Ranveer Allahbadia’s Latent Controversy in India: The Mumbai police on Tuesday called stand-up comedian, YouTuber, and chess aficionado Samay Raina and podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia for an investigation regarding the latter’s contentious question on Raina’s YouTube show, “India’s Got Latent.”
Notably, Raina’s stand-up performance, “Samay Raina Unfiltered,” is now touring both Canada and the US. He has performances scheduled through March 16 after performing in Seattle on February 9.
Raina was born in Jammu into a traditional Kashmiri Pandit family. After finding her print engineering program in Pune unsatisfying, she began doing open mic performances. He first became well-known in 2019 after he and Aakash Gupta won the second season of “Comicstaan.”
By streaming chess matches and working with well-known players like Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen, he increased his online visibility during COVID-19. Additionally, he hosted online chess competitions and raised a significant amount of money for a number of causes, such as aiding flood victims in Assam and West Bengal.
An ‘unnecessary reality show’
The first episode of “India’s Got Latent,” which the show’s creators agree is “an unnecessary reality show,” debuted on YouTube on June 14, 2024.
As it explains the premise, one of the first lines reads, “It’s a pointless reality but it has a very interesting point system.” Contestants from all across the nation have ninety seconds to perform their skills, whether they be comedy, magic, dance, or singing, in front of a panel of judges. Each competitor rates themselves prior to their performance; if the judges’ average rating agrees with their evaluation, the winner takes home all of the money from the day’s ticket sales.
Alongside celebrities like rapper Raftaar, reality queen Rakhi Sawant, and online personality Uorfi Javed—people renowned for their ability to take jokes in stride and not think twice before cracking one on others—the panel primarily consists of comedians and YouTubers. As seen by Raina’s contentious former roast of Kusha Kapila, for which he received a lot of criticism, and by his humour, which included a part about his grandfather’s (nana’s) passing, the show feeds on dark humour and has no subject off-limits. Raina and his show have gradually gained a large fan base, particularly among Gen Z viewers, with each episode receiving 20–40 million views.
The episode with Ranveer Allahbadia, a content producer who is now a podcaster and has interviewed cabinet ministers like S Jaishankar and Nitin Gadkari in addition to celebrities, caused a great deal of controversy. “Would you rather watch your parents have sex every day for the rest of your life or join in once to stop it forever?” Allahbadia questioned a contestant in the episode, which caused a fight.
Politicians, activist organisations, and journalists expressed their displeasure both online and offline after the segment’s clip went viral. The national and Maharashtra women’s commissions claimed that offensive remarks were made against parents, women, and their bodies, drawing attention to Raina and his show.
The Guwahati police have filed a formal complaint against YouTubers and content creators Ashish Chanchlani, Jaspreet Singh, Apoorva Makhija, Ranveer Allahbadia, and Samay Raina, who were on the panel of the controversial episode, despite YouTube removing it. The Mumbai police have also opened an investigation.