyrus Broacha, comedian, host, "The Week that Wasn't"; Kunal Vijayakar, producer, "The Week that Wasn't"; Shishir Joshi, Group Editorial Director, Mid-Day
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ROSENBAUM: Comedian Vir Das calls on India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, or Chidu, to reduce taxes. His satirical song also takes a dig at Sonia Gandhi, the head of India's ruling Congress party.
DAS: If we see Sonia after some booze then we may choose to re-elect her.
ROSENBAUM: India has a long tradition of political satire, but this kind of humour is a fairly recent phenomenon. Traditional satirists caricatured India's leaders, without mentioning them by name. But now, a new generation of young comedians is ignoring the old conventions, and naming and shaming with abandon. Das tours India with his stand up comedy act. His main targets are politicians, film stars and cricketers.
DAS: In some ways I was like the immature kid who throws crumpled pieces of paper from the back and makes wise cracks. But I believe any political comedy is centred in truth. A lot of what we end up doing without intending to is saying what people are too afraid to say in public.
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ROSENBAUM: "The Week that Wasn't" is India's answer to "The Late Show with David Letterman". The program is screened weekly on a 24-hour news channel, and features comedian Cyrus Broacha sending up the headlines. For Broacha, even terror is fodder for comedy. Here's what he said about last month's ambush in on the Sri Lankan cricket team during its Pakistan tour.
BROACHA: Everyone is questioning whether cricket will be safe in the subcontinent and specifically in Pakistan ever again. But there's no reason to worry. CNN-IBN has learnt that some cricketing nations have agreed to play in Pakistan during the World Cup. These nations include Waziristan, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and parts of China. The catering will be done by Somalia.
ROSENBAUM: This type of news comedy has been in the west for decades, but in India, it only hit the airwaves a couple of years ago.
Producer of the "Week that Wasn't" Kunal Vijayakar says corruption and dysfunctional politics make for good comedy.
VIJAYAR: If you look at Obama's government, I don't think the talk show hosts have been able to get great comedy. But when you had a guy like George Bush who was screwing up every second day, he gives a huge platform for comedy. A strait-laced government that is just managing in an apparent clean, simple way has no comedy. Somebody needs to do something bad to create comedy.
ROSENBAUM: But there are several subjects that are off limits to comedians, like caste, religion and the sex lives of politicians.
The Indian tabloid Mid- Day was reminded late last year just how sensitive people can be when it published a cartoon of India's Sikh prime minister Manmohan Singh in bed with two political opponents.
After the edition hit the streets, more than 100 Sikh protesters marched on the paper's Mumbai office. Police kept them at bay, but Mid-Day's group editorial director Shishir Joshi says the incident served as a warning.
JOSHI: We do exercise great caution. The written word is one thing but carrying pictures [is another]. There's no binding on freedom but we exercise sensitivity. We don't cross the line for fear of a backlash. In India there is the advantage of being a democracy but there are also problems of being a democracy. There is so much freedom you don't know if a group is going to take it as an offense against their pride or religious sentiment, and they might come and attack you.
ROSENBAUM: Today's comics are a lot bolder than their predecessors. But in a country with a long history of bloody communal riots there's a limit on just how far you can carry a joke.
