It’s funny! Kunal Kamra is paying the price for being a nuisance⁠— politicians have gone scot free for the same

• IndiGo, Air India, and SpiceJet ban Kunal Kamra from flying
  
• Tweeps ally with Kunal Kamra, #BoycottIndigo and #BoycottAirIndia trending
  
• Viral video hits 2M views on Kamra’s Twitter handle

Comedian Kunal Kamra will now have fly low if not lie low after he was banned by three major airlines for heckling India’s top journalist Arnab Goswami, the editor of Republic TV, who is known to toe the Narendra Modi government’s line more often than not.

While airlines like IndiGo, Air India, and SpiceJet have been swift in acting against Kamra and, as many would argue, rightfully so— after all, he was heckling a fellow passenger, calling him a ‘coward’ without provocation. But many politicians have got away with similar, if not worse, behaviour with no punishment or justice.



The airlines’ action came soon after the Minister for Civil Aviation, Hardee Singh Puri, said, “Offensive behaviour designed to provoke and create disturbance inside an aircraft is absolutely unacceptable and endangers safety of air travellers.”

Politicians and reporters are safe

Kamra knew what he was doing. “I may go to jail,” he said while heckling Goswami on a video that got 2 million views on Twitter. Perhaps, he was hoping that he would get away with bad behaviour on airlines, just like the many politicians before him.

A video of BJP member of Parliament, Pragya Thakur refused to change the seat on a SpiceJet flight, delaying the flight by 45 minutes. Yet, she was never banned.

Similarly, a Shiv Sena leader, Ravindra Gaikwad, when the party was an ally of the BJP government, reportedly hit an Air India employee repeatedly with his slippers as he was not allotted a business class seat on an all economy flight. However, the ban was revoked within a week.

Not just politicians, a Scroll article also brought to light a 2017 incident where a reporter of Republic TV, the same one that Goswami leads, heckled a Tejashwi Yadav, a leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, on a flight.

Despite being warned and repeated attempts to stop the interview, the reporter had gone on questioning the member of Rashtriya Janata Dal. This incident was not enough for airlines to update their no-fly list.

An airline ban can have far reaching effects on Kamra’s career whose profession depends on flying around to hold his stand-up shows. He is now left wondering if IRCTC — government owned railway service— too has banned him.


This is not the first time he received a backlash for his many jokes on the government and its friends

He was asked to vacate his house and even received death threats for his holds-no-barrel critiques. It all started when he made a video on 'Patriotism And Governance’ with the slogans used during the JNU protests of 2016.

Kamra is infamous for his blunt jibes on the government and politicians, particularly Narendra Modi led-BJP. His landlady was one of the many people who were not amused. Two years back, he was asked to move out of his home because of “political issues coming up”.

There were also many direct effects of his work as well. According to him, many shows were cancelled because the organisers, “don’t want to take a risk”. Another organizer said, "Sorry, we'll have to cancel this one because our CEO is a big fan of the PM and we don't want any political jokes.

“India is a democracy until you criticise it,” he had famously said. After the video was released, Kamra said on Twitter that he was added to a Whatsapp group and was a victim of verbal abuse.

As Kamra roughed up his detractors, many fans stood by him. Following the announcement of the ban, #BoycottIndigo and #BoycottAirIndia are trending on Twitter. The fans also questioned the airlines over Pragya Thakur incident, on social media.

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