The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has blocked at least two Instagram accounts belonging to two cartoonists under a regulation designed to “protect the public from threats to national security, public order or criminal activities”. Alan Gardner reports on this in *The Daily Cartoonist*
The two cartoonists,Satish AcharyaandManjul, had published cartoons criticising the current government’s efforts to reduce the size of the national electoral rolls.
India is currently carrying out a nationwide campaign to clean up the electoral roll. Critics of the“Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) argue that this initiative is depriving voters of their right to vote by imposing requirements that create obstacles for legitimate voters, and that the SIR is creating centralised databases that override or hinder the decisions of local electoral officials.
Satish Acharya published his cartoon on the 24th, although it wasn’t the first one he’d drawn on electoral issues.
Manjul published his on 24 September.
By the 28th, both posts had already been blocked on Instagram and could not be viewed in India.
A few days later, Manjul explained the deadlock to his readers as follows:
Instagram has restricted this cartoon in India. I am reposting it, along with the notice I received from Instagram. According to the notice, access has been restricted in India ‘in compliance with a notification from the Government of India or law enforcement agencies’ and in accordance with local legislation. The cartoon remains visible outside India. Indians have been prevented from viewing a cartoon about the Electoral Commission. When satire is censored, perhaps the cartoon has already succeeded in getting its message across.
Although, as things stand, the other social media accounts of both cartoonists on X, YouTube, Facebook and Threads do not appear to have been affected – despite the fact that the latter two, like Instagram, are owned by Meta – the Instagram block was indeed effective in India.
TheKerala Cartoon Academy, a professional organisation of cartoonists in the state of Kerala, has issued a statement in support of Manjul and Acharya in the following terms.
Kerala Cartoon Academy Statement
The ban imposed on the cartoons of prominent cartoonists Manjul and Satish Acharya on social media in India is condemnable. Several other cartoonists have faced similar bans, and the fact that they have not come forward with public protests is also a matter of concern. Cartooning is an art of criticism. The Kerala Cartoon Academy expresses concern over the growing trend of gagging criticism in contemporary times. All this is happening in a country where Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru once famously told cartoonist Shankar, 'Don't spare me, Shankar.' The Cartoon Academy is deeply concerned about this issue. The bans must be revoked immediately. Upholding freedom of expression and democratic values, the Kerala Cartoon Academy declares solidarity with Manjul and Satish Acharya.
Sudhir Nath
Chairman,
Kerala Cartoon Academy
The never-ending censorship
This persecution of cartoonists is nothing new; the Indian Government has tried to silence many artists, and state censorship in India affects both creators and publications.
In 2021, Manjul had already been through this. He was sacked “with immediate effect”byNetwork 18, the media organisation he had been working for for six years, just days after receiving a complaint from the government regarding his activity on Twitter.
On 4 June, he shared an email from Twitter on his @MANJULtoons profile . The notice informed him that the Indian authorities considered that the content associated with his @MANJULtoons Twitter account “violates Indian law(s)”. The “Indian authorities” had asked Twitter to take action against the account. You can read the full story here.
However, in India, the government is not the only censor. In 2018, Satish Acharya also had to contend with censorship imposed by the publication he drew for, and he resigned from his job at *Mail Today* after one of his cartoons was rejected
Cartoon by Satish Acharya rejected by the editor of the Indian newspaper *Mail Today*
The editor of *Mail Today*, Dwaipayan Bose, denied the allegations of censorship and justified the decision not to publish the cartoon by citing unspecified editorial criteria. He stated that Satish Acharya’s cartoons had been published every day and that this was “the first time a cartoon had been withheld ”.
Satish Acharya refuted Dwaipayan Bose’s claim and demonstrated that this was not the first cartoon that this editor had refused to publish. The cartoonist revealed this on Twitter, showing other rejected cartoons and pointing out that it was these very cartoons that had reached the widest audience thanks to social media. (Screenshot).
Here’s the post I wrote back then.
Humour in trouble: a collection of cases
Cases of cartoonists who have faced significant problems because of their satirical cartoons or illustrations. There are also some stories of other people who, whilst not cartoonists themselves, have run into trouble for sharing them.
