Abhishek Upmanyu ‘supports’ a Pakistani insulting India, faces Twitter heat, ‘When you betray your own country…’

Standup comedian Abhishek Upmanyu is facing backlash for his one-word reply on Twitter (now X) on April 28. The reason behind the social media outrage has a Pakistan connection.

Understand the chronology.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a Delhi-based commentator on defence issues, posted a parody poem. The Hindi poem, containing crude and sexually explicit language, spoke about a far-off village where prostitutes were cheap. The poem continues with a language that is intentionally provocative, using sexual slurs.

But this is nothing new. To everyone who criticises his post, he has a standard reply, “Go f**k yourself.”

A certain Miss Khwaja from Pakistan slammed the explicit poem. “Zero class. Abuses is not equal to humour. The whole world sees your country as this hub of rapists and rightfully so. This is 'funny' according to the average Indian. You lot deserve all the racism you're facing in the west,” she wrote.

Standup comedian Abhishek Upmanyu replied to Miss Khwaja’s comment. He wrote, “Yup.”

His reaction did not go well with many Indian users on social media. After the Pahalgam terror attack, allegedly carried out by an extremist group backed by Pakistan, there has been a massive uproar against the nation in India.

Miss Khwaja’s X account has been withheld. Abhishek Upmanyu has apparently deactivated his account. Here is how people have reacted to the standup comedian’s alleged “support”.

“Ashamed to ever think you were good,” wrote one user. “You guys are so blind for hate towards everyone opposing your view they would literally SUPPORT A PAKISTANI in this critical time. This whole saga is exposing a lot of cockroaches (sic).”

“When you betray your own country for cheap validation, you don’t get sympathy… you get exactly what you deserve: public shame and irrelevance. He collapsed under his own cowardice (sic),” came from another.

Another user wrote, “I used to think he was a smart comedian. Instead of at least coming up with a rebuttal or an apology, he just deactivated his account (sic).”

Who is Abhijit Iyer-Mitra?

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra was arrested in 2018 for making insulting comments about Odisha’s Konark temple and its people.

He faced several charges, including promoting enmity, hurting religious feelings and public nuisance. Despite clarifying later that his comments were a joke, his bail pleas were rejected.

He was also charged under IT and heritage protection laws. The state assembly later pardoned him.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, whose Twitter (now X) posts are filled with similar posts containing such lewd language, is still active on the micro-blogging platform.