Moral policing or 'national shame'? Twitter divided over #AIBRoast after Maha govt's FIR

The Maharashtra government has deemed the AIB knockout “vulgar” and has decided to investigate if the roast of actors Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor are guilty of obscene language and content. [caption id=“attachment_2076641” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screen grab from Twitter[/caption] The All India Bakchod roast, the first of its kind seen in India, showcased a panel of eight along with the ‘Roastmaster’ of the night Karan Johar, putting the Bollywood celebs through a profanity-laced 90 minutes of jokes about their personal and professional lives. The show was filmed in a Mumbai stadium with an audience of 4,000 in January. An edited version of the show has garnered more than eight million views after being released just last week on YouTube. In response to feedback on Twitter about some of the jokes exceeding the limits of decency, AIB co-founder Tanmay Bhat tweeted, “All the roasts I’ve seen online have all been equal opportunity offending.” Though many expressed outrage on Twitter after an FIR was launched against AIB, many called them the ’national shame’. The three trending topics are “AIB National Shame”, #AIBRoast and “We Stand by AIB Knockout”. However, some of them supported the stand up comedy group by trending, ‘We Stand By AIB Knockout’ Author Chetan Bhagat was one of the first to make a very poignant point on Twitter.

"@chetan_bhagat: If they probe AIB roast for abusive language, they also need to probe every college in country."
We stand by AIB Knockout

— ~•Bhumi•~ (@arjunzadi_bhumi) February 3, 2015

Others wondered why the Maharashtra government was not focusing on other more important things, like rape and murder.

Try focusing on probing into things that actually need reporting. Like, idk, rape? Murder? Injustice?

We Stand By AIB Knockout

— Shweta (@midounokoishii) February 3, 2015

Mumbai citizens had more problem with Mumbai’s potholes than the “vulgar” roast.

Frankly, the potholes on Mumbai's roads offend me far more than the AIB roast.

— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) February 2, 2015

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And I guess Maharashtra government haven't turned 18 yet. We Stand By AIB Knockout

— P. (@ClassicWilds) February 3, 2015

There were other who were not so happy with the roast criticising actress Deepika Padukone and Sonakshi Sinha for laughing at their own expense.

AIB National Shame as women as not expected to enjoy vulgar jokes, rather they need to stay home and produce four #AIBRoast

— Sir Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhaqat) February 3, 2015

Some users expressed outrage at the fact that Sonakshi and Deepika were not aghast at the jokes on them.

Deepika,Sonakshi become preachy when sexists jokes r cracked by normal people,but they enjoyed such jokes at #AIBRoast AIB National Shame

— sabina lamba (@SabinaLamba) February 2, 2015

One user wondered why rape, child marriage and dowry didn’t intise the same response from the Maharashtra government.

Some ever tried to point out the meaning of a “roast” but to no avail.

People need to understand how "roast" works. If they did, they would either ignore #AIBRoast or watch it. The moral policing wouldn't exist.

— Sarfarosh (@BabaGlocal) February 3, 2015

And pointed out that we do indeed live in a country that has multiple identities.

The #AIBRoast controversy reminds me that we aren't one 21st century country - multiple Indias live in different centuries at the same time

— Aalif (@SuperAalif) February 3, 2015