In January 2021, stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui was arrested just as he was about to start a gig at a café in Indore, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power.
A group of men, led by a BJP politician’s son, stormed onstage and accused the young comic of making jokes offensive to Hindu sentiments. They were referring to material on Faruqui’s immensely popular YouTube channel – jokes that were irreverent irrespective of creed. Faruqui, who is a member of India’s beleaguered minority Muslim community, tried reasoning with the group, but wound up spending 28 days in jail for a joke he didn’t even tell that evening.
