New Clowns in Town: Stand-Up Comics as Parrhesiastes and Flatterers

The chapter advocates that stand-up comedians are the new clowns who have emerged as popular performing artists in the urban entertainment business of India. Using the concept of ‘Parrhesiastes’ for the truth-tellers and ‘flatterers’ for the people-pleasers by French philosopher Michel Foucault, the chapter focuses on Aisi Taisi Democracy and The Kapil Sharma Show to delve into how both groups embody these roles in the present Indian context of hegemonic authoritarianism. To explain the cultural hegemony of the authoritarian regime, the chapter uses the Gramscian sense of intellectuals: ruling and organic and employs the methodology of critical textual analysis and discourse analysis to argue that parrhesiastes, akin to organic intellectuals, confront censorship, incarceration, and threats, while flatterers, akin to ruling intellectuals, enjoy state patronage to maintain the prevailing order. In conclusion, the chapter advocates for the continued use of parrhesia by comedians, highlighting its potential to foster rationality, secularism, scientific thinking, and religious tolerance.