In Defence of Offence: On the Ranveer Allahbadia Controversy

We’re a country where everything you say will offend at least someone, somewhere.Ranveer Allahbadia, better known as BeerBiceps, finds himself in the center of India’s latest free speech battle, and has probably triggered what will end up being a significant restriction on free speech in the country. His crude question on Samay Raina’s India’s Got Latent show triggered outrage, FIRs were filed, and an intervention from the Supreme Court of India had to be sought for Allahbadia to prevent arrest.

YouTube removed the episode, Allahbadia apologized, and Raina deleted the entire history of his show. But that wasn’t enough—the Supreme Court has stopped Allahbadia from posting on social media, and politicians are calling for stricter regulation of digital content.The hecklers clearly have the veto in India.



We saw it with: Cartoons against corruption by Aseem Trivedi in 2012The (rather distasteful) AIB Roast, which, in case you notice, is still available online. Tanmay Bhat posted a video parodying Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar. When a girl asked online why it should be a holiday when a politician dies, and another liked it, both were arrestedAnd we’re seeing it again now.

In fact, there’s a pattern here that makes me wonder if the outrage and actions are mere orchestration to push for a change of policy: Stupidity or insensitivity: Someone makes a controversial or offensive statement. It’s usually something stupid, ignorant or insensitive.Amplification: Troll groups amplify it.

Politicians add fuel to the dumpster fire on social media with moralising and justification of the outrageMore amplification: The outrage is amplified by media, because dancing on someone’s grave (or schadenfreude) brings TRPs and pageviewsCensorship: Platforms respond by censoringPolicy creation: There’s nudge by the government or courts to create or enforce a regulation to restrict speechWe even saw this pattern play out when someone posted Google’s Bard response about the Indian Prime Minister last year, which ended with a ridiculous advisory on AI which appeared ignorant of how AI works. The pattern fits.This controversy is about much more than one distasteful joke—it is about whether we want to live in a society where the heckler’s veto and the rule of the mob decide free speech.

A few points:1. Samay Raina should not have had to delete his workOne of the worst aspects of this controversy is that Samay Raina felt compelled to delete all episodes of India’s Got Latent. That is an erasure of history, and of work that, even if deeply offensive, distasteful and with crass humour (or attempts at humour), should have remained online, especially because it was (probably) legitimate speech, just like Ranveer Allahbadia’s offensive, distasteful and crass and apparently unoriginal attempt at humour.

That he was driven to delete it all is an indication of the fear of the mob, and the shameful state of our law and order system – that it cannot protect the fundamental right to free speech and uphold the constitution. 2. What are the legal grounds for blocking content here? Apar Gupta writes out in his opinion piece that Section 69A of the IT Act has been used to block the content, pointing out that: “ ‘Decency and morality’ do not fall under the grounds for blocking websites under Section 69A.

This statutory limit was exposed as far back as 2010, when the government tried to block the pornographic website Savita Bhabhi. Legality, however, has not stood in the way of the Union government’s expanding appetite for censorship, as seen in the surge of blocking orders, which has been aided by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.”Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules gives broad powers to the IT Ministry to empower government bodies (even the Indian Railways) to send take-down notices.

Intermediaries tend to over comply in order to insulate themselves from liability.I would argue that the fact that the Maharashtra Cyber Department reportedly requested the removal of all 18 episodes of the controversial show, is also deeply problematic and probably unconstitutional.3.

What exactly is the case for banning obscenity online? If there’s something patently illegal about the speech, they deserve to be prosecuted for it. However, I can argue that in this case, it wasn’t defamatory, and the word “obscene” is undefined. Even if something is “obscene”, what’s the case for banning it or for prosecuting someone for it when online viewing is private viewing? For example, let’s take the case of pornography.

In 2019, the Supreme Court of India heard a case that advocate Kamlesh Vasvani filed about banning access to porn in the country.The then Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi said clearly:“If someone wants to watch in the privacy of their bedroom, how can we stop that? These are now issues of 19(1) [Freedom of Speech]”..

.“Can we be moral policing?”..

.“There are many issues and we don’t want to do moral policing.”If this is being banned, and not half the Internet that is porn (I’m joking), then what gives?4.

Are we at that “stop-this-stop-that” moment? Rohatgi also said then:“The best filter is not to stop it at the gateway of the country, but at the home. If two adults feel it is entertainment..

.we cannot be present in everyone’s house. Some kind of self regulation has to be done.

That is how it works across most of developed countries. Otherwise, it becomes a totalitarian state. What happens to 19(1)? Tomorrow they will say ‘stop this, stop that’.

”In the last week alone, there’s been a move to get Wikipedia to censor content related to Sambhaji Mahraj. DoT has sent a notice asking platforms to block content that explains to people how to change caller identification. Streaming services are already censoring content.

A self regulatory body for streaming, which has no jurisdiction to direct a streaming service to censor content, did exactly that a couple of years ago. They complied.No one is forcing people to watch India’s Got Latent.

