India blocks cartoonist Satish Acharya’s Instagram account after ECI cartoons
“Every bit of criticism scares govt, forcing it to resort to cowardly measures”: Cartoonist
New Delhi:The BJP-led Indian government’s crackdown on critical social media content has come under renewed scrutiny after Instagram restricted the account of prominent cartoonist Satish Acharya in the country, days after he published cartoons focusing on the Election Commission of India (ECI) and its handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
A message displayed by Instagram when users in India try to access the account says, “We temporarily restricted access to this account pursuant to legal requirements under India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules.”
Acharya said on X that he had never seen a government that was “so scared of cartoons”. He also shared a 2018 report quoting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as saying that cartoons have a “healing power” and that cartoonists are “closer to god” as they can minutely observe characteristics of human beings.
Acharya’s account was restricted under the Information Technology Rules, 2021, which require social media platforms to remove content deemed unlawful within three hours of receiving directions from the government or a court.
Some of Acharya’s recent cartoons focused on the ECI and the controversy surrounding the SIR. One cartoon published by South First was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Acharya also said that some cartoons published as far back as 2023 had recently been restricted.
Acharya said that he had not received any communication from Meta before some of his posts were taken down. He later received a notification saying that his profile would be unavailable in India.
“This regime boasts about being the most powerful and fearless government,” he said. “But every bit of criticism scares this government, forcing it to resort to cowardly measures.”
One of Acharya’s recent cartoons was based on a September 23 Indian Express report which said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions related to the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
This is not the first time Acharya’s work has faced restrictions. In March, he received two notices through X within three days concerning two of his cartoons.
Another political cartoonist, Manjul, also said that Instagram had restricted one of his works about the Election Commission to users in India “pursuant to a notice from the Government of India/Law Enforcement”. “When satire gets censored, perhaps the cartoon has made its point,” Manjul said in a post on X.
Manjul said that other cartoonists had also had their posts blocked or restricted following government orders, though some may not speak publicly about it due to concerns about their associations with organisations.
The blocking orders came nearly a month after it was reported on August 19 that the Modi government issued nearly two lakh orders to social media platforms Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July to take down content. This amounts to nearly 1,275 orders every day. Each blocking order may cover hundreds of individual posts, pieces of content or accounts. Of the three platforms, Instagram received the highest number of blocking orders, nearly 1 lakh. While Facebook received about 80,000 orders, YouTube got nearly 15,000.
