“Life is crazy,” YouTuber and podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia said in excitement after receiving the ‘Disrupter of the Year’ award in March last year from Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the National Creators Award, a first-of-its-kind recognition for digital content creators. Crazier events unfolded exactly a year later.
Last week Ranveer, also known as BeerBiceps, was seen being whisked away by Assam police to the Crime Branch office in Guwahati, where he was interrogated for four hours over an ‘inappropriate question’ he posed as a guest of a YouTube show in the first week of February.
Once considered the blue-eyed boy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 31-year-old Ranveer found himself in the centre of a social media storm based on a ‘Would you rather’ question in a YouTube show ‘India's Got Latent’. The talent show, hosted by YouTuber Samay Raina, is known for the profane and offensive exchanges between the contestants and judges, making it one of the top YouTube shows preferred by youngsters in the country.
After a clip from the controversial episode featuring YouTuber Ashish Chanchlani, social media influencer Apoorva Mukhija, and standup comedian Jaspreet Singh as judges, along with Ranveer and Samay, went viral, news channels reserved their primetime shows to debate the ‘joke’. The moral panic, triggered by media debates, has resulted in parliamentarians and judges mulling over ways to bring in regulatory frameworks for digital content. So much so that it has now prompted the BJP to contemplate introducing the Broadcasting Bill—a bill that had been put on the backburner after its attempt to regulate digital content on current issues was widely criticised.
In the last message posted on his Instagram page on February 15, Ranveer expressed fear over the death threats he and his family had been facing since the controversial comment became a subject of a nationwide discussion. “People have invaded my mother’s clinic posing as patients. I am feeling scared and don’t know what to do,” he said in the post, which ended with him expressing faith in the police and judicial system.
Where is it heading?
The podcast 'The Ranveer Show', which has over 1 crore subscribers, was the top pick of Union Ministers in 2023 for interviews. BJP leaders and Union Ministers S Jaishankar and Piyush Goyal and former Ministers Smriti Irani and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, spiritual leaders and right-wing commentators have lined up for the podcast, ditching legacy media. Later, it was revealed that the interviews of Union Ministers were part of a collaboration with MyGov, a citizen engagement platform of the Union Government.
Though Ranveer tried to portray himself as a ‘centrist’, he was seen as a right-wing influencer over his choice of topics and guests in the show. In a fun banter with Ranveer during the award ceremony, PM Modi had quipped, "People may say now that he's saying what Modiji says; he belongs to the BJP now."
So it was little surprise that when he was targeted by right-wing leaders and the Union government over the ‘joke’, it sparked a massive debate.
The issue reached Parliament too, with Shiv Sena’s Naresh Mhaske, BJD's Sasmit Patra, and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, among others, bringing it up for discussion. As predicted by some political observers, the discussions eventually led to a call to introduce the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill in Parliament at the earliest.
Last year, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry withdrew a selectively released draft Broadcasting Bill after questions were raised over an alleged infringement of the right to freedom of speech and expression. Following the 'India's Got Latent' controversy, the Standing Committee of Communications and Information Technology in the Parliament, last week, asked the Union Ministry to set a deadline to introduce the bill after completing consultations with the stakeholders.
The Union Government has made multiple attempts to introduce the bills in the last two years. However, it met with opposition over various proposals, including plans to bring digital content creators focusing on news and current affairs under a strict regulatory framework.
Though Ranveer published a video offering an unconditional apology soon after the clip went viral, the controversy did not die down. In the midst of media debates and political reactions over the comment, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on February 10 that Guwahati police registered an FIR against five YouTubers, including Ranveer, for promoting obscenity and engaging in sexually explicit and vulgar discussion.