The solution to offensive content is simple—don’t watch it. In fact, anyone who has watched that episode has actually paid membership fees to watch it.In fact, the Supreme Court in the Shreya Singhal judgment very clearly pointed out:“Information that may be grossly offensive or which causes annoyance or inconvenience are undefined terms which take into the net a very large amount of protected and innocent speech.

A person may discuss or even advocate by means of writing disseminated over the internet information that may be a view or point of view pertaining to governmental, literary, scientific or other matters which may be unpalatable to certain sections of society. It is obvious that an expression of a view on any matter may cause annoyance, inconvenience or may be grossly offensive to some. A few examples will suffice.

A certain section of a particular community may be grossly offended or annoyed by communications over the internet by “liberal views” – such as the emancipation of women or the abolition of the caste system or whether certain members of a non proselytizing religion should be allowed to bring persons within their fold who are otherwise outside the fold. Each one of these things may be grossly offensive, annoying, inconvenient, insulting or injurious to large sections of particular communities and would fall within the net cast by Section 66A. In point of fact, Section 66A is cast so widely that virtually any opinion on any subject would be covered by it, as any serious opinion dissenting with the mores of the day would be caught within its net.

Such is the reach of the Section and if it is to withstand the test of constitutionality, the chilling effect on free speech would be total”.We’re not there yet, but the direction is clear. Regulations will eventually be created for obscenity.

5. On the Supreme Court asking the Centre to regulate “obscene” content on social media The Supreme Court, in a hearing related to the case, where it granted Allahbadia protection against FIRs, as well as the opportunity to seek protection against death threats, reportedly asked “We would like to know that in this country, if this is not obscenity then what is?”“Do you subscribe to the language that he has used? What is the parameter of obscenity? There is height of irresponsibility. They believe that since they’ve become popular they can say anything.

There’s dirt in his mind. Why should the court favour such a person?”Additionally, it was reportedly said by the Court that “We would like you (the government) to do something. If the government is willing to do something, we are happy; otherwise, we will not leave this vacuum and barren area the way so-called YouTube channels are misusing it and all these things are going on.

.”I’ll get into some legalese here (which you may skip for the last line of this point, if you’re not interested).In his opinion piece on this issue, Apar Gupta points towards the Supreme Court’s judgment in Apoorva Arora v.

Govt. of NCT of Delhi (2024), wherein the court points towards the method to objectively judge whether material is obscene:“The court must consider the work as a whole and then the specific portions that have been alleged to be obscene in the context of the whole work to arrive at its conclusion”..

. “Further, the court must first step into the position of the creator to understand what he intends to convey from the work and whether it has any literary or artistic value. It must then step into the position of the reader or viewer who is likely to consume the work and appreciate the possible influence on the minds of such reader.

”That draws from another judgment about a book which further indicates the mechanism for assessment, specifically: “In some places there may have been an exhibition of bad taste leaving it to the readers of experience and maturity to draw the necessary inference but certainly not sufficient to bring home to the adolescents any suggestion which is depraving or lascivious.”Now the Shreya Singhal vs Union of India judgment, the pre-eminent ruling for protecting free speech online, declared Section 66A unconstitutional but did not specifically address obscenity. However, it pointed toward a connection with causal action.

“That the information sent has to be annoying, inconvenient, grossly offensive etc., also shows that no distinction is made between mere discussion or advocacy of a particular point of view which may be annoying or inconvenient or grossly offensive to some and incitement by which such words lead to an imminent causal connection with public disorder, security of State etc.”The point being made.

Basically, the obscenity case against Ranveer Allahbadia’s obnoxious joke is only valid if it will lead to kids wanting to have sex with their parents. 6. Read the Room: conservative moral policing and the erosion of individual rights One can argue that India has always been a conservative culture.

In 1994, mobs took to the street against a song that used the word “sexy”. Now there is no objection to it. Conservatives believe that speech should reflect past societal norms.

Liberals push boundaries and redefine what is acceptable. The question is: who gets to decide?If you track the censor board’s actions in requesting word censorship and enforcing content codes, you’ll see that it has become much more aggressive in censoring content, including removing nude scenes even from films rated A.(An aside- Aroon Deep’s twitter is a useful handle to track film censorship.

) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi surprised me by stating that she will raise the issue of online content with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, saying:“I will be raising the issue regarding the show called India’s Got Latent as a member in the standing committee of IT& Communication for the kind of vulgar , blasphemous content that is passed off as comedy. We need to set boundaries since these platforms influence young minds and they are passing off absolute rubbish as content. The language used by Ranveer Allahabadia which was also actively encouraged by others on that ‘comedy panel’ is unacceptable.

”Chaturvedi, who has in the past defended free speech, is probably reading the room, following the mob, and doing what politicians do. The people fueling outrage aren’t the ones making jokes—they are the politicians and media channels who see controversy as an opportunity. The political one upmanship to appeal to conservative views on issues should not come at the cost of individual and constitutional rights.

As I wrote about one of Tanmay Bhat’s hundred million controversies (mild exaggeration) in 2016:“The role of an artist in society is to challenge conventions and make us see the world in a different light, to give us a broader perspective, to at times offend us by ridiculing holy cows and social conventions to help us realize that everyone is human, and there are no heroes.”What we are witnessing is not just public backlash—it is a coordinated attempt to roll back hard-won freedoms under the guise of cultural preservation. Chaturvedi should know better, and of course, someone on the Internet was quick to point out her inconsistency.

