Social media is confronting woke influencers with their casteist past

Many comics and internet celebs are being called out for problematic posts and videos. Can they claim to have evolved and move on?

- Ketaki Desai

Say what you will about social media — shallow, performative, echo chamber — it is open to a reckoning. Recently, there has been pushback against casteist comments made by a variety of public figures, mostly comedians. This includes Abish Mathew and Shubham Gaur, and others who are influential online — feminist activists, doctors and journalists. While some argue that it is human to make mistakes and we must give people space to grow and learn, anti-caste activists say such posts demonstrate the exclusionary nature of social media and comedy.

How did all this begin? Multimedia artist and podcaster Anurag Minus Verma posted a clip on Facebook of comedian Neville Shah’s routine on Amazon Prime where he made a joke about quotas, talking about the incompetence of his mother’s doctor and his limp. “After I posted the video, it got picked up on Twitter, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. More and more posts of people shaming quotas, making casteist comments, and filthy jokes about Mayawati came out.”

Some of these comments were made years so why now? “A lot of people are asking this so I want to give some context,” says Anurag. “This whole social media space was working as a Gymkhana club of savarnas. There was no representation of bahujans, because internet penetration wasn’t there as much and internet was expensive. Now, a new generation of bahujan voices is coming online.”