Stand-up comedian Sahil Shah, who is attending the Mumbai Comic Con 2025, addressed the recent backlash towards Kunal Kamra and Ranveer Allahabadia for their "controversial" jokes and said people need to look at comedy as an "art form, not a threat."
"Eventually there will come a time where I think if people are watching us and love what we do, they would also be there for us when we are down," said Shah in an interview with PTI.
He emphasised that an attack on one comic is an attack on all of them and that those engaged in this endeavour should support each other. "It's a matter of what you can and cannot say. It's a matter of conversation, freedom, boundaries, speech, and a lot of things. In that sense, we have to stand by each other."
Shah, for whom stand-up comedy is more than a passion and a job, feels that being a comedian is a big deal these days as opposed to earlier. "It's now an industry. Right now people are like, 'Oh my god, oh, hey!' Being a comedian is a (big) thing," he said. "It's good to be part of that business... We started at a very young age. Even the jokes we did were different when we started. All of us are now growing. We are doing bigger things, better things. We are writing, we are performing internationally. The comedy scene is growing and I'm really glad to be part of the scene as it grows. Really glad to grow with the scene as well."
Recently, podcast Ranveer Allahbadia's incest joke on Samay Raina's show didn't sit well with many and triggered a strong backlash. In some debates, netizens expressed their confusion at the overreaction, wondering whether it warranted so much attention when the country has far bigger problems to deal with. Allahabadia recently returned to podcasting, after apologising and asking everyone to give him a second chance to do better.
Later, stand-up comic Kunal Kamra kicked off a political storm when he used the word "traitor" during one of his gigs, which offended Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his supporters. Kamra, however, has refused to apologise.
