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The original was posted on /r/india by /u/opinion_discarder on 2025-04-02 04:36:26+00:00.

Kamra’s shows in recent times have all reflected upon the uncertain status of comedy, and therefore speech, in India. What stands out in the new show is a marked shift in tone. At the end of the set Kamra pulls out a copy of the Constitution and stakes his right to speak upon it.

When the Shinde Sena ransacked the venue in which Kamra performed, the act of vandalism was a warning to others. Journalists and legal commentators use the phrase “chilling effect” as shorthand to describe this relationship between fear and speech.

The author Gautam Bhatia has defined it as “a practice of self-censorship that citizens engage in to avoid being penalised for illegal speech”. If we expand this notion to include the self-censorship people engage in to avoid extrajudicial mob violence, our picture of the suppressive effect of fear on speech is complete.

What does it mean for freedom, not just of speech, but freedom writ large that this chilling effect is now not the exception but the rule in India? Part of the problem lies in the selective application of state power. Minorities, Muslims in particular, are targeted. The average middle-class Hindu may assume that the most draconian laws are reserved for people more marginal than him. In his mind his freedom remains untouched.