After India’s Got Latent controversy, Jaaved Jaaferi says there are ‘more important’ issues that need to be addressed

Jaaved Jaaferi spoke about the changing culture of comedy in India and said certain people have become less tolerant.

New Delhi | February 20, 2025 10:06 AM IST

3 min read

Jaaved Jaaferi said that there are more important issues that need to be addressed. (Photo: Jaaved Jaaferi/Instagram)

After the controversy over comedian Samay Raina’s show India’s Got Latent, many celebrities have expressed their opinion on the changing culture of comedy in India. Now, in a recent interview, actor Jaaved Jaaferi has said that it is not necessarily about the people who consume comedy, but about how these incidents are politicised. He said that while some people have become more sensitive, the same cannot be said for the majority of the audience.

In a chat with Humans of Bombay, when he was asked if people have become less tolerant when it comes to comedy, Jaaved said, “It is not about the people, it is how politics plays these games.” Jaaved added that there is a certain change in the socio-political atmosphere when it comes to these things, and he doesn’t see it as a healthy practice. “People didn’t think of these things but today, they are being forced to think of these things. There’s a certain play happening in the socio political circles which is not healthy. I don’t agree with it,” he said.

He insisted that there are more important issues that need to be addressed, but somehow, more attention is paid to frivolous things. “There are issues that are more important than just changing the name of something, change the state of something. Naam mein nahi kuch rakha hai, kaam mein rakha hai. (There is nothing in a name, work is more important). Kaam (work) is more important than naam (name),” he said.

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“There is a certain segment who makes a lot of noise and they are the ones who are seen. If 10 people are making a lot of noise, and 1000 people are sitting quietly, you hear those 10 people,” he said.

The ongoing controversy about Samay Raina’s show started after a joke made by Ranveer Allahbadia was seen as objectionable by some members of the audience. Multiple FIRs were filed against the judges on the panel of the show, and later, the episode was deleted by YouTube India. Later, Samay Raina shared a note on his social media declaring that he was deleting all the episodes of his show.

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