The Politics of Laughter and Rhetorics: Hagrama’s Winning Act

At a campaign rally in BTAD Assam, Hagrama Mohilary takes the stage, not with the thunderous voice of a firebrand politician, but with a calm and cool demeanour. He leans into the microphone with the ease of a stand-up comedian rather than a politician. With a mischievous grin, he tells the crowd: “Take money from the tractor party—they have plenty, and they love distributing it. Eat their rice, drink their tea, even ride their tractor if they offer! But when you go to the polling booth, remember—the plough is your own, that is my party.”Within minutes, the crowd is laughing—at his rustic jokes, his playful self-mockery and his witty digs at rivals. With such remarks, he turned the act of political persuasion into a moment of shared laughter, showing how humour can be sharper than rhetoric in cutting through the noise of elections. What might sound like casual banter is in fact a carefully honed rhetorical style. His wit isn’t limited to rallies. When journalists asked him about the fate of two long-time colleagues who had defected from his party, Hagrama didn’t turn grim or bitter. Instead, in his usual style, he said: “They are traitors of BPF, no doubt. But the punishment has already been given—by UPPL itself! They have made them contest the elections. What more punishment do you need? They will never win.” The crowd of reporters burst into laughter, Hagrama had managed to flip a tricky question into a joke at his rivals’ expense, ridiculing the defectors without spending a single angry word on them. He had once again turned political betrayal into a comedy sketch, mocking his rivals without ever raising his voice.

In an era when political communication in India is increasingly dominated by shrill polarisation, high-decibel rhetoric and communal undertones, Hagrama Mohilary offers a refreshing counterpoint. As a mass leader, his speeches do not follow the usual grammar of Indian electoral politics. Instead, they reveal a distinctive rhetorical phenomenon — one that fuses rustic humour, self-fashioned naïveté and playful critique into a powerful mode of persuasion. Studying Mohilary’s rhetoric thus opens up a fresh line of inquiry: how does a regional political leader, without recourse to communal mobilisation or heavy-handed populism, cultivate mass appeal through laughter, simplicity and character-driven humour? This is not just political performance, but a unique communicative style that situates Mohilary as a case study for rethinking the role of humour in electoral politics.

A defining feature of Mohilary’s oratory is his use of rustic humour. This draws from local oral traditions of satire and comic storytelling, functioning as what Bakhtin termed the carnivalesque—a temporary suspension of hierarchical seriousness through laughter. The tradition of naïveté humour becomes one of the central theoretical lenses to read his rhetoric, where the speaker assumes the role of the “fool” or the simpleton whose comic persona generates laughter. Much like the Shakespearean fool, Mohilary impersonates rustic naïveté, allowing him to say things in jest that might otherwise appear too sharp or confrontational. His humour is not situational but rather character-driven—his persona itself becoming the source of humour. This strategy transforms political critique into a performative role, where amusement softens the edge of attack.

By employing humour, Mohilary not only entertains but also critiques political adversaries in a way that avoids overt hostility. His mockery of competitors remains amusive rather than divisive. This aspect of his rhetoric can be understood through the theory of benign violence, where ridicule and chiding produce laughter without inflicting genuine harm. Mohilary frequently mocks his rivals, but the ridicule is wrapped in playfulness, preventing it from escalating into animosity. This benign humour reduces the aggressiveness of electoral competition and makes political exchanges more palatable to audiences, reinforcing his political ethos as a figure who unites rather than polarises. 

The theory of incongruity also provides an important framework to understand the appeal of Mohilary’s rhetorics. Humour, according to incongruity theorists, arises from the clash between expectation and reality. In Mohilary’s case, audiences expect politicians to deliver speeches with gravity, authority and decorum; instead, he often behaves in ways that subvert these expectations—cracking rustic jokes, speaking in dialects and local idioms, and mocking opponents in a playful manner. This gap between political convention and his actual delivery becomes a fertile ground for laughter and affection.

In rhetorical terms, Mohilary’s style embodies ethos (credibility built on relatability), pathos (emotional bonding through laughter) and logos (clear reasoning presented in colloquial idioms). His humour is at once a political weapon and a populist bridge, allowing critique without antagonism and solidarity without communal undertones. For these reasons, his rhetoric constitutes a unique phenomenon—merging naïveté, benign mockery and incongruity into a persuasive form of mass communication that deserves detailed attention.

Hagrama’s sweeping victory in the BTC polls is not just about organisational strength or political arithmetic—it is also the triumph of his humour, his style of rhetorics, and the character he plays on stage. Through the use of humour, Hagrama cultivates a sense of relatability, while his reliance on wit rather than hostility in addressing rivals renders him more approachable to the public. In a landscape often dominated by heavy speeches, communal and bitter rhetoric, Hagrama turns politics into a theatre where personality matters as much as policy. His success shows that in the politics of personality, it is not always the loudest voice that wins, but the one that can make the people laugh, nod, and say—This man is one of us.

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