Until this week, Daniel Fernandes has had a rather abject and obscure existence. Very few people knew or spoke about him, and even fewer knew that he was a ‘comedian’ by profession. This lack of recognition and acknowledgement is perhaps why he went a step ahead and demonstrated how mean and callous he could be against his ideological opponents in his latest YouTube video, ‘Alive and Vaccinated’, released on the internet on February 3.
In the one-hour 39 minutes long video, Fernandes mentioned that during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, he would ask people whom they voted in reply to their DMs for help on Instagram. Without taking any party’s name, he said if they had voted for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he blocked them, and if they hadn’t, he would share their plea on his profile.
A snippet of that particular section was published on Instagram. He said, “If you were on social media, Instagram, for instance, it was very scary. Instagram looked like a hospital ward. Do you remember that? Every Instagram story was a cry for help. “I need an oxygen cylinder!”, “I need an ICU bed”, “I need a ventilator”, And I’m like, “but you voted for chai!” [audience applauded] “Drink it!” And anyone who had any amount of following on social media they were getting a lot of messages in their DMs asking for help. They were saying stuff like, “Hey, I need such and such thing. Can you please share this with your followers?” Can you please amplify my cry for help?” Now, as somebody who has a little bit of a following on social media, I got these messages too.”
“And as I said earlier, in a difficult time, I’m happy to help out if I can make a difference. But I also have an obligation to my own followers. I can’t blindly share anything that comes into my inbox. I have to verify the information, right? So whenever I receive these messages asking for help, saying I need such and such things, I will reply and ask them, “Who did you vote for?” And if they said, “Not chai”, I would share the message. But if they said they voted for chai, I would block them! That seems fair, right?” He added.
After his video went viral on social media drawing widespread ire from netizens for his genocidal views, one would expect the comedian to introspect and apologise. The comedian, however, doubled down and brazened it out, in the face of the anger and backlash that he was getting.
Taking to Instagram, Daniel Fernandes mocked those who were questioning him and the audience for laughing and applauding his genocidal views.
How Daniel Fernandes demonised Hindus and abandoned help seekers during covid-19
Nevertheless, it highlights the malaise currently ailing the Indian ‘liberal’ and the ‘comedian’ fraternity. They are so consumed by hatred for Modi that they would not mind wishing and doing evil to their own countrymen who do not share the same political views as them.
In Fernandes’ video, the reference to chai is unmistakable. It is an insinuation for PM Modi, who was a chaiwala before plunging into politics. Fernandes was quite unabashed and unapologetic for turning his back on his followers who looked up to him for help at a time when the country was reeling under the second wave of a devastating coronavirus outbreak just because they may have voted for PM Modi. An electoral vote for PM Modi meant that Fernandes would not help the person in a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. What’s even worse? He is now gloating over the sufferings of the people and how he condemned them to fend for themselves just because their ideology did not converge with his.
This is not uncommon, especially among the liberal ‘comedians’, for whom hate-mongering and demonising a section of voters based on their political choices and electoral decisions becomes their right to exercise Freedom of Speech as guaranteed by the Constitution of India. In the name of artistic freedom and the ‘liberty’ to crack jokes, these liberal ‘comedians’ often express their ingrained feelings and entrenched hatred and pass it off as comedy and jokes even though no one, including a few of their ardent fans, struggles to try to find humour in them.
While many people have criticised Fernandes for his blatant hatred for PM Modi, his shameless attempt to dehumanise his supporters, and his lack of morality, others have argued that folks like Daniel Fernandes should be ignored and not turned into a hero as the Left seeks new warriors to revitalise their years-long banal campaign against the BJP. They contend that since Fernandes can’t crack witty jokes, he relies on demeaning and dehumanising PM Modi and his supporters to curry favour with the leftist ideologues, similar to ‘comedian’ Kunal Kamra and that one should resist the urge of exalting such spiteful losers to the limelight.
However, the objective of exposing Daniel Fernandes and bigots like him isn’t to ‘make them famous’ but to underscore how ‘Sanghis’ continue to remain expendables for the ‘wokes’ and the ‘liberals’, who make lofty claims of following exacting standards of personal morality but fall considerably short of it in practice.
Dehumanising Hindus becoming par for the course for ‘comedians’
It also shows that dehumanising Hindus has become par for the course for the comedians, who get emboldened by the support they receive from the bigoted left. They can continue to mock Hindus, ridicule their beliefs, make insulting remarks against their Gods, trivialise genocidal deaths, and normalise wishing death on Hindus and when they are called out for their bigotry, they lean on the Left to amplify their feigned victimhood.
Contrastingly, when Hindus stand up against such perverse ‘comedians’ and their shocking normalisation of hatred against Hindus, the Left and the opposition instead guilt trips Hindus of becoming ‘intolerant’ and not being a sport in taking a ‘joke’. Apparently, the same Left and the ‘comedians’ turn a blind eye when a section of the society gets worked up over the slightest of provocation and mobilises ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ protests across the country. Even then, the other side is given a free pass while Hindus are blamed for “unwarranted provocation”.
Every Hindu who asserts his identity or raises pertinent questions on the bigotry unleashed against them is regarded as a ‘Sanghi’ and therefore considered as fair game for being subjected to dehumanisation, ridicule and mockery. This is the great bane that the liberals have bequeathed the Indian society, where Hindus who exercise their constitutionally granted right to vote for their preferred candidate are deemed as ‘expendables’ and worthy of not receiving treatment in times of medical distress.
It is, therefore, all the more important to call out bigotry underway in the name of comedy. Daniel Fernandes may or may not be a famous ‘comedian’, but his ‘jokes’ on condemning the supporters of PM Modi and those who voted for him to death betrays the ideology that is intolerant of ‘diverse opinions’ and seeks to homogenise the society.
