Don’t make rape threats the new normal: Stand-up Comedian receives threats after mocking Shivaji

The Tatva Staff July 12, 2020

What needs to be understood is in a country where over 80 rape cases occur each day and over 30000 per year, such threats, abuses not only label rapes normal but also make people think it’s okay to think about a woman in a derogatory, abusive manner.

Mumbai-based stand-up comedian Agrima Joshua over allegations of her
insulting Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj apologised for her jokes as she took to
twitter and made an apology video mentioning Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). But now she is getting rape threats on social media and is at the receiving end of a lot of ugly commentary from men whose ‘sentiments are hurt.’

The intolerance of extremists in India be it the left or the right has reached a peak where few bat an eyelid will insignificant people go around giving open rape threats to women especially celebrities but the water reached the heads of many when a person named Shubham Mishra not only used filthy language but casually threatened to rape stand up comedian Agrima Joshua after the incident.

Although National Commission for Women took the complaint into consideration and tweeted, “Keeping in line with #NCW’s commitment towards ensuring the safety of #women online, our Chairperson @sharmarekha has written to @dgpgujarat for taking immediate action against Shubham Mishra, the man hurling abuses against a female comedian in this video (sic)”

Later on an Instagram post, Shubham Mishra claims that he had no intention of giving rapes threats, but pulled down his video of his response to Agrima because people thought so. He will say other things that he has to say in a live video on Sunday, he added.

But it’s not just about the mentality or the extremist, its about how they perceive things that happen around them. People need to stop normalising such acts, behaviours. Especially if a man who has lakhs of followers on social media like Shubham Mishra, that itself is an indication of how many people supported his thought process and stood by him.