28 january 2025
Indian cartoonist Gaurav Sarjerao had access to his Instagram account (and one post) blocked in India following a request initiated by the Haryana State Police.
His account, 98% of whose followers are located in India, now displays the messages “post unavailable in India” and “user unavailable in India.” The reason? The cartoon below, published on the cover of the political weekly Marmik in August 2025 and shared on his Instagram account, has been viewed more than two million times. In it, Gaurav Sarjerao criticizes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s relationship with the US president, against a backdrop of increased defense cooperation.
When questioned by the cartoonist, the digital platform’s moderators referred generically to their “policy on access restrictions in accordance with local law,” without being able to specify the legislative provision on which this restriction was based, and inviting the cartoonist to contact the local police who had requested the block.
This online censorship is part of a broader operation carried out by the Haryana State Police in consultation with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The Print media outlet reports that hundreds of posts and profiles were removed within a month as part of an operation targeting “objectionable, anti-national, anti-religious, and misleading content.” When questioned by the media, the police chief stated that “AI-generated content showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President Trump is among the content that has been removed, when the Prime Minister is portrayed in a negative light, as well as content involving other national leaders.”
This operation is part of a new censorship mechanism, which allows local officials to require social media platforms to remove certain posts. In October 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government launched the Sahyog platform. All digital platforms are required to join this system, which extends the power to issue removal requests—previously reserved for two federal ministries—to all federal and state government agencies, district-level officials, and the police. According to local media, the Haryana state police are invoking Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, which stipulates that intermediaries (technology companies) will lose their immunity if they do not remove illegal content at the government’s request. Analysts agree that the authorities’ objective is to circumvent Supreme Court rulings that have restricted the government’s use of Section 69 of the Information Technology Act to block online content.
Gaurav Sarjerao, who saw one of his posts blocked, then his entire Instagram account, received no formal notification of the legal basis for this decision. The News Laundry echoes the concerns of cartoonists in India, who are seeing their online publications increasingly restricted.
Cartooning for Peace is concerned about this new case of censorship, which once again illustrates the Indian authorities’ desire to stifle freedom of expression. Meta’s policy of moderation “in the name of local law” is being used as a tool of repressive national legislation enacted by a government that fears humor.
