Are we living in a society where freedom of speech is considered as a valuable right?
BookMyShow’s recent cancellation of comedian Kunal Kamra’s events, after his Thane show case, is more than just a scheduling issue or a marketing decision, rather it’s a sign that- “dare to speak, and you will be cut off from everywhere!”
It is a sign of a disturbing trend that has occurred many times before, even if it appeared differently in a different context. When BookMyShow removed Kunal Kamra’s shows from their website, they were not simply deleting a few lines of code from their system – they were part of a long history of powerful forces giving in to pressure and, in doing so, silencing voices that wish to be able to challenge the status quo.
What did Kunal Kamra do that was so terrible that he was treated in such a manner? He made jokes that made the powerful uncomfortable. Satire, a dignified tradition that stretches back to Aristophanes and earlier, has always annoyed the powerful. Mark Twain wisely noted, “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
Perhaps that is why it is so dreaded by those who want their actions to go unchallenged. When businesses like BookMyShow cave into pressure rather than standing up for artistic freedom, they are not merely removing a name from their app – they are sending an obvious message to every well-organised group with a grievance and a WhatsApp group intimidation that if you shout loudly enough, you too can face consequences!
The consequences of this timid response by companies like BookMyShow extend well beyond just annoying ticket holders. Every time, such a giant company, that should have the courage to speak, takes the easy way out rather than doing the right thing, our collective right to free speech in our own country is compromised. As the late Christopher Hitchens would have put it, the right to free speech is necessary for opinions that others will find annoying or inconvenient – popular speech does not require protection. This company’s behaviour has become so prevalent that we may begin to overlook it, accepting it as the standard rather than recognising it as a serious issue.
Looking back, we can find numerous instances of how censorship operates indirectly when direct control is too challenging for the government. In America in the 1950s, under McCarthyism, not only did government agencies keep suspected communists from being employed – but film studios, TV networks, and publishing houses also declined to work with specific writers, actors, and directors. The Hollywood blacklist did not require official legislation; it operated just as well because studio bosses were too afraid of controversy and more concerned with conforming than with artistic integrity. Those bosses did not need to fire screenwriters like Dalton Trumbo or actors like Zero Mostel – they simply found it easier to cave to pressure than to resist.
In late Victorian England, it wasn’t so much the government that determined what was acceptable in books. Rather, it was the publishers who refused to publish books they considered too provocative, the booksellers who refused to stock particular books, and the reviewers who viciously savaged anything that was not in line with mainstream moral opinion. When Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure” was published in 1895, it was the subject of a tremendous amount of indignant criticism. It was not banned by any legal body, but Hardy was so incensed at the reception that he gave up novel writing completely. This sort of censorship worked extremely well without the need for any government act.
In India, it has happened repeatedly. When the shows of All India Bakchod were suddenly discontinued due to controversy, or Amazon Prime quickly withdrew political content in the face of threatened legal proceedings, we saw the same issue: companies doing risk management rather than standing on their principles, and our democracy loses a piece of itself with each instance.
What makes it especially dangerous is that it lays down a precedent for further censorship. Today, it is a comedian who has a mike taken away from him; tomorrow, it may be a playwright whose play gets cancelled, a filmmaker whose movie gets pulled out of theatres, or a poet whose poems remain unread. Yesterday’s “offending” stand-up show is tomorrow’s prohibited book, and the government has not even done anything.
Companies typically attempt to justify their actions on business grounds and not on morality. “We’re simply acting in response to customer complaints,” they might argue, or “We’re a platform, not a publisher.” These arguments ring hollow when scrutinised, though. Platforms always have a choice: they can either allow censorship to happen, or they can stand up for free expression. When BookMyShow decided to cancel Kunal Kamra’s shows, they quite brazenly showed their priorities – fear overrode principle, weakness over courage, and profiting was more necessary than enabling the free exchange of ideas that should help a healthy democracy.
