Agarwal asserts that your workplace is an integral part of your identity today. “Your identity isn’t just ‘I’m a person living in Delhi.’ It’s ‘I’m a person living in Delhi who works at X company.’ That part follows you everywhere, even if it’s only 20-30% of who you are.”

Agarwal drew a parallel to cricketers KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya who were dropped from the team (in 2019) after their comments on Koffee With Karan landed badly. “Humour and jokes are absolutely fine, we encourage that, it’s part of any healthy culture. But there’s a line, and that line is at things like misogyny or anything that puts someone else down. That’s not humour anymore, that’s just disrespect dressed up as a joke.”

Myah Payel Mitra, a Bengaluru-based coach, who works with organisations such as LinkedIn, Microsoft, Amazon and Myntra to create safe work cultures, says, “We are living in an always-on culture, which means you are at work even if you aren’t.” HRs, she adds, are now actively checking digital footprints, and leading MNCs like KPMG have formal guidelines on what employees can and cannot post.

The question of who bears responsibility when something goes wrong in a public setting is blurred. Jangra’s firm was working out of a co-working space. “We’re not in a position to take disciplinary action against individuals who aren’t our employees,” says Guncha Khare, Senior Director of Strategy at Dextrus, which runs four co-working spaces in Mumbai. “But where conduct affects how people experience our shared workplace, we would raise it with the company concerned — both to flag the concern and to understand what steps they are taking to address it.”

The chairman of a leading PR company, on the condition of anonymity, shares: “Every employee is a brand ambassador of that firm, be it a board member, CEO or a junior. Professional and personal behaviour are both sides of the same coin. You cannot switch your conduct on or off from one place to another.”

Not too long ago, in 2018, Michelin-starred chef Atul Kocchar, was fired from a Dubai restaurant after a tweet in which he stated that Muslims had “terrorised” Hindus for thousands of years — a comment he later apologised for. “People should distinguish between personal life and professional life, but they don’t. In today’s times, it has become most important to not say anything,” he says.

That caution is now institutional. Tripti Bhatia, founder of Mumbai-based PR and marketing firm Detales Brand Communication, says her team avoids online opinions altogether. “You aren’t getting anything by being vocal, so it is better to be quiet and do your work.” On Jangra, she is unequivocal: she would have terminated him too.

Agarwal sees a distinction worth preserving. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinions — political, religious, whatever side of anything. But the moment it puts someone else down, that’s where we draw the line. It’s not about restricting people, it’s about building a culture people actually want to be part of.”