India did get its fair share of laughter through cinema, television and political satire, but the format of one person and one mic on one stage started around the mid-2000s.

The Comedy Store in Mumbai was one of the first dedicated comedy clubs and its early line-ups were dominated by international comedians. Among them was Vir Das, who brought back lessons from Chicago’s comedy clubs and recreated that open-mic culture through Weirdass Comedy. Soon there were open mics across the country and comedy clubs like The Habitat in Mumbai and The Underground Comedy Club in Bangalore and a whole generation of comedians finding audiences first on stage and then on the internet.

The industry evolved just as quickly. Sketch collectives such as AIB and East India Comedy proved that comedians could build entertainment properties beyond stand-up. Today, comedians run podcasts, panel shows and format shows. The one-hour special remains the most prestigious milestone, but it is no longer enough. Comedians increasingly build IPs that keep audiences engaged between tours and eventually sell tickets to those tours — whether it is Raina’s India’s Got Latent, Raunaq Rajani’s Relationshit Advice or AIB alumnus Gursimran Khamba’s Nation Wants To Guess.

Unlike a stand-up special, which effectively retires once a tour ends, a format show keeps generating fresh episodes, clips and conversations. It extends the life of the comedian beyond the stage and turns them into a recurring media personality.

This growth indicates that India wants comedy. Audiences have embraced comedians as performers, creators and entrepreneurs. Yet the growth of the business has been accompanied by growing disagreements over what comedians should be allowed to say once they have that audience.

India borrowed much of modern stand-up from the West and the influence remains visible. India’s Got Latent is heavily inspired by Kill Tony, the American live comedy format where aspiring performers are roasted by a panel of judges. But Kill Tony is only one part of a much older comedy ecosystem. For over 50 years, Saturday Night Live has built an audience by spoofing presidents, lawmakers and public figures across political parties. Late-night hosts have made political commentary part of mainstream entertainment and stand-up comedians routinely build entire sets around current affairs. This culture itself came from constraints — Lenny Bruce spent much of his career battling obscenity charges — but those battles gradually expanded the space available for comedians under the First Amendment. Bruce was finally free of his charges in 1968 after he was posthumously pardoned. While the current times are not exactly controversy-free — with Stephen Colbert’s show getting pulled off air and Jimmy Kimmel being temporarily suspended — there has been a workaround that keeps the comedians away from preventative arrests or violent outrage. Even with all the strings the present US President pulls to curb criticism, the First Amendment allows them to further disagree with the curbs he establishes.

Unlike the United States, India’s right to free speech is expressly subject to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2). Beyond the Constitution, comedians also perform in an environment where organised outrage often arrives before a legal determination does.

Kunal Kamra’s career illustrates one side of that tension. His comedy deliberately targets governments, politicians and institutions. One of his more recent run-ins with law and order was in 2025. After a set on Maharashtra politics, Shiv Sena workers vandalised The Habitat, forcing one of India’s best-known comedy venues to temporarily shut down. Prior to that, he was also charged with contempt of court for criticising the latter’s order of granting interim bail to news anchor Arnab Goswami.

Samay Raina represents a different side of the comedy debate altogether. India’s Got Latent is not political satire in the way Kamra’s work is. It relies on shock value, dark humour, roasting contestants and pushing the limits of what audiences may find acceptable. Many of the jokes are crude. Some are misogynistic. Some rely on sexual humour. Some are simply designed to provoke. The debate is no longer limited to fighting for political satire to get protection but for any comedy that doesn’t appeal to the tastes of public figures. It is whether the state and society should decide which forms of comedy deserve protection in the first place.

As comedians build larger IPs, attract bigger audiences and move from comedy clubs to streaming platforms, the conflicts surrounding them will only become more frequent. Kamra’s political satire and Raina’s shock humour ask different questions, but they force the country to confront the same one: When comedy inevitably offends, will India’s legal and social response create more room for it or less? The answer will determine not just the future of stand-up, but the kind of comedy ecosystem India ultimately builds.

The writer is a trainee journalist, The Indian Express. akriti.kanodia@expressindia.com