Tanmay Bhat is easy. I don’t mean that in the sexual sense, because I asked and he said ‘NO FUCKING WAY LADY’, and I was offended. Because I am not a lady. But all that aside, the point is the BJP, the RSS, the WTF and the MSG are all only brave enough it seems to fight with people like him. People like me. Comedians. 

Talk about having so little self-respect that the best you can do is threaten a clown! And so the next time anyone says “GO TO PAKISTAN” I am going to say “I AM ALREADY THERE”. We are. We are in Pakistan. We are in Afghanistan. We are in Saudi Arabia.

b’A protest rally held against the comedian | Source: @htTweets’

We are anywhere that violates basic human rights like freedom of speech. Nothing Bhat could have said about Lata or Sachin (why do Maharashtrians have such long last names?) could possibly be a bigger scandal than the fact that a political party will allow it’s members to look stupid – because lets be honest threatening a comedian over a Snapchat video is stupid. 

That these petty, complaining creatures are in-charge of policy making, that they influence law and order – that is the scandal. That big news agencies give these people a voice – that is the scandal. That neither Lata nor Sachin have come forward yet to tell everyone to pipe down and are letting a young man with no agenda be threatened ON THEIR BEHALF – that is the scandal.

b”Sachin Tendulkar hasn’t reacted so far | Source: AFP”

In India we bow to money and power. We don’t care about the regular folk. Trust me, if Tanmay Bhat had either a pile of money or a very influential dad, none of this would be happening. Our law and order situation is deplorable and our judicial system is in similar shape – they are as flexible as Baba Ramdev when it comes to upholding what they are supposed to stand for. It really just depends on who is doing the asking. 

The fact that any old half-wit can even threaten to file an FIR against a joke video (and possibly file one) is a mockery to our country. A country that from today on I will be calling Pakistan.

Now lets hope my Pakistani friends have a sense of humour.

The author is a comedian, the author of ‘Unladylike, A Memoir’  and tweets @radvaz. Views expressed are personal.