It’s worth noting that the Reliance Group is BookMyShow’s a strong owner, which makes everything much clearer. When business interests are combined with political influence, there is less scope for argument. As George Orwell aptly said in his essay “The Prevention of Literature,” the greatest enemy of free thought may not be the overt censor but the covert one – the thought in the writer’s (or comedian’s) head that says, “It’s better not to say this, it could lead to problems.”
When platforms muzzle voices at an early stage due to fear, they induce this kind of self-censorship among artists. The timeline of comedy is filled with performers who were hated and criticised for questioning conventional thought. Taking historical examples, in the 1960s, Lenny Bruce was arrested regularly for his provocative performances, not because what he said was illegal but because it annoyed people. More recently, comedians like Dave Chappelle have faced immense pressure to cancel their performances. But there is a big difference: when Netflix stood by Chappelle when he got into hot water, it demonstrated that companies can be courageous rather than cower if they so choose. BookMyShow, apparently, does not.
We have witnessed such a situation occur everywhere across the globe in the last few years. Sony Pictures, a decade ago, in 2014 initially postponed the release of “The Interview” due to threats, which were attributed to North Korea. They were rightfully condemned for allowing fear to dictate their decision to release the film.
The reaction was so extreme that they changed their mind and released the film anyway, demonstrating how public pressure can work in favour of free expression as well as against it. When Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters were attacked in 2015 after the magazine published inflammatory cartoons, publications all over the globe avoided reprinting the cartoons because they were fearful. They did not avoid it for any legal reason, but because corporations were too fearful and did not support journalism.
Things get worse still when we consider the selectivity of this corporate cowardice. Not all expressions are censored or prosecuted with equal vigour. An expression that targets marginalised groups does not always get removed as quickly as an expression that targets powerful individuals. Corporate censorship appears to target the soft targets – it is easier to silence those who oppose power than it is to silence those who align with it. As Noam Chomsky would put it, the best type of propaganda is not prohibiting certain speech but making it covert or difficult to access while pretending that there is an open space for ideas.
What makes this form of censorship by BookMyShow so potent is its plausible deniability. No government official signed a decree banning Kunal Kamra’s performances. No bill was enacted against his material. Instead, a private corporation made a “business decision” that just so happened to coincide with the desires of those who wanted him muzzled. This is the ideal censorship model of the new era: the government gets to keep its hands clean, and corporations get to do the dirty work of suppression while claiming they’re simply responding to market forces.
This is no apology when looked at closely. If BookMyShow truly cared about customer satisfaction, they would have taken into consideration all the fans who bought tickets just to see Kunal Kamra perform. If they truly feared offending with objectionable content, they would treat every performer and every event the same. The way they chose and selected what to cancel betrays the truth: this was not about business – it was about giving in to pressure from certain groups who thought Kunal Kamra’s political satire hit too close to home. The maxim is, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” and it is as true for governments as corporations.
When we let sites censor individuals with impunity, we delegate control of the censorship to independent groups that answer less to those who control it. With state censorship, there are legal vehicles for appeal and remedy. When a private enterprise has the determination of who may have a voice and who is voiceless, it is substantially more difficult for the voiceless to seek remedies. Ultimately, silence does not equal being neutral – it equals being engaged.
When a site like BookMyShow cancels a performance because a comedian made powerful individuals uncomfortable, they are not being neutral in a battle of culture; they are opting to be on the side of those who believe that fear should dictate what ideas are disseminated. They are being on the side of bullies who silence individuals who speak out. They are warning all future comedians and critics that their voices will disappear as soon as they become too adept at speaking truth to power. As we navigate this world of weak decisions masquerading as content moderation, let us not forget the words of Heinrich Heine: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.”
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No books are burned, but the principle is the same – silencing free speech begins with what appears to be small concessions but results in more restricted debates. If we desire to have a society in which we can challenge authority and question power, we must ensure platforms are held to account when they prioritise convenience over values. Otherwise, we might wake up to a world in which meaningful debates do not occur, not because they are formally prohibited but because no one will let them occur.
