On the Banning of Humour

ON the Banning of Humour WE the people of India must vote to ban humour from our country. When we have so many serious challenges and problems to confront, humour is an unnecessary luxury. Look at the frequent controversy erupting in the recent past over cartoons: if we ban humour such controversies are not likely to emerge. No disrespect to any person living or dead, intended or unwitting would be shown. Some people may argue against the banning of humour. They might say that such a law would be unenforceable. There would be too many violations. The people being laughed at might however agree and enthusiastically support the motion. The trouble with humour is that it has often unintended innuendos. Take the word, “ motion” for example. It means different things to different professionals, for instance, an honourable legislator or a medical professional. It will also evoke different kinds of emotions in the audience. Some others might think that a total ban on humour might be too harsh. Like smoking, humour in public spaces can be restricted. We can have boards to demarcate “ No humour zones.” Come to think of it -what has humour achieved in the history of mankind or of any particular nation? Has humour won a war? Taking things too lightly might have cost some victory in war. Humour has not helped anyone invent anything new. The flippant and the frivolous have never achieved anything serious in life- that’s the lesson of history. Humour has never been known to have helped any country’s GNP or per capita income increase at a faster pace. Take Japan as a nation, though humour is not banned- we can rarely see people smile, laugh or crack jokes. No wonder the country has progressed rapidly. Imagine what a complete ban on humour could do to a nation’s progress. Humour does have a distracting effect on our focus. Still some others still hold on to the urban legend that humour is the best medicine. Laughter has therapeutic effects, they argue. This is at best a myth or at worst a joke on human gullibility. We all know of people who laughed heartily but died of heart attacks. At the same time, there are lots of serious people who outlived the less grave and went to the grave much later than their more humorous counterparts. Now, once we are convinced that humour should be banned or at least regulated or restricted, how do we get enough people to support such a move. There are enough people around who have been hurt by humour at one time or other. If all of them can be organized around this one point –manifesto : Ban humour, we can build a lot of momentum into the campaign. What are the penalties that can be imposed on those violating the law once it is passed? Should it be fines or solitary confinement? Solitary confinement can be thought of for habitual offenders but for first offenders, we can have fines. The fines should not be so light that the offender would laugh it off. Once humour is banned, it would certainly have a salutary effect on society, not just economically in terms of greater productivity but also in terms of cultural effect. We would have better music, art, drama and literature. The serious canon of the arts and letters would develop and we would have no loose cannons around. Education would also achieve the chief and only purpose it has ever had-to educate people to be serious about life and their pursuits. What do we do about the existing jokes,cartoons, amusing anecdotes and humour available online and offline?We can find ways to destroy or make inaccessible all such stuff. Prateep V Philip