All the accused in the FIR were slapped with Sections 79 (insult a woman's modesty through words), 95 (engaging a child to commit an offence), 294 (obscene act), and 296 (utterance of obscene songs or words in public places) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, Section 67 of IT Act, 2000 (publication or transmission of obscene material in electronic form), Sections 4 and 7 of Cinematograph Act 1952 and Sections 4 and 6 of Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
TNM reached out to Ankur Jain, the Joint Commissioner of Guwahati police in charge of the investigation, to know whether the case was registered suo motu. He, however, did not respond to our calls and texts.
Next was the turn of the Mumbai police, who landed at the residence of Ranveer on February 11, reportedly after receiving multiple complaints against the show. Soon an FIR was registered by Nodal Cyber Police, Thane, under Sections 79 (insulting a woman's modesty), 196 (promoting enmity between different groups), 296 (obscene acts in public places), and 299 (insulting religion or religious beliefs) of the BNS, along with Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form).
Among the multiple complaints against the ‘India’s Got Latent’ team, one was filed by a Rajput outfit, Jai Rajputana Sangh, which had earlier issued threats against the makers and actors of Bollywood film 'Padmaavat'. The case, filed in Jaipur, was later transferred to Khar police station in Mumbai.
SC bats for reasonable restrictions
While hearing Ranveer’s plea to allow the airing of his podcast and YouTube videos, the Supreme Court on March 3 expressed the need to introduce reasonable restrictions on digital content that will not compromise free speech.
The SC bench of Justices Surya Kant and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh suggested Solicitor General Tushar Mehta deliberate and draft a regulatory proposal ‘which may not encroach upon the fundamental right of free speech and expression but, at the same time, which is effective enough to ensure the reasonable restrictions within the meaning of Article 19(2) of the Constitution’.
The court also suggested bringing the draft regulatory measures into the public domain to invite suggestions from all the stakeholders before taking any legislative or judicial measures. While allowing the petitioner to resume his popular podcast ‘The Ranveer Show’, the SC asked him to submit an undertaking that the programme will ‘maintain the desired standards of decency and morality so that viewers of any age group can watch it’.
In an earlier hearing, the SC made scathing remarks against Ranveer, terming his comments as ‘disgusting’ and ‘filthy’. “You think you (Ranveer) have got a license to speak all kinds of vulgarity? And you can exhibit your depraved mind anywhere and anytime?” asked Justice Kant, according to the Supreme Court Observer.
Advocate Abhinav Chandrachud, who appeared for Ranveer, argued that the remarks were made on a show that was locked behind a paywall, which was available only to adults who paid a subscription fee. However, the court refused to accept the argument by pointing out that its snippets were widely shared on social media.
Meanwhile, various regulatory bodies took suo motu cognisance of the obscene remark in the show. The National Commission for Women issued a summons to Ranveer and his co-panelists, while the National Human Rights Commission asked YouTube to remove the video featuring the comment. All 14 videos of the show have been unavailable on the platform since February 12. They were reportedly removed following the intervention of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and NHRC. Ranveer, co-judge Apoorva and two producers of the show appeared before the NCW on March 6 and submitted written apologies for their remarks.
Threats, cancellation of shows
In a plea submitted to the Supreme Court seeking permission to resume his podcast, Ranveer said that the show was the livelihood of his 280 employees. Though the court granted permission, not a single episode has been aired after the controversy.
In his February 15 post on Instagram, Ranveer said that he and his family were facing death threats. He added that, though scared, he wasn’t running away.
Ranveer’s post came four days after former WWE wrestler Saurav Gurjar, also known as Sanga, published a video where he issued a direct threat to the YouTuber. “If I meet him anywhere, no one can save him from me,” he said in the video, which is still available on Sanga’s Instagram page.
Singer B Praak and actor Urvashi Rautela, who were lined up as guests, backed out from ‘The Ranveer Show’ after the controversy. Apoorva was removed from the list of official ambassadors for the International Indian Film Academy awards ceremony scheduled to be held in Jaipur following the threat of Karni Sena, a Rajasthani outfit.
Following the direction of the Supreme Court, Ranveer appeared before the Guwahati police for questioning last week. The Supreme Court will resume proceedings in the case on April 1.
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