by Vinta Nanda
(First published on The Daily Eye, 16 February 2025. Republished with permission.)
As censorship tightens and expression is choked, storytellers face an existential crisis. With creativity shackled by morality and control, is the death of storytelling inevitable in a world that fears free thought, asks Vinta Nanda.
The death of storytelling looms as censorship, moral policing, and media control stifle creative expression. In India, where abusive language is common yet free speech is selectively silenced, comedians and writers struggle against rigid narratives. The Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina controversy highlights the hypocrisy—while entertainment is censored, violence and sensationalism flourish. Historically, humour and satire thrived on social critique, from Charlie Chaplin’s wartime observations to Yes Minister’s bureaucratic lampooning. But today, storytellers face an impossible paradox: conform or be erased. If creative freedom isn’t protected, society risks losing its most powerful mirror—its storytellers.
Humour, in its most authentic form, has always been a mirror to society, reflecting its absurdities, contradictions, and injustices. In India, where censorship, conservatism, and morality are deeply embedded in the mainstream narrative, the scope for genuine creative expression has steadily narrowed. This has led to a shift in the nature of comedy and storytelling, forcing new-age creators to seek alternative means of engagement—sometimes in the form of explicit humour, other times through direct confrontation with the boundaries imposed upon them. The recent controversy surrounding Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina is emblematic of this larger issue, one that highlights the slow and painful death of the storyteller.
Despite its cultural richness, India has long struggled with educational disparities. A large section of the population lacks access to quality education, and with it, the tools to express themselves with nuance and depth. This has resulted in a society where everyday communication is riddled with abusive language—not necessarily out of malice, but as a byproduct of a limited vocabulary. Words such as ‘M***d,’ ‘B***ke,’ and other expletives are casually thrown around, not just in private spaces but also in public discourse. They have become part of everyday conversation, a reflection of an environment where frustration, economic disparity, and systemic neglect find expression through harsh, often profane, language.
A Generation Starved of Creative Freedom
It is within this landscape that modern humour has taken a turn. In an era of stringent censorship, storytelling has been pushed into a binary—either aligning with conservative, religious, and nationalist narratives or succumbing to the hyper-violent tropes that are permitted ad nauseam. As mainstream media and entertainment networks tighten their grip on expression, storytellers are left with little room to explore themes of contemporary relevance. There is a distinct absence of modern ideas in mainstream narratives; those who attempt to push boundaries are met with backlash, censorship, or worse, legal action.
Compare this with an era when comedy emerged from profound social and political observations. Charlie Chaplin, for instance, built his humour on the pathos of war, poverty, and the struggles of the common man. His film The Great Dictator (1940) satirized Adolf Hitler and fascism at a time when the world was on the brink of chaos. Likewise, Yes Minister (1980–1984), a British television series, derived its humour from the inefficiency of bureaucracy. Its sharp wit and incisive political commentary held a mirror to the government, exposing its contradictions without resorting to crude provocation.
But what happens when a generation of creators finds itself straightjacketed, unable to express beyond what is permitted? When mainstream storytelling is restricted to promoting either sanctioned conservative ideals or excessive violence, how does one create content that speaks to their lived experiences?
While humour and satire find themselves under constant scrutiny, violence and sensationalism continue to thrive unchecked. The very authorities that acted with unprecedented speed to silence Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina have often failed to respond with the same urgency to more pressing issues—rape, corruption, and other forms of systemic injustice. The irony is glaring: a joke, however crude, receives swift legal intervention, while countless women and marginalized communities struggle for justice in an apathetic legal system.
The media, driven by the relentless pursuit of TRPs, has fed off this controversy, exploiting it for viewership while conveniently ignoring the larger implications of such crackdowns. Meanwhile, pornography—disguised as ‘news’—flourishes across platforms, with clickbait headlines and salacious content forming the backbone of digital news consumption. This selective outrage, where authorities and media houses pounce on creators while ignoring more dangerous societal issues, exposes the hypocrisy that governs discourse in today’s world.
The Death of the Storyteller
A storyteller—whether a comedian, filmmaker, writer, or artist—draws from the world around them. Their craft is shaped by personal experiences, observations, and the peculiarities of life. But when their ability to express is choked at every turn, when they are forced to operate within rigidly defined boundaries that align neither with their realities nor their creative instincts, storytelling itself begins to die.
The modern storyteller is faced with an impossible paradox. They walk through streets where verbal abuse is rampant, where systemic violence is normalized, where hypocrisy reigns supreme, to get to their studios, and yet, they are expected to create narratives that fit neatly into the mould of ‘acceptable’ discourse. They are allowed to showcase excessive violence, but not irreverent humour. They are encouraged to glorify outdated traditions but are vilified for questioning them. They are expected to conform, to self-censor, to dilute their observations until they are stripped of all meaning.
If this continues, if expression is further stifled and storytelling is reduced to what is palatable for the powers that be, then the true casualty will not just be individual creators—it will be the very essence of storytelling itself. A world without storytellers is a world devoid of reflection, without the ability to challenge, question, or inspire change.
There is something broken in the way censorship operates today. Instead of encouraging a culture where diverse perspectives can coexist, authorities and media gatekeepers are actively suppressing voices that refuse to conform. This is not just a disservice to storytellers but to society at large, which loses out on the opportunity to engage with ideas that challenge the status quo.
The solution is not in further regulation but in the creation of a just environment where expression is not criminalized based on arbitrary moralities. Until then, every crackdown on creativity, every attempt to silence a dissenting voice, brings us one step closer to the death of the storyteller.