The biggest enemies of free speech are not idiotic statements or distasteful jokes—we can always choose to ignore these. It is forcing everyone to think twice before expressing themselves.7.

What would an obscenity regulation look like?Now that the Supreme Court has told the government that here needs to be regulation of obscenity on social media, it’s likely that: We will probably get an obscenity regulationFor that to happen, whether via a separate law (unlikely) or rules under the IT Act (most likely), the government will have to establish a definition of obscenity. Thirdly, it’s likely that from a content perspective, the government will most likely delegate regulation of obscenity to platforms (because it doesn’t have the capacity or the capability to do so, nor does it want to take that risk), and Fourth, the government will probably implement this by threatening platforms with attribution of liability, which is its standard method for ensuring compliance.Defining obscenity is a moving target (ref: the Sexy Sexy Sexy controversy I referenced previously), so it will be vague.

In which case, it is likely that the implementation will be arbitrary and dependent on the vagaries of the sentiment of the mob at the time. This should be challenged, should it come up, because it probably will never be able to rationally meet the test set by the Supreme Court.8.

The censorship of future speech It’s concerning that the Supreme Court has reportedly barred Allahbadia from participating in any shows in the interim. Why should potentially legal free speech be subjected to prior restraint – in that it is restricted or restrained by courts? Just as speaking distastefully is not a ground for putting someone in jail, why should that be grounds for censoring future speech, which may or may not be distasteful? When speech is censored prior to publication, it’s called pre-censorship. What would this be called: Pre-pre-censorship?The right to free speech should not be conditioned on court permission.

Additionally, no democracy should accept a system where authorities require someone to prove their future speech won’t be offensive before allowing them to speak. Apart from that, Ranveer Allahbadia’s business is podcasting, and the Supreme Court’s gag order effectively also restricts his fundamental right to carry on his business.9.

Consequences of the actions against Allahbadia and Raina: The process is the punishment, as former CJI Ramanna has also acknowledged. The police have summoned “at least 50 people”, according to reports. Over a joke.

How is this okay?The problem isn’t just this one case—it’s the chilling effect it creates. The AIB Roast led to fewer boundary-pushing comedy specials. The Tanmay Bhat controversy about parodying Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar made creators hesitant to parody public figures.

Every time a case like this happens, it pushes digital content creators toward self-censorship. As I wrote in 2016:“We haven’t had an AIB Roast since an FIR was filed for the last one. I doubt we’ll see another mimicry video from Bhat for a while.

What this FIR will do is prevent other folks from parodying famous people.”The lesson creators learn is simple: if you push boundaries, the mob—and the state—will come for you. Raina is from a newer generation of creators.

It will probably be a while before anyone tries to push boundaries again.10. Can’t expect platforms to protect speech India has a history of theatre owners shutting down screenings of films due to threats of vandalism and threats by political actors.

They’re probably not getting vandalised anymore – or at least not as much – because Bollywood has become insipid in order to avoid any such risks. That’s a chilling effect on speech. Now this focus has shifted to stand-up comedians, who have had to cancel shows because of being denied police permission, or, as recently as last month, cancel shows because of political threats.

They’ve received death threats, the police have filed cases against them, and some are being arrested for satire. This kind of harassment has been normalised, and with impunity. The police are supposed to protect free speech, not prevent it.

This has probably had a chilling effect on standup comedy as well...

It’s no surprise that, in the absence of his political jokes, I found Varun Grover’s show last year quite insipid. Rajneesh Kapoor, who opened for Grover, was so much better, and yes he was political, while Grover was careful. Who can blame him?Just like we can’t expect theaters to protect films, or comedy clubs to protect comedians, we can’t expect platforms to protect content either.

YouTube has removed the video, it appears because of a legal request, and it has probably in case of countless other government requests that are afforded secrecy. That is their right as a platform, but it is also a failure of principle. If a regulation demands censorship, platforms will most likely comply and take the path of least resistance, just as Twitter, Google, and Facebook did with the IT Rules.

News organizations are challenging these rules for their legality and censorship provisions, but streaming services and social media platforms are not (WhatsApp, being a messaging service, is challenging the rules separately). In reality, the government is regulating online speech through platforms. They’re delegating the determination of lawful content to them, forcing them to control our speech.

*We’re a country where everything you say will offend at least someone, somewhere. We need our laws to protect free speech, not restrict it. What also we need to do, is challenge the laws and the rules that lead to this kind of censorship.

The mob shouldn’t win.Also read: YouTube Removes ‘India’s Got Latent’ Episode After Govt Directive, But Is It Legally Justified?Supreme Court Shields Ranveer Allahbadia From Arrest, Bars New FIRs Over YouTube ShowDelhi Police Can Now Order Social Media Platforms to Remove ‘Illegal’ Content: Could This Reduce Burden on Companies?The post In Defence of Offence: On the Ranveer Allahbadia Controversy appeared first on MEDIANAMA..