{"id":7687,"date":"2026-10-09T13:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=7687"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:19:13","slug":"satire-silenced-indian-artists-face-censorship-as-anti-modi-protests-grow-protests-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=7687","title":{"rendered":"Satire silenced: Indian artists face censorship as anti-Modi protests grow | Protests News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Delhi, India<\/strong> \u2013 Stand-up comic Brijesh Jha posted a parody video on Instagram last week to protest the removal of his name, along with his father\u2019s and sister\u2019s, from a voter list in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.<\/p>\n

The video, which alleged that India\u2019s Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had disenfranchised millions of voters at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), garnered 1.7 million views after it was posted on September 29.<\/p>\n

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Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

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Two days later, Meta, the United States-based company that owns Instagram, took the video down, citing \u201clocal laws\u201d without giving further explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very helpless that day. I have only one thing in this country \u2013 that I can vote. If you take that away from me, then I have nothing left. So I didn\u2019t know what to do. As an artist, I can just make art, or I can protest,\u201d the Mumbai-based artist told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Jha said his parody song was removed because the Modi government is \u201cscared\u201d after an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper last month revealed that two of the election commission\u2019s three members had raised serious concerns over a controversial revision of voter rolls being conducted by the poll panel across the country.<\/p>\n

The exercise, known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), was launched in June last year to identify deceased, duplicate or dubious voters and remove them from the rolls. So far, the process has deleted more than 130 million voters \u2013 nearly 14 percent of India\u2019s total voters, an overwhelming number of them Muslims who do not usually vote for Modi\u2019s Hindu nationalist party.<\/p>\n

The Indian Express investigation found that two of Kumar\u2019s fellow election commissioners had formally objected at least 14 times to key decisions linked to the SIR exercise taken by their chief.<\/p>\n

Opposition politicians and critics accused Kumar, a Modi government appointee, of acting at the behest of the BJP and demanded an independent inquiry into the decisions taken by the election commission during his tenure.<\/p>\n

The revelations have led to street protests across India, demanding Kumar\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, police in the capital New Delhi briefly detained the main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, and other leaders of his Congress party as they tried to march to the election commission office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe country has been hijacked by Narendra Modi through vote theft,\u201d Gandhi told reporters. \u201cWhat has been done to our country is called treason. Nobody is going to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, the BJP accused the opposition parties of \u201cmaking a concerted effort to change the government\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are deliberately attacking India\u2019s democracy and constitutional institutions,\u201d a BJP spokesman told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Congress protesters and their political allies were back on the streets on Wednesday. Their demonstrations followed a series of protests by the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and a group of left-wing students in Mumbai and New Delhi since October 2. The CJP has planned another demonstration in New Delhi on October 10 if Kumar does not resign by then.<\/p>\n

\u2018Question the people in power\u2019<\/h2>\n

What stood out in these protests was an increasingly inventive language of dissent, driven by humour, art and music, with much of it existing online alongside the demonstrations on the streets.<\/p>\n

But a crackdown on such memes and jokes has also been simultaneous.<\/p>\n

According to the Indian Express newspaper, the government issued nearly 195,000 content-blocking orders to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July this year \u2013 an average of one blocking order every 68 seconds.<\/p>\n

Rejecting the newspaper report, the government said in a statement, \u201cWith 600 million users in India posting up to 78,703 items every 68 seconds, it is reasonable to expect that on average, one of these items may not be lawful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crackdown came after the Modi government tightened rules governing online content in February. According to the new rules, social media platforms must remove content that a government authority or court has declared \u201cunlawful\u201d within three hours of receiving the order, down from 36 hours previously.<\/p>\n

Among those whose works were taken down was political cartoonist Satish Acharya.<\/p>\n

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One of Satish Acharya\u2019s cartoons taken down by the social media companies [File: Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several of Acharya\u2019s cartoons, some up to three years old, were removed and his Instagram account was blocked in India from September 28 until late on October 5, he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt different phases of history, people used cartoons as a tool to express their protest and question the people in power. With the advanced use of social media, cartoons appear in different forms now, sometimes memes and reels,\u201d the 55-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of hope in Gen Z. They are fearless, they are creative and they care for the country. Our politicians can learn a lot from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stand-up comic Jha, who attended the CJP\u2019s protest in Mumbai, agrees. \u201cThe more cruel the power is, the softer, more humorous and more artistic the protest becomes,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

But Jha has refused to apply for a reinstatement of his name in the voters\u2019 list.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they will see this interview and probably I will be in some detention centre. I just want to see what will happen. I\u2019ll not register my name again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, he had a satirical message for Modi as he urged the Indian leader to stop the crackdown on online content.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease give back my right to vote. You are a great leader with a 56-inch chest. You shouldn\u2019t be scared of one video,\u201d he said, invoking a long-held right-wing boast about Modi\u2019s famous bust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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New Delhi, India \u2013 Stand-up comic Brijesh Jha posted a parody video on Instagram last week to protest the removal of his name, along with his father\u2019s and sister\u2019s, from a voter list in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. The video, which alleged that India\u2019s Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had disenfranchised millions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t