Cartoonists hold up the mirror to power, and BJP finds that upsetting

The 99-year-old Tamil magazine Vikatan ‘reportedly’ earned the ire of the Government of India and ‘formally’ the wrath of the Tamil Nadu President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), K Annamalai and other leaders of the state unit. I have consciously used different adverbs to qualify the nouns following them — ‘ire’ and ‘wrath’.

I did so because while the government has not officially claimed responsibility for blocking the magazine’s website, as that could likely lead to judicial disapproval, State unit leaders have come on record saying that the cartoon mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi was effectively anti-national.

This argument emerges from the trite and oversimplified political equation the BJP has ceaselessly utilised: ‘Modi is the Nation’, thereby criticising or making fun of Modi, is the same as targeting the country, and, in this manner, an unpatriotic act.

All this is the result of a cartoon by Hasif Khan featuring Modi in a not so favourable light. The ‘offending’ cartoon depicts Modi in a bandh-gala suit with his hands and legs fastened by chains, sitting next to United States President Donald Trump. Modi’s expression in the caricature is glum and infuriated, although little can be done, save look askance at the gleeful figure of Trump.

The cartoon, certainly, underscores the paradox of the first batch of ‘illegal’ Indians being sent back in chains from the US, shortly before Modi’s arrival in Washington. Other batches continued even after he returned to New Delhi.

This is not the first such incident when a cartoon featuring Modi riled the current political regime to such an extent that formal action was initiated. In July 2021, noted cartoonist Manjul was served a notice by Twitter after this cartoon drew attention to the government’s perceived ‘incompetence’ in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. The notice was sent after Twitter received a legal communiqué from the authorities regarding the cartoon and his social media account.

Almost at the same time, lawyer and civil society activist Prashant Bhushan was intimated by Twitter that 'India' (presumably the Government of India) had asked that a cartoon he shared on his social media wall, violated the laws of the land, and had to be taken down.

When it comes to politicians taking objection to cartoons that criticise them, Modi is not alone. A Jadavpur University professor underwent a harrowing legal grind lasting 11 years till January 2023 for forwarding an email, in April 2012, which had a cartoon in which West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was the butt of a joke.

Incidents like the ones mentioned above, and many more, are in sharp contrast to the attitude of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru towards cartoonists.

India’s iconic cartoonist, R K Laxman, in a rare article, wrote that besides the constitutional guarantee of protection for the cartoonist, “there was one man on the political scene to whom the cartoonist should owe the freedom he enjoys,” — and that was Nehru. Nehru is on record admiring the cartoons of Shankar and asked the cartoonist to not to spare him. Certainly, irreverence was respected then; not like today when servility is rewarded.

“He talked and laughed about the cartoons in the company of his fellow-politicians, who were all hard-boiled freedom fighters, hardly used, I imagine, to the lighter side of life. Slowly they started taking interest in the cartoons...,” wrote Laxman.

Tragically, if that was how Nehru led the way for his government and party colleagues to develop the ability to laugh at themselves, after being the subject of ace cartoonists, there is no leader like him in today’s India.

If Modi prefers it, or conveys such an impression to servile kotowing juniors within his party, what then can one expect from them whenever a sharp cartoon appears in any publications?

Quite clearly, many a leader in other states would have made a mental note of Annamalai’s letter to junior information and broadcasting minister L Murugan. In this, the exaggerative party state president claimed that the cartoon was “deliberately aimed at defaming” Modi and that Vikatan and its cartoonist had violated “norms of journalistic conduct” laid down by the Press Council of India.

Unless the Union minister turns down the request and the party leadership sends a clear message that the BJP is not replicating itself as the Indira Gandhi-era Congress where sycophancy ruled the roost, the current approach that Modi and his public image is sacrosanct and cannot be sarcastically scrutinised will be the new article of faith.

Unfortunately, the BJP leadership has allowed the rank and file of the party to believe that India is Modi and Modi is India; that any statement, act, resolution, or even a cartoon remotely critical of him is against national interest or anti-national.

The political cartoonist in any publication is not a thoughtless caricaturist. Instead, they are some of the sharpest editorial writers of the publication who combine the skills of what Laxman termed ‘satirical draftsmanship’.

What does the media do if it is prohibited from probing those in power and joining the dots when our leaders engage in statecraft and diplomacy, as in this Vikatan cartoon which pointed to the Trumpian certificate of ‘ace negotiator’ for Modi, even as shackled Indian citizens trooped home, hoodwinked by dream-sellers and failed by the State?

Cartoonists hold up the mirror to power, to enable our leaders to see how they have metamorphosed in the pursuit of power.

Similarly, the impact created by Abu Abraham’s December 10, 1975 cartoon depicting the president in a bathtub, signing a paper held by a hand protruding from the door, was immense. 

Just as Former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed would have realised his powerlessness before an impatient prime minister, Modi and his colleagues would have understood the cartoonist’s intent. Their anger was on their reading of Modi’s visit to the United States, not just the cartoon per se.

(Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Delhi-based journalist, is author of 'The Demolition, The Verdict and The Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project'. X: @NilanjanUdwin.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.