Humourless Nation

“How safe is it to be a satirist in India today?” Put that question to any AI platform and you’ll get shocking results. See what I got.

India has recently cracked down on social media satire criticising Prime Minister Modi. In 2026, the government has used Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to block online satire, memes, and political commentary targeting Prime Minister, with individuals facing legal action, online harassment, and even threats to their lives for making jokes about him. Posting such content could carry significant risks for you.

Shakespeare’s iconic Fool in King Lear says that truth is like a stray dog beaten and chased away while dishonest flatterers sit comfortably close to power. People in power tend to like flatterers and hate those who reveal truths, particularly inconvenient ones. Not all, however. Wise rulers in Shakespeare tolerate jesters and weak rulers fear them. Tyrants demand reverence. Comics become dangerous only when the ruler is insecure.

What Shakespeare showed us four centuries ago is true even today.

Laughter can puncture authority faster than rebellion. A cartoon can say in one frame what a thousand editorials struggle to explain. A satirical movement like the Cockroach Janata Party was perceived to be a big threat by Modi because he is a weak ruler. His credentials are founded on slippery sands. Falsehood is s sand castle.

But all efforts are made to keep falsehood going. Stifling satire is one of those efforts. Satirists and cartoonists and comics in India now face lawsuits, outrage campaigns, censorship, arrests, intimidation, digital mobs, and even charges of treason.

India has become a country that has killed laughter.

There was a time when Indian newspapers carried savage political cartoons. Not long ago. Leaders were caricatured with oversized egos, crooked smiles, collapsing ideologies and absurd hypocrisies. No Prime Minister was immune. No party was sacred.

Cartoonists like R K Laxman [1921-2015] built an entire tradition around the idea that authority deserved satire. His ‘Common Man’ silently witnessed the circus of Indian politics with exhausted amusement. The humour was never seen as antinational but as profoundly democratic. 

By R K Laxman

Today the cartoonist is seen not as a social mirror but as an enemy combatant.

Because comedy exposes the gap between public image and reality. More than INR 1000 crore is spent annually by Modi government on image-sustaining exercises such as advertisements. And an authority that is so insecure can never tolerate satire and caricature. Instead it creates myths. Modi has made an absurdly outlandish claim that he was sent by none other than God to redeem India. “I’m convinced that I was not born biologically in the usual sense,” he proclaimed in a 2024 election campaign speech.

How can such person tolerate humour?

In Modi’s regal if not celestial vision, the leader must always appear grand. His nation must always appear glorious. Criticism is always treacherous.

Too many Indians have convinced themselves that Modi is a supernatural entity, India’s Messiah. Others have learnt to censor themselves. I hope to learn that soon enough.

When the cartoonist hesitates, comedian edits himself, and the writer softens the sentence, the real losers are the citizens.

The Mughal courts had satirists. Medieval Europe had fools in royal courts. Ancient Sanskrit literature contains biting social humour. Even gods in Indian mythology are often playful, mischievous and ironic.

Insecure power, however, demands worship. People who claim to defend a whole civilisation cannot survive a cartoon!

When a nation loses the ability to laugh at power, power eventually loses the ability to recognise its own madness.

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