After mob attacks venue that hosted Kunal Kamra, social media pokes fun at thin-skinned politicians

On March 23, Shiv Sainiks belonging to the party’s Eknath Shinde faction smashed equipment and tossed around chairs in a comedy venue in Mumbai’s Khar that had hosted a show at which stand-up comic Kunal Kamra made jokes about their leader.

But they could not stop the jokes going around on social media.

As the mob threatened Kamra for his claimed insult to Shinde, who is one of Maharashtra’s two deputy chief ministers, the violence provoked a flood of cartoons and memes pointing to the tragic absurdity of the situation.

Just a joke! #kunalkamra pic.twitter.com/TQqg8i5nih— Satish Acharya (@satishacharya) March 25, 2025

The Habitat, where the show had been recorded some weeks earlier, announced on Monday that it was “shutting down” the studio, or rather, whatever was left of it. Later, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation dispatched officials bearing hammers to bring down an allegedly unauthorised shed erected at the entrance of the Unicontinental hotel, which houses The Habitat.

The mob was attempting to target Kamra for a 45-minute video titled Naya Bharat that he released on YouTube on Sunday. It contains a satirical song about Shinde’s political flip-flops and has since garnered over four million views.

Police cases have been registered against the comedian as well as the Shiv Sainiks.

Some of Kamra’s fellow comedians and social media content creators expressed their...

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