There’s no such thing as a free lunch. When you speak up the truth you have to pay a price either through hate, FIRs, trolling, and whatnot.  Mr. Das had a history of speaking up either wrong things or correct things at wrong places. But it doesn’t matter as long as politicians instead of taking the thing on their ego take it as a challenge and try to solve these prevalent problems. 

Author : Nikita Dahiya

What is Defamation?

Defamation refers to acting in an oral or written manner, a way that harms someone’s reputation, and constitutes a tort or crime. Every person has every right to protect their reputation, honor, integrity, character, and dignity in society. Any aggrieved person can file a criminal prosecution for defamation. 

The Vir Das Case

The recent case of Vir Das’s performance at the Kennedy Center has attracted much controversy and accounted for defamation of India, women, politicians, etc on an international front. Seems like India has once again gotten divided the way Vir Das has mentioned in the speech lines “I come from an India where we claim to be divided over Bollywood on the Twitter and yet are united by Bollywood in the darkness of theatre”.

The Divided Public Opinion

This has led to leaving the Indians divided, while some are seen to support the speech and others went angry, who had come up with their arguments to support the claim. Some of them said that treating all men under a single bar isn’t a good thing, others said that even though the facts are somewhat true it’s not done to defame India on foreign land. As usual, a small fraction of Indians are those who don’t care even when Earth turns upside down. Come on! After all, we are Indians either we speak too much without thinking about where we are or we are meek spectators.  

What led to the agitation?

The comment on corona-related behavior is up to the mark which said, “I come from an India where children in masks hold hands with each other yet I come from an India where leaders hug each other without masks”. Our politicians are indeed reluctant in taking the precautions necessary to avoid the spread of corona. During the peak times, we had West Bengal’s elections, all the major parties were organizing rallies, most of the leaders were seen without masks completely disregarding the 2-meter distance and the public was seen imitating their leaders, without masks not following the required distance gap. So the question once again arises, did he say something wrong?  

“I come from an India where the AQI is 9000 but we still sleep on the roofs and look up at the stars”. After this years’ Diwali celebration and stubble burning, many cities including the national capital saw a huge fall in air quality. Delhi witnessed the poorest air quality in the past five years. This not only created hurdles in transportation but also exposed the population to various respiratory problems. From Patiala to Patna, Agra to Greater Noida, Jaipur to Gwalior, Gorakhpur to Kolkata, almost all the major cities have witnessed a deterioration in the air quality. 

Another thing he commented went like this, “I come from an India where we worship women during the day, and gang rapes them at night”. But the question here arises: Did he say something wrong? The fact is what he said is correct to a great amount. India witnessed more than 28 thousand rape cases in the year 2020, this is around 78 cases per day. Also as we know that a lot of rape cases aren’t reported due to various reasons which make the official statistics understated. 

Everything he picked in the performance is important, the comments about reaching 1 billion population, the truth of journalism, environment during India-Pak matches, politics of India, lack of transparent information on PM CARES, womens’ dress code, conditions of farmers who were till recently struggling because of 3 farm rules, disregarding fair treatment to the army men, registrations on Cowin website being greater than vaccine stock, how the grown-ups grow without developing the courage to ask right questions, the only thing we all religions stand together is inflation. India is struggling to keep a balance in almost all of these issues. However, Virdas has only commented on a handful of issues, and many other issues which also need immediate attention are not touched upon. 

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Similarly, speaking the truth isn’t a free lunch thing, you have to pay a price. While Virdas’s has spoken up the truth he has to pay. He got many FIRs lodged against him from many prominent persons. While the legal advisor of BJP filed a case claiming his action is defaming India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, another filed a police complaint saying he had made derogatory statements against women and India, Madhya Pradesh’s Home Minister said he’ll not allow the comedian to perform in the state unless he apologizes. However, Mr. Das has invited many controversies it’s not the first time. He had a history of speaking up either wrong things or right things at wrong places. The recent cases are the comments made about the transgender community on the TenOnTen series, cracking a joke on former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, facing FIR for promoting condoms in a vulgar manner in a temple, etc. He had come with an apology every time any controversy arises and this time too. To end things on a good note, he ended his speech like this, “I leave you tonight and go back to that India. Which India do I go back to ? Both of them. Which India am I proud of? One of them. Which India is proud of me? None of them”

In the end, there’s only one thing that matters. Vir Das has made his point, even though it would have been better if the same speech was given in the motherland. But it doesn’t matter as long as politicians instead of taking the thing on their ego take it as a challenge and try to solve these prevalent problems. 

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