Why Gandhi would not have objected to Kiku mimicking Ram Rahim
Kiku Sharda, the stand-up comic, was arrested twice for mimicking Guru Ram Rahim, the Dera Sacha leader. The news was announced in a matter-of-fact way and apart from Kapil and his collaborator there was not even a whisper of protest.
Even Kapil's letter to Rahim was more of an olive branch, asking him to forgive and forget. Beyond a few news clippings, there was hardly anything. A joke was reduced to a law-and-order problem and the authorities were straight-faced about it.
Strange
Reading about the event, I realised we are a strange society, a surreal combination of hypocrisy and piety which is almost lethal for dissent and devastating for laughter. Sharda, of course, is a mid level comic, talented but not yet a star at the level of the Khans. If Aamir Khan was arrested, literary festivals would have gone up in flames but if Sharda is arrested, the news reads like a normal weather report.
One suddenly realised some actors are more equal than others and the outcry regarding it as just another event. A small joke star like a small scam star can be arrested as long as the big sharks remain free. In our society rules are not for the powerful, rules are made to make and break ordinary people.
Let me emphasise that Sharda was absolutely correct in his responses on being arrested. He observed that he was not here to hurt people but to make them laugh. One must add that Ram Rahim was restrained in his response.
As a society, we have no sense of the logic of laughter. Earlier, power was always juxtaposed with the comic. It was almost as if power could not be separated from the subversive nature of laughter which could destroy it but also humanise it. One could not think of a medieval king without a jester. In fact, Akbar is not complete without Birbal.
The comic as clown, jester, harlequin, mimic is of the great theatrical of performances and essential to the logic of power. Sometimes, it is only the comic that can remind the king of the idiocy of power. There is a beautiful cybernetic wisdom to the arrangement.
Dissent
In fact, dissent in a moment of tyranny is only potent as a joke. Hitler was cut to size by a Chaplin-esque comedy. The joke becomes culture's way of restoring the equanimity of power. A joke is democracy's style of saying all men are created equal. The clown and the comic as a role is no longer a secondary function but central to the architectonic of power.
Think of the comic in other forms. Without graffiti, elections would not be complete; without cartoons, politicians would not have a mirror to look at themselves.
People like Gandhi and Nehru recognised this. And the drawing rooms of the greats, always had an RK Laxman. They all recognised that the joke saved the establishment from being pompous. A joke guaranteed that every great truth was also an immaculate misconception. A joke has to violate taboo, ambush power to remain a joke. Viewed this way, Kiku Sharda was only doing what was expected of him. As a mimic, all he could have done is to remind one of the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of power.
Sharda's act as a comic has to be defended both by believers in democracy and religion.
Comic
Gandhi provided one with that same sense of laughter. He often looked like a cartoon and enacted the cartoon. When Mussolini asked him to review his troops, Gandhi reluctantly agreed. After watching the display of militarism and machismo, Gandhi was asked to say a few words. All he said deadpan was, "You all look very healthy to me." Gandhi and Dalai Lama would not have objected to a Kiku Sharda. In fact, Sharda might have got a healthy tip to two from these two great stand-up comics.
I think it is time democracy stands up for the joke; for the joke is an act of faith in democracy. This is why the silence around Kiku Sharda bothers me. The objections to him cannot be genuinely religious. An act of faith cannot be intolerant because faith has to be strong enough to survive crisis. Even concentration camps thrived on humour as the survivor eked out one more day on laughter.
Laughter does not split a society, it is an invitation to come together in different ways. A joke is participative by definition.
I have watched Kiku Sharda's drag act and find it funny. His Ram Rahim act would have been milder. Oddly, Kiku behaved like a puppet in his response saying the script and the dress came from the director. But the act must have been more than puppetry to evoke consternation and laughter.
A comic's licence is society's great acknowledgement to the power of comedy. It is more durable than censorship, the ban, the boycott. In giving the comic a licence to mimic, caricature, subvert society honours the creativity of freedom, language and drama. One owes to the comedian. It is time we as a society honour him by letting him free to laugh with us. Arresting laughter is like arresting life.