The cartoonists leading the backlash over Modi’s handling of India’s Covid crisis

As condemnation of Narendra Modi’s handling of India’s Covid crisis grows, it is cartoonists who have handed out some of the most stinging criticisms, reports Namita Singh in Delhi

A cartoon criticising Narendra Modi’s decision to focus on winning elections while ignoring the rising death toll from the coronavirus pandemic (Supplied by Satish Acharya)

The decision by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, to hold huge political meetings during the run-up to voting in the state of West Bengal, even as the country was being devasted by the coronavirus pandemic, enraged Manjul.

He was left “aghast” as he watched the situation unfold.

“I had to draw what I saw,” the 49-year-old freelance editorial cartoonist tells The Independent. “[Modi] was holding rallies day in and day out even as pyres burned across the country.”

“The thing is, when the prime minister of a country appears maskless and holds rallies with a sea of people, where pandemic protocols are anything but followed, he encourages callousness. He pretends like there is no corona and that everything is under control,” says Manjul.

“The people of India have such immense belief in his leadership that they think, if the threat was real then Modi wouldn’t be holding these huge rallies.”

To satirise the situation, Manjul drew a caricature of Modi standing in front of a podium, with burning pyres in place of the audience. The prime minister, who was maskless at his rallies, wears a mask in the cartoon, but it covers not his mouth but his eyes.

“He was not looking at basically what was happening in front of him. Our prime minister only cares for his image. And that is what I wanted to convey.”

He is not the only cartoonist who has used caricature to critique the government. Social media in India is flooded with cartoons providing a scathing commentary on the handling of the pandemic.

A cartoon having a dig at Modi for holding political rallies even as the Covid-19 death toll mounted across India (Supplied by Manjul)

A large number of the cartoons take aim at Modi’s decision to hold rallies in West Bengal, while several others ridicule the claims by the ministers in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party that India does not have any shortage of oxygen and that it is “better prepared” for the second wave of the pandemic.

A satirical take on Modi’s declaration in West Bengal that he had ‘never ever seen such huge crowds at a rally’ (Supplied by Satish Acharya)

“A cartoonist’s job is to question the government, ask for accountability from the rulers, and raise the questions on behalf of the downtrodden people,” Satish Acharya, 50, another freelance editorial cartoonist, tells The Independent.

“The most effective cartoons were the ones which question the priorities of the government, the ones which show the helplessness of common people,” he says.

A cartoon takes a swing at Modi for his decision to hold rallies in the West Bengal amid soaring cases of Covid-19 (Supplied by Satish Acharya)

Some of his most widely shared and effective cartoons have been the ones that play on “I can’t breathe”, a slogan that is associated with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.

In his cartoons, Acharya gave it a fresh slant, using the slogan to underline India’s deadly lack of medical oxygen – crucial for the treatment of seriously ill Covid-19 patients.

“That phrase was at the back of my mind when I was thinking about so many people losing their lives just because we couldn’t provide them oxygen,” he says. “The parallel between the two incidents is that the age-old rotten system is the culprit.”

He used the same slogan to slam the Modi government, which focused its energies on blocking posts on Twitter that criticised its handling of the pandemic while the country struggled with oxygen shortages and medical infrastructure problems, and was reporting more than 300,000 coronavirus infections daily.

A cartoon playing on the slogan ‘I can’t breathe’, associated with Black Lives Matter protests in the US, and censorship of posts on social media (Supplied by Satish Acharya)

“I just voice the opinion of common people, who are struggling to gather their scattered life after assault after assault, be it economical or policy assault,” says Acharya. “It’s their emotions which they find in my cartoons.”

But these political statements come with a cost. Apart from relentless trolling on social media, both of the cartoonists say that they have found it hard to find media outlets willing to commission their work.

A cartoon criticising Modi’s handling of the crisis (Supplied by Manjul)

“There is a lot of pressure from government quarters not to draw Modi and [Amit] Shah. But since I am a freelancer, I can draw them and post them on Twitter,” says Manjul.

Since 2014, when Modi came to power, Acharya says he has been losing clients. “After 2014-2015, I kept losing clients often. But the last three years have been really bad, as many editors aren’t comfortable carrying cartoons which criticise the government.”

Despite the pushback, they are hopeful that their careers will survive. “I get some support from cartoon lovers through the Patreon platform. I take up commissioned caricature assignments to make ends meet,” says Acharya.

“The immense joy is, I survive without compromising on my belief in the art of cartooning.”