The latest episode of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight titled "Indian Elections, Trump & Red Lobster," which critiques Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has not yet been aired by HBO's official streaming partner JioCinema as of Monday, 3 June. The episode reportedly is critical of the ruling dispensation, has satirical jokes about the Prime Minister and even touches upon rising incidents of violence against minorities in India.
Viacom18, controlled by Reliance Industries, has a deal with Warner Bros to stream popular HBO shows and movies through JioCinema.
The episode will reportedly air on 6 June on YouTube, after the results of the Lok Sabha elections.
The last episode "Corn," aired on 19 May , is still the most recent upload on JioCinema, despite their deal, with the new episode yet to be added.
What John Oliver Said
Users were quick to share snippets from the episode to highlight how the episode has not been aired yet there were bits from the episode that were relevant. In one of the snippets which has now gone viral. The host was seen criticising PM Modi for taking credit for stopping the war in Ukraine.
The snippet starts with John stating, "Sometimes Modi's tendency to take credit for things can be a bit of a stretch." The episode then goes on to show the promotional video that suggests that the PM hauled the war in Ukraine. He then goes on to add, "He stopped the war? Are we completely sure about that? Because I feel like I'd remember if Modi had somehow pushed pause on the war in Ukraine as if it's a 'Call of Duty' game and his mom just called him for dinner."
Take a look at the post:
Another X user wrote, "John Oliver predicts that this segment, which is critical of Modi, is most likely be censored in India and Jio Cinema just proves him right."
In this snippet, a video features John stating that "But as an international community it seems past time to stop the uncritical fawning praise towards a man, to put it mildly, a deeply complicated figure."
Take a look:
The episode also saw Oliver also talking about how "India's economic gains were widely unequal. In which he states, "Around 1 million people control 80 per cent of the country's wealth. And as they have gotten richer much while the rest if the country has gotten poorer."
In the same video, Oliver also pointed out that the media is afraid to be too critical of the government. "It's difficult to confront him to his face because he has not held a single press conference in India in the last 10 years."
Adding that, "What criticism there is of Modi often gets suppressed in India." The rest of the media hardly take "hard-hitting" interviews.
In the end, the host also adds, “I don’t know if this episode is definitely not going to end up airing in India, depending on what they do with the laws around YouTube. If you have friends and family living in India who would like to see it, just encourage them to visit these sites."
The sites in question are oppositesnakes.com and howtoeatmangoes.com.
Later, people on the internet were quick to share their opinions on the episode not airing on JioCinema.
One user wrote, "What a shame. World's largest democracy, ha? Not at all."
Other users wrote, "Tell me something I don't already know."
Here are some other reactions:
JioCinema has previously avoided streaming John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, 2020 episode which discussed PM Modi, the Citizenship Act protests, Gujarat Riots, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The results of the Lok Sabha elections are set to be announced on Tuesday, 4 June.
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