The liberal ecosystem has come together, yet again, to slit their wrists digitally after the Hindu fascists have, yet again, done something that they don’t particularly like. The synchronised beating of the chest is quite something to watch from afar – they bitch and they moan and they curse, stomping their feet like petulant children who have just about realised that they are not the only bullies in the schoolyard. The trigger this time was 12 shows of Munawar Faruqui being cancelled in the past 2 months. Sacrilege, they say. How dare Hindus take umbrage to Munawar mocking 58 of them being burnt alive? The left spend decades telling us we heathens deserve to die. How dare the illiterate cow-belt-walas develop a hint of self-respect?
Munawar, back in February, had claimed that he would quit comedy after some of his shows had been cancelled, post his offensive “jokes” going viral. What he did, instead, was release another video mocking those who had threatened to disrupt his shows, made some more unsavoury remarks and continued his “shows”. He played victim, said it was never his intention to “hurt feelings”, that he wants unity and laughs and giggle and those opposing him were “spreading hate”.
To bring some perspective, let us remember what he did – he mocked Bhagwan Ram and Devi Sita. Worse? He mocked the Godhra train burning where Jihadis murdered 58 Hindus – including women and children.
“I apologise to my fans”, he said. “Munawar Faruqui is not LEAVING comedy. Munawar Faruqui is LIVING comedy”, he said.
Fair enough. He re-asserted his right to mock 58 Hindus burnt alive, called those opposing him hate-mongers and vowed to continue doing what he was doing after he had been arrested and released for his “art”.
Hindus, on their part (not the ones laughing at his bile), decided enough was enough.
Long story short, 12 cancelled shows later, Liberals took to Twitter to shame Hindus and claim that “fascists had won” because we stifled Munawar’s “freedom of expression and his right to earn a living”.
Shekhar Gupta’s Print claimed that “hate had won”. Rana Ayyub, who would just as soon piss on the dead skulls of Hindus “apologised to Munawar” (presumable for not being to tarnish and discredit the Hindu society enough in all these years), some NDTV journalist begged Munawar to not quit and asked, emphatically, “What is the condition of freedom when laughter is seen as a threat?” and media khatoon, black tent enthusiast and jihadi sympathiser (I am being legally safe here) Arfa Sherwani of The Wire said that Hindu thugs were trying to “break Munawar” because “he made people laugh”.
In general, apart from the wails of Muslims being persecuted and freedom of expression being suppressed, the narrative that truly made me chuckle was the Left getting together in a probably drug-infused huddle and deciding to whine about “cancel culture”, an art that the left had mastered over the decades.
Modern-day “cancel culture” often starts with calling out individuals for societally problematic behaviour. The call-out then swells to mass action where ideologically aligned individuals actively work towards culturally blocking that person from having a prominent public platform or career.
When did modern society become so obsessed with the phrase cancel culture? Where did it start?
In the digital village, nothing can indicate collective interest in a societal phenomenon better than understanding when Google search for that particular phenomenon peaked, especially, when the phenomenon we are talking about is one that only the Urban elites concern themselves with.
“Cancel Culture” as a phrase gained notoriety in June 2020. We can’t say that is when the the phenomenon started, but that is when, it would seem, the world got interested in it.
So what really happened in June-July 2020? The Cancel Culture debate was peaking in the USA. In July 2020, Former US President Donald Trump criticized cancel culture in a speech July 2020, comparing it to totalitarianism and saying that it is a political weapon used to punish and shame dissenters by driving them from their jobs and demanding submission. He was criticized as being hypocritical for having attempted to “cancel” a number of things in the past himself.
In India too, the search for the term “cancel culture” peaked at the exact same time as the US.
It was in June 2020 that Harry Potter author JK Rowling was “cancelled” by the Woke cabal for her “transphobic” views. What had she said? Rowling tweeted an article whose headline read, ‘Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.’ She wrote while tweeting the article, “People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” That is it. All hell broke loose and she was cancelled right around the time the search for these keywords peaked.
Yes. Cancel Culture, at least the global interest in this phenomenon, peaked when Wokes of the US decided that it was a cardinal sin to say that only women menstruate. Men can menstruate too. If not, at least let’s not say it. It might hurt the feelings of those men who THINK they can menstruate and in this post-woke world, feelings matter far more than biological facts.
