Comedian Kunal Kamra on Friday told the Supreme Court that India would be reduced to a ‘country of incarcerated artists and flourishing lapdogs’ if powerful people and institutions continued to an inability to tolerate rebuke or criticism. Defending his tweets critical of the Supreme Court in the Arnab Goswami case, Kamra said that there was a ‘growing culture of intolerance in the country, where taking offence is seen as a fundamental right which has been elevated to the status of a much loved national sport.’
Kamra filed his affidavit in the contempt case, which came up for hearing in the Supreme Court on Friday. This was after Attorney General KK Venugopal gave his contempt to initiate contempt proceedings against Kamra twice in November last year.
In his response, Kamra told the Supreme Court, “I may disagree with many decisions by many courts in many matters, but I promise this bench that I will respect any decision that comes my way with a broad smile. I will not vilify this bench or the Supreme Court in this matter specifically because that would actually be contempt of court.”
The famous stand-up comedian said that if the Supreme Court believed he had crossed a line and wants to shut down his internet indefinitely, ‘then I too will write Happy Independence Day post cards every 15th August, just like my Kashmiri friends.’
Kamra said that India was witnessing ‘an assault on the freedom of speech and expression, with comedians like Munawar Farooqi being jailed for jokes that they have not been made, and school students being interrogated for sedition.’
“At such a time, I hope that this court will demonstrate that the freedom of speech and expression is cardinal constitutional value, and recognise that the possibility of being offended is a necessary incident to the exercise of this right,” he added.
Comedian Munawar Faruqui has been languishing in a Madhya Pradesh jail for a month for a joke that he never cracked. Faruqui is accused of insulting Hindu deities and Home Minister Amit Shah by Hindutva brigade. A judge from the Madhya Pradesh High Court recently denied him bail saying that ‘such people must not be spared.’
Kamra said in his affidavit to the Supreme Court that the language and style he resorts to ‘are not with the intention to insult but to draw attention to and prompt an engagement with issues’ that he believes are ‘relevant to our democracy and which have also been raised in the public domain by more serious and learned commentators.’
Kamra continued, “I do not believe that any high authority, including judges, would find themselves unable to discharge their duties only on account of being the subject of satire or comedy.”
Stating that people’s faith in the judiciary is founded on the institution’s own actions and not on any criticism or commentary, Kamra said, “Just as the Supreme Court values the faith the public places in it (and seek to protect it by the exercise of its criminal contempt jurisdiction), it should also trust the public not to form its opinion of the court on the basis of a few jokes on Twitter.”
“Most people do not react to jokes that don’t make them laugh; they ignore them like our political leaders ignore their critics. That is where the like of joke must end. The truth about the attention economy is that the more attention one gives to criticism or ridicule, the more credible it appears to be,” he continued.
Background
Kamra had posted a series of tweets targeting the Supreme Court of India on in November. One of his tweets had read, “The Supreme Court of this country is the most Supreme joke of this country.”
In another tweet, he had shared a morphed photo of the Supreme Court, which was painted in saffron and a BJP flag flying on top.
In another tweet, Kamra had written, “The pace at which the Supreme Court operates in matters of “National Interests” it’s time we replace Mahatma Gandhi’s photo with Harish Salve’s photo.”
His tweet on Justice Chandrachud had read “DY Chandrachud is a flight attendant serving champagne to first-class passengers after they’re fast tracked through, while commoners don’t know if they’ll ever be boarded or seated, let alone served. *Justice*” He urged lawyers ‘with a spine must stop the use of the prefix “Hon’ble” while referring to the Supreme Court or its judges. Honour has left the building long back.’
Borrowing a line from Justice Chandrachud during a hearing in the Arnab Goswami case, Kamra had written, “If you don’t like my contempt of court don’t see it. Taking inspiration from the Supreme Court.” Justice Chandrachud had said that people didn’t like Goswami’s TV broadcast, they had the option of not watching his TV channel.
This was after the Supreme Court Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee had ordered the release of Arnab Goswami even though the Bombay High Court had asked the Republic TV founder to approach the lower court for relief. The argument by the Maharashtra government’s lawyer, Kapil Sibal, reminding how the Supreme Court had asked him to go to the lower court in a case related to the arrest of a Kerala-based journalist by the UP Police while he was on his way to Jathras to cover the gang-rape story did not impress Justices Chandrachud and Banerjee.