Nearly 21 months after ethnic conflict erupted in Manipur, N Biren Singh resigned as chief minister on Sunday, February 9, plunging the state into a leadership crisis. Over 250 deaths later, with thousands displaced, the strife-torn state remains on edge, and the possibility of President’s rule looms large.
Yet, as Manipur remains in turmoil, India’s primetime anchors found a different crisis to focus on: a YouTube joke.
Podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia, known as BeerBiceps, made a distasteful comment on comedian Samay Raina’s show India’s Got Latent. Charged with “obscenity,” at least three police complaints have been filed against Allahbadia and Raina.
Since then, news anchors have been up in arms against the content creators’ “attack on Indian culture.” Even after Allahbadia’s apology, primetime debates fumed over the “dirt-cheap pervert” and his alleged “pollution” of digital platforms.
But if offensive speech and problematic language are such grave concerns, the reported 74.4 percent rise in hate speech incidents in India should have sparked at least some outrage. The fact that the PM and several BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath, Amit Shah and Himanta Biswa Sarma delivered the most hate speeches in 2024 made no head turns in TV studios.
Instead, primetime anchors had a firm priority – to get viewers to stop subscribing to Raina’s YouTube show and to scold influencers for lacking restraint.
Here’s how five anchors led the charge.
Arnab Goswami
The Republic World editor-in-chief dedicated not one but two primetime debates to Allahbadia's comments. On a debate aired on February 11, Arnab declared that there were “No Takers For Apology” issued by Allahbadia as the hashtag on his show urged viewers to “Ban Digital Dirt.”
A day earlier, Arnab said that while he was not for cancel culture, there was a “need to teach a lesson here.” “Imagine the consequences…If he [Allahbadia] gets away with this. Imagine these people sitting around him will be further emboldened and he will be further emboldened. He's not going to change.”
He warned his viewers that content creators “will talk about paedophilia and rape also” if we didn’t draw a line.
“BeerBicep’s filth” was not the only subject of Arnab’s wrath. He lamented brands and sponsors, “hungry for views” for supporting people like Allahabadia. His anger then turned to social media platforms like YouTube. “Why is YouTube, which has a strict policy, allowing this right now?”
He further urged the audience to not normalise the “pornography,” "indecency”, “nudity” and “offers to pay for sex” that apparently populate YouTube and OTT platforms.
Navika Kumar
On Times Now’s Newshour, Navika Kumar, who professed to self-regulating her channel “daily on a minute to minute basis,” cornered Allahbadia and Rania for not taking responsibility for their content.
“I could do any nonsense on television to go viral. But do I?” she asked. (We’ll let her viewers answer that.)
She also wondered if Allahbadia had stirred controversy deliberately, adding that his apology “rang hollow.” While acknowledging his “nice face” and “nice presence,” she insisted he had crossed a line – though she failed to clarify what the line actually was.
Sudhir Chaudhary
Over at Aaj Tak, Sudhir Chaudhary on Black and White suggested that content creators and influencers like Allahbadia and Raina were talentless and needed to depend on promoting explicit content to get money. “People know that they [influencers] do not have any special talent so they choose the easiest way and this is the way to earn money by publishing vulgar and obscene content.” Notably, Allahbadia was hailed as the Digital Disruptor of the Year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the National Creators Award ceremony held in March 2024.
Sudhir also expressed grave concern for the youth of the country who were “going crazy” for YouTubers who depended on creating videos with explicit content to get more views.
“Ganit jiske hisab se YouTubers content banata hai, wo ganit kehta hai jitni zyada ashleel baate aap karenge, jitne zyada ashleel videos aap banaenge, jitne zyada naya naya videos aap paida karenge utne hi zyada views aapko milenge,” he declared.
Aman Chopra
At News18 India, Aman Chopra chided his viewers for getting offended by Allahbadia’s remarks even as they regularly accessed “digital platforms that were filled with similar content”. “You are the ones who see them, you are also their strength,” he exclaimed.
To him, the need to go viral was a virus that was “more dangerous than coronavirus”. Holding nothing back, Aman announced that content produced by social media influencers and comedians was filled with “shamelessness, nastiness, nudity and negativity”.
“Besharmi, ghinaunapan, nagnata, nakaratmakta ke bina kya content nahi hota hai kya?” he screamed.
With a wordplay on Samay Raina’s name, the ticker on Aman’s show “Ashleelta ka ‘samay’ pura” declared that it was time’s up for vulgarity. Another ticker on his show Desh Nahi Jhukne Denge With Aman Chopra suggested that Allahbadia displayed arrogance even in his apology.
Rahul Shivshankar
With photos of Allahbadia and Raina running in the background, Rahul asked his viewers if they would “ever allow their children to mix with perverts masquerading as woke progressives”. Of Allahbdia, Rahul said that he had “betrayed our trust by normalising incest on a popular YouTube-based reality show”.
A ticker on his primetime show The Hard Facts read “Totally Degenerate”. “What he did is not an accident or an error of judgment, as he calls it. It was normalising degeneracy for likes and cash,” Rahul said of Allahbadia.
He cautioned “woke” and “progressive” viewers, who “can't tell the difference between a man and a woman anymore”, to ensure they did not let Allahbadia’s remarks pass and called for “the worst form of social boycott” for influencers like him.
He also revealed that Allahbadia had invited him on his podcast to discuss his book. However, the episode was never released because, according to Rahul, Allahbadia “could not understand” his “substantive book, written with great effort”.
Additional research by Ishita Pradeep, Suhasini Biswas and Priyanka Ishwari.
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