We're All in This Together, Akaash Singh
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 20 Nov, 2025

An Indian rightwing comic finds racist and misogynistic taunts less funny when directed at him and wife.

I first heard of comedian Akaash Singh in the context of his short film “Bring Back Apu.”  

If I’m being honest, it pissed me off. 

Andrew Schulz and co-host Akaash Singh interviewing President Trump on their Flagrant 2 podcast

A lot of Indians I deeply respect had previously participated in a documentary called “The Problem with Apu” in which many shared stories of the negative affect that the Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon — a stereotypical Indian character voiced by a white guy — had had on their communities.

Singh’s own point was that Apu should not be seen as a negative.  Rather, he’s a cool character who epitomizes the American dream: He’s a hard worker and small business owner who drives a corvette and has an attractive wife.

I don’t dispute all of that.  To be clear, I have always  been a diehard Simpsons fan and the character of Apu never personally bothered me growing up. 

But I felt sympathetic to those who had spoken out against the character. And I realized that I had likely benefitted from growing up in a western household in ways that some victims of Apu-inspired bullying may not have.  My immediate family didn't have accents.

It felt like many of those defending Apu were white people who were quick to label the rest of us as overly-woke or PC or unable to take a simple joke. 

One of far-right podcaster Myron Gaines's many tweets against Singh and his wife

When Akaash Singh made his own short, I couldn’t help but feel like he was throwing the rest of us under the bus; that he was effectively saying “I’m not like THOSE Indians.”

I became even more familiar with Singh by watching clips of his successful “Flagrant 2” podcast .

In general, it solidified my belief that he and I do not see eye to eye on issues of politics and identity. His presence on the podcast has, in my view, normalized many of the outright offensive views of his co-host Andrew Schulz. 

Welcoming President Trump to the podcast — who Schulz endorsed — just before the election was especially, in my view, a bridge too far. 

Singh is now embroiled in a social media feud with particularly right-wing podcasters who he has hosted on his own show, and the result has been the outright humiliation of Singh. 

Admittedly, my knee-jerk reaction was to think of a concept that all Indians are familiar with: karma. 

But as this feud continues to play out, it’s become bigger than Singh. The incessant racism and misogyny directed at him and his wife in recent weeks have made my own feelings towards him almost irrelevant.

This is an attack on all of us.

The Feud

The start of the Akaash Singh drama, while toxic, is admittedly not that unique for the content ecosystem that he exists in. 

In 2022 Singh and his White co-host Andrew Schulz welcomed the hosts of the Fresh and FIt podcast — Black men Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes — onto their own podcast.

Singh and Schulz more or less blindsided them, berating the two for pushing “Self improvement” and “red pill” content.  In other words, Singh leveled the criticism that Gaines and Weekes were spewing both misinformation and misogyny. 

Singh’s own podcast is far from a bastion of progressivism, but it’s tough to dispute the toxic nature of what Gaines and Weekes spew, including a refusal to date Black women. 

This all sparked a years-long back and forth which came to a head earlier this month.  On November 6, Gaines took to Twitter to mock Singh’s relationship with his wife Jasleen Singh, posting compilations of clips from her own podcast in which she repeatedly — presumably jokingly — disparages her husband.  The clips include Jasleen repeatedly expressing her desire to sleep with other men — often specific people  — and various other insults that some would argue crossed a line

The video and its followup have fueled what feels like an unceasing stream of hate towards both Akaash and Jasleen Singh, much of it rooted in the sexist belief that Jasleen is not subservient enough to her husband and that Akaash who is a “cuck” and a “simp.” 

Since Gaines posted the videos, top comments on Jasleen’s Instagram videos include charges of her being a “slut” a “ho” mentions of her getting “ran through.”  The Twitter comments about her are even more disgusting and at a much higher volume.

And then there’s the explicitly racial element.  Gaines has been posting tweets that refer to Akaash Singh as “jeet” “poopjeet” and “dirty cuck jeet.”

As an Indian who has had the pleasure of being called “towel-head,” “Apu,” and worse, I have to admit that “jeet” is one I was less familiar with. But it is apparently the hottest new anti-Indian slur in certain dank corners of the internet.

While following this story, I spent some time on Gaines’ social media, which is ripe not just with anti-Indian sentiment and sexism, but vile anti-semitism as well.

Gaines’s beliefs are particularly heinous.

But similar views are commonplace for the “manosphere” a term that refers to a certain type of podcast that tends to be, at its core, a longform un-PC conversation between men. These types of podcasts tend to revel in the ability to offend while lambasting the most marginalized who may take offense.

To be clear, I do not find Singh’s any of Singh’s views nearly as objectionable as many that exist in that ecosystem. 

And, yet, by fully embracing that world, I feel as though the ire that he is receiving  — while not merited —is something of a monster that he has himself helped create.

This is a place where jokes about race, sexism, the mentally disabled and more are just accepted. Why would he think that they wouldn’t turn on him? 

I think back to a viral meme that originated in reference to Trump voters who supported him despite his backing of policies that would personally harm them:

It was a tweet that read “I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs the woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party." 

While Singh may be much less bad of an actor in my view, his current plight is not unlike that of  many Indians in the Republican Party right now. 

Indian Republicans

Last month, far-right activist Dinesh D’Souza, an Indian, tweeted the following:

“In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric. The Right never used to talk like this. So who on our side has legitimized this type of vile degradation? It’s a question worth thinking about.”

It, frankly, read as satire.

D’Souza has been one of the single biggest rabble rousers in politics. He has openly called Barack Obama “anti-American” likened Democrats to Nazis, and defended slavery. That he would suddenly be surprised that members of his own party are racially insensitive is, simply put, perplexing. 

The long list of reasons this should come as no surprise includes the fact that he is both close friends and a former partner to Ann Coulter, who has consistently spewed anti-Indian rhetoric, including telling Vivek Ramaswamy that she wouldn’t vote for him because he’s Indian. 

Coulter certainly isn’t the only conservative who has expressed such views towards Ramswamy.  An onslaught of social media users, some of whom have been in close proximity to Trump, like Nick Fuentes, have encouraged Ramswamy to “Go back to India” and called for his deportation.

Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel has been subject to much of the same.

No part of this is surprising. Why would any of these Indian politicians believe that they are immune from racism when actively participating in a political movement that has no issue directly the same insults to other ethnicities.

It isn't entirely dissimilar to Akaash Singh becoming the subject of toxicity after years of active participation in a system that directs the same toxicity to others.

A Lesson Learned?

I first heard of the latest drama involving Singh from a text chat that I belong to with five other South Asian men. 

The reactions all more or less began the same: reveling in the criticism against him.

But soon, as more guys realized the extent to which the insults were rooted in racism and misogyny, the realization of how harmful this is for all involved set in. 

It’s interesting that those seeking to humiliate Singh are doing so from the right while the criticism of him from my friends and I has long been from the left.

He has somehow managed to alienate himself from nearly everyone it seems.

But as one friend who began the conversation on Singh’s downfall with "I can't get enough of it” ultimately concluded: “We all lose.”

This ordeal has been a reminder to me that all things are part of a spectrum. I’ve put my own feelings about Singh on to side with him against a much greater injustice. 

Hopefully when this feud comes to a close, Singh will re-evaluate his relationship with some of the figures in this world and the ways in which he may have helped enable it.

That is, if the leopards have not completely eaten his face by then.