But I digress.
So we have established that modern cancel culture was popularised and weaponised by the Left to ensure that the rest of the world toes their line. In India too, we have seen numerous people lose their jobs, companies lose funding and people being jailed because a digital mob of Leftist zombies decided that the person concerned had hurt their feelings. One recalls how Neeraj Chopra got cancelled after winning gold for India simply because the Left stumbled upon old tweets where he had supported PM Modi, a narrative that the Left does not tolerate. Atul Kochar’s life was ruined simply because he stated a fact – Hindus have been terrorised by Islam. Liberals offered him up to Islamic fundamentalists. Forget cancel culture, they even celebrated the death of Rohit Sardana, used state machinery to get Arnab Goswami arrested (and then celebrated it), celebrated the state govt demolishing Kangana Ranaut’s house and much more.
Why then is the Left’s posterior hurt when the non-Left takes their weapon and runs with it?
Essentially, the Left, after weaponising cancel culture, is now ruing the fact that the non-left is learning to play the game by the rules set by them. Cancel Culture cannot really be successful unless one has institutional support. You need an entire establishment that will back your calls for a boycott. If not, the calls are just that – calls to boycott that often fail because it is done on an individual level.
In India, or anywhere in the world, the government in power and the establishment are completely different. In India, while the Modi government is in power with a brute majority, the academia, the corporate money, the civil society, activists etc belong to the Left. Therefore, often, when the Left wants to cancel someone, they have institutional support to end someone’s career. They will lose their job. They will lose their social capital. They will lose everything.
The non-Left, with no institutional support, mostly displays impotent rage. They whine on Twitter, call for an individual boycott that often fails to work. The non-left rhetoric against cancel culture comes from a place of helplessness. They try and they fail because the institutions are simply not there to coordinate the cancelling of someone. They want “cancel culture” cancelled because they can’t do it as well as the Left.
Essentially, cancel culture is not going anywhere. Since time immemorial, traditional societies have used cancel culture to ensure that societal norms are enforced on the errant. Law enforcement often gets involved after the fact, but before the crime is committed and societal norms are shattered, the society uses the threat of ostracisation to ensure that members of the community stay in check. If there is a rapist in the community, they will simply not get invites to weddings, community events, dinners etc, The entire family becomes persona non grata, thereby giving members of the society to respect the lines drawn by the community collectively.
In the Munawar Faruqui case, the non-Left managed to take one step forward. On the group, the VHP and Bajrang Dal mobilised themselves and ensured that online outrage translates to real-life ramifications. FIRs were filed, the “comedian” spent some time in jail and organisations distanced themselves from Munawar because they simply did not want to the headache of an impending backlash.
The Left today is cribbing about the non-Left, perhaps for the first time in a long time, succeeding in using a method that has been weaponised by the Left itself in the modern-day. Munawar Faruqui committed the sin of mocking the faith of 80% of the Indian population. He further committed the sin of mocking the brutal murder of 58 Hindus, including infants, by Jihadis. Society has every right to ostracise him and impose real-life costs so others learn their lesson and keep themselves in check.
It is entirely possible that Munawar will be now turned into a martyr for the Left cause. He will get shows in the Kennedy Centre and be hailed as the Muslim man who bore the brunt of the Hindu fascists and lived to tell the tale. Should that matter to the non-Left? Should we then cower and let these infractions go? Should we say, “If we react, he will be turned into a hero? Let us simply let this go. He is a nobody right now”?
Absolutely not.
Just because we haven’t mastered the art yet, there is no reason to stop practising, now, is there?
Instead of letting these infractions go, we need to get better at playing the game.. and winning.
We need to make our own heroes instead of ostracising them and ensure that create and use institutions to ensure that elements like Munawar are not turned into heroes by the Left.
It is the strength of the backlash that determines who becomes a hero and who is relegated to pages of history as a cautionary tale. The non-Left needs to create and use institutions, like the Left does, to ensure that elements like Munawar are used as a cautionary tale and not martyrs for the cause.
