Caste, comedy, and stereotypes: the politics of humour in Hindi stand-up

Abstract

Hindi stand-up comedy has rapidly expanded across live venues and digital platforms, becoming a crucial arena where caste is negotiated, softened, challenged, and strategically silenced. Dominant-caste comedians often use self-deprecating humour to recast caste as a harmless biographical trait, while Dalit–Bahujan performers employ narrative testimony, irony, and linguistic play to foreground everyday experiences of exclusion and systemic inequity. This study examines how caste is articulated in these divergent comedic strategies and how such performances are interpreted within algorithmically mediated public spheres. Using a qualitative, multi-modal design, the analysis draws on approximately 40–45 publicly available Hindi stand-up performances (YouTube specials, short clips, Instagram Reels, and OTT recordings) produced between 2015 and 2025. Findings indicate that while dominant-caste performers normalise privilege by rendering caste a humorous quirk, Dalit–Bahujan comedians construct counterpublics through satire and parodic reversal. However, platform infrastructures algorithmic curation, demonetisation, and metadata sensitivity favour “safe,” apolitical humour and curtail the reach of caste-explicit critique. The study argues that Hindi stand-up is a contested cultural field shaped by caste power, platform governance, and stratified audience reception.