Bharat with bite

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This comic ad in an April 1 newspaper got many angry responses from readers, most stating that the paper should screen its advertising before printing. ‘Indians take satire very seriously’, said Indian-born English comedian Rafiq Iqbal, then added, ‘India is a funny society, waiting desperately to laugh at itself’.Rafiq’s statement was not a punch line, just an uncomfortable home truth. The ability to laugh at others is a common universal trait, to laugh at yourself is funnier, and a trademark of selfconfident cultures.
In the 1980s after the successful release of Attenborough’s film Gandhi, an American beer manufacturer decided to use the Mahatma in a promotion of his brand. In a smoky American bar, the ad situated a dhoti-clad Gandhi look-alike on a bar stool across from a mug of beer. As the camera rolled, Gandhi turned to his television audience, picked up the mug, gulped the foamy brew and said with a resounding burp, ‘Nothing like Swiller beer to break a fast’. Soon enough the company stock rose, and the ad came to be viewed as comic relief as well as commercial brilliance. But a visiting Indian was so incensed by the mockery of the father of the nation, he sent a complaint to an MP in India. Before long there were questions in Parliament, and - through deft diplomacy - the offending ad was withdrawn. India 1 – America 0.
Political satire is an important indicator that a country takes its freedom of speech seriously. Had George Washington been substituted for Gandhi in the beer ad, not only would the comic intent have been lost, but no one would have raised an eyebrow to protest the maligning of the American father of the nation. In a country that regularly roasts its presidents on television, the highest office is the first target for lampooning.
In India however, life is inherently unfunny. Unhoused millions, gas tragedies, incompetent government programs, thieving bureaucrats, corrupt ministers, flood relief that never arrives, water wars and nuclear threats, life is a deathly serious refrain filled with despair and tragedy. To laugh in its face is to be disrespectful of the demands of daily life. And yet, the daily quantum of human suffering, the weight of public expectation to alleviate that suffering, and the cartoon of political characters that pose as potential providers in the scheme, altogether, rate India high as a setting of daily satire and parody.
Satire in fact makes daily tragedy tolerable, applying distance and perspective to an observation or occurrence that may seem too dire close up. All too often, the tragic is so extreme and catastrophic it is already tinged with satire. When a killer earthquake hit Gujarat some years ago, and people lay dying under the weight of illegally conceived high-rises, a German relief supply plane waited nine hours at the airport for customs clearance; at railway stations, a tout encourages you to limp so as to take advantage of the ticket quota for the handicapped. In newspapers and television, on roads and routine sightings around the city, are similar reminders of a system driven by greed, depravity and barbarism. Stories oscillate between reality and make-believe, tragedy and farce, and leave satirists wondering how to make an unwittingly funny situation funnier. When suitcases of notes are displayed in Parliament, microphones tossed, and knives brandished, it is hard to enact satire more effective than reality. The 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament House pales against the insider attacks that now occur with surprising regularity. If MPs are ready to kill each other in Parliament, Lashkar terrorists could reason, why even make an attempt from outside.
Of course, the dark side of Indian life demands a lighter subversive view. It is not enough to draw on Jayalalithaa’s weight, Mayawati’s handbag, Sonia’s Italianness or Kejriwal’s muffler — but to take each into an unknown arena of exaggeration, non-conformity and often into uncomfortable and unstated positions. Recent gleanings of Narendra Modi as muezzin in an Ahmedabad mosque, Manmohan Singh as loud-mouth standup comedian, Mamata as Barbie doll, all suggest that nothing is sacred unless it is also profane. Satire is just another subverted restatement of the truth, and unlike humour, can produce mixed states of emotion oscillating between delight, euphoria and sadness.
Today, beyond the boundary wall of the private house, life is a matter of such criminal tragedy that even without any attempt to embellish, it has became a highly developed form of comedy. With a daily dose of rapes, burnt missionaries, hacked housewives, unimaginable brutality against tribals, female feticides, racial attacks, rapes and social protests, India is wealth of satire, a canvas expanding with each passing day. At one time it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time. Now it is difficult to stop laughing.