The great Indian election comedy

Elections don’t have to be just about sound and fury. A bunch of comedians has taken to YouTube to tickle the electorate’s funny bone.

There’s comedy group A1B’s Dharna Dance featuring a Kejriwal look-alike as Yo Yo Kejru Singh dancing to Honey Singh’s raucous Lungi Dance tunes.

Then there’s SK Younus’ satirical version of Downfall , the biopic on Adolf Hitler, that shows Narendra Modi as Hitler, just by changing the subtitles. Or, catch this Narendra Modi fan group’s take on the Congress campaign with children role-playing as Amoeba Hasin (Congress party worker Hamida Asin) and Kahul Baba!

These spoofs are a hit this election season, making YouTube the new box-office for indie production houses which have tapped social media to maximise their reach. In a phone interview, Ashish Sakya, a comedian from the group called All India Backchod (AIB), says, “As comedians and writers we react to things around us naturally. Not just because it is a hot topic.”

Arunabh Kumar, founder of The Viral Fever, which has a YouTube channel called Qtiyapa (TVF-Q), says, “With Facebook, Twitter and YouTube you can be a part of everything.”

According to him TVF-Q’s aim is to use social media as a “weapon” to voice opinions publicly. Their productions are tongue-in-cheek, sometimes dark and always politically incorrect.

Not taking sides While some satires take sides, AIB’s Sakya explains its aim is not to cause any damage but just express their opinions. He adds: “We don’t support any party, and we are not targeting anyone.”

Asked if political parties have responded, Sakya says, “We have had no responses yet from the big parties. But AAP is the only party willing to joke about itself, Kejriwal himself tweeted the parody we did on him.”

It’s supporters’ reaction that is alarming. “Responses of NDA supporters online are a little harsher.”

AIB had 4.27 lakh and TVF-Q had 5.74 lakhsubscribers to their YouTube offerings as of Monday.

As TVF’s Kumar says, “We do everything, the programming, production, script, shooting, and editing.”Kumar explains, “We do it via YouTube because it is the cheapest cable network.” He does not want to spend on a cable channel because more people consume content online, it is available free and they are content creators and not distributors.

While the medium doesn’t incur costs, production does.

Sakya of AIB adds: “For multiple-set production it is expensive. It varies for different productions.”

Production costs TVF-Q’s sketches cost between ₹50,000 and ₹16 lakh to produce.

For instance, Kumar explains, the sketch called Bollywood Aam Aadmi Party: Arnab's Qtiyapa , with more than three lakh views in two months, cost around ₹10 lakh.

Sakya hopes that more groups create such content online.

“Indians welcome comedies but there are not many people doing this. We could do with more,” he says.

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