Kunal Kamra
Kunal Kamra is an observational comedian known for his political commentary.
In 2020, after an incident on IndiGo airlines where he "allegedly heckled" the Indian news anchor Arnab Goswami, he was banned by five Indian Airlines.
Career
Kunal Kamra was born on 3 October 1988, in Mahim, Mumbai, India. Kamra grew up in Mumbai, and joined Jai Hind College for a degree in commerce. He dropped in second year to start working as a production assistant in Prasoon Pandey’s ad film production house Corcoise Films, where he stayed for eleven years.He started performing as a standup comedian in 2013, with a gig at the Canvas Laugh Club in Mumbai. A clip of one of his gigs, uploaded on YouTube in 2017, lead to him receiving death threats for his satirical take on Indian hyper-nationalism. He started his eponymous titled web-series Shut Up Ya Kunal in July 2017 along with Ramit Verma. The episodes typically feature a conversation with one or more invited guests, interposed with clips of news segments or debates, edited for humour.
On 1 March 2017, he released a comedy video titled "Patriotism and the Government" on YouTube mocking demonetization, government and the attitude of Indians towards the army. He received several death threats for uploading the video. In 2018, he shared that he was asked by his landlady to vacate the premise due to "political issues".
Incident on Indigo flight
On 28 January, Kamra, while travelling on an IndiGo flight, confronted the news anchor Arnab Goswami, inviting him to debate with him. Kamra had raised questions about Arnab's coverage of issues on national affairs and the suicide of Rohith Vemula. Kamra later released a 1.51-minute long video of the incident on Twitter, which showed a non responsive Arnab while being questioned by Kamra. The next day, Indigo banned Kamra from boarding its flight for a period of six months.The same day, government-owned airline Air India banned him indefinitely. Indian aviation minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, tweeted that other airlines should follow suit and ban Kamra to ensure that an example was set. Next day, other airlines SpiceJet and GoAir also banned him indefinitely. The ban was criticized for being excessive for the incident and against the existing rules of DGCA.
Film maker Anurag Kashyap refused to fly in the IndiGo airlines due to their decision to ban Kamra. Two passengers of IndiGo also protested and displayed placards in the plane, in support of Kamra.
Kamra has issued a legal notice to IndiGo against the travel ban demanding a compensation of.
''Shut Up Ya Kunal''
In 2017, Kunal launched a YouTube podcast titled Shut Up Ya Kunal along with his friend Ramit Verma. The show features Kamra engaged in an informal discussion with politicians and activists from both ends of the spectrum. The videos are interspersed with news clips of the guests contradicting their own statements to comic effect. Ramit Verma of the satirical Facebook page PeeingHuman is the show's creative director and editor. The first episode aired on July 20, 2017 and featured Madhukeshwar Desai, vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing. The episode featuring the JNU Students Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid reached around a million views within hours of release.Apart from his show, Kamra also performs live.
| No. | Guests |
| 1 | Madhukeshwar Desai, |
| 2 | Priyanka Chaturvedi, |
| 3 | Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid |
| 4 | Karuna Nundy and Siddharth Varadarajan |
| 5 | Shehla Rashid and Jignesh Mevani |
| 6 | Ravish Kumar |
| 7 | Kavita Krishnan, Politburo Member, CPI-ML and Secretary, All India Progressive Women's Association. |
| 8 | Ravish Kumar |
| 9 | Asaduddin Owaisi, MP and President, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen |
| 10 | Atishi and Shweta Shalini |
| 11 | Javed Akhtar and Yogendra Yadav |
| 12 | Milind Deora and Sachin Pilot |
| 13 | Arvind Kejriwal |
| 14 | Javed Akhtar and Yogendra Yadav |
| 15 | Anubhav Sinha and Anand Gandhi |
| 16 | Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh |
| 17 | Tejasvi Surya |