When stick figure cartoons are seen as a threat – DW – 10/11/2024

“It started as a side hustle to make my friends laugh.”

It was in 2014 that Rachita Taneja uploaded her first comic strip on Facebook. The human rights activist was already working for a non-profit organization at the time and was also “chronically online,” which meant she found it “difficult to escape the news,” she told DW at the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin.where the Indian cartoonist was invited to present ‘Drawing a Line’, a documentary about her work.

When she started, Narendra Modi had recently been elected Prime Minister of India. She felt she had to respond directly to his government’s attempts to restrict freedom of expression.

Using simple stick figures, she continued to draw her comics, commenting on a range of social, political and cultural topics, from #MeToo and patriarchy to freedom of speech and harassment of minorities.

The cartoons are all collected in her web series, called Sanitary Panels – a play on words combining ‘sanitary pads’ and ‘strip panels’, reflecting her feminist focus.

Ten years later, Sanitary Panels has over 133,000 followers on Instagram and almost 50,000 on X. She has achieved international recognition and was honored with the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award in 2024.

But in addition to the many fans, the Indian political cartoonist is also confronted with extreme online hatred, including rape and death threats.

Her scribbles may even land her in jail as a case has been filed against her in the Supreme Court. Charged with ‘contempt of court’ at the end of 2020 over drawings criticizing the institution, today, four years later, she is still waiting for the outcome of the lawsuit.

She first became aware of the case after someone tagged her on social media: “I found out on Twitter that there was a case against me, and I immediately had a panic attack,” she said.

While she received a lot of support from her community of cartoonists, the fact that one of India’s most important institutions could feel threatened by her project also seemed surreal: “How does the highest court in the world’s largest democracy talk about my stick figures?” she asks in the documentary.

India’s freedom of expression is under threat

“The Indian media has fallen into an ‘unofficial state of emergency’ since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014,” notes Reporters Without Borders, which ranks India 159th out of 180 countries in its 2024 Press Freedom Index.

The non-governmental organization also highlights the close ties between Modi and the families that own the country’s top media outlets. As a result, Reporters Without Borders notes, the mainstream media acts as a mouthpiece for the government. Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been criticized for pushing part of the agenda of Hindu extremists who spread terror against Muslims in a climate of impunity.

India’s Muslims live in fear of Hindu nationalist violence

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Coordinated campaigns calling for revenge on government critics are being organized by the Hindu far right: “Journalists critical of the government are routinely subjected to online harassment, intimidation, threats and physical attacks, as well as criminal charges and arbitrary arrests ”, the newspaper adds. latest Reporters Without Borders report.

As for the internet

Meanwhile, the internet offers alternatives for many people in the country: “Online news, especially on social media, is preferred by a younger population and has overtaken print media as the main source of news,” notes Reporters Without Borders.

The Indian government feels threatened by the free flow of information and has attempted to censor critical content.

A 2023 BBC documentary that examined Narendra Modi’s role in spreading hatred against Indian Muslims was blocked in the country. Authorities banned the sharing of clips from the documentary and asked Twitter and YouTube to remove links and videos.

But such censorship attempts often backfire, as they put the spotlight on the content – ​​a phenomenon known as the ‘Streisand effect’, named after American singer Barbra Streisand, whose lawsuit over a photo from an obscure website to have the photo removed made it viral.

Similarly, Rachita Taneja points out that the number of followers of the webcomic Sanitary Panels shot up soon after the case was announced in the Supreme Court.

Hoping to better control online content, the Modi government has drafted the Broadcasting Bill 2024. This would have defined all social media creators as ‘digital news broadcasters’ and given authorities the right to ban any content they deem inappropriate. The bill was widely criticized as posing a further threat to freedom of expression.

However, as the BJP failed to win a majority in the June elections, Prime Minister Modi now has to work with coalition partners and failed to pass the bill, which is now being reworked.

‘Simple’ censorship

Yet many political commentators, journalists, artists, activists and comedians – including Kunal Kamra, one of India’s most popular stand-up comedians, who also faces a Supreme Court case – remain on alert.

“I don’t think there is such a thing as self-censorship,” says Rachita Taneja in “Drawing a Line.” “When you face threats of violence, when you face legal threats, and when you adapt in that kind of climate, it’s not self-censorship, it’s censorship. It’s that simple.”

Despite the threats and censorship, Taneja plans to stay in her home country. “I love India too much,” she says. She sees it as unfair to even have to think about moving for security reasons – and quickly adds that she recognizes that she is in a privileged position in Indian society due to the fact that she was born as a Hindu and belongs to the upper caste, and has had access to good health care. education and world travel. “So I think this privilege protects me to some extent as well.”

And in addition to giving a voice to those who don’t have as much privilege as she does, Sanitary Panels have become an essential part of Rachita Taneja’s life: “I would be even more worried if I didn’t make my comic. I think In order to process the world around me, I have to make comics. So I think it really helps me to think about a subject, meditate on it and put it into a comic strip.’

“Drawing a Line” will not be shown in India to protect Rachita Taneja and her documentary filmmaker, who works under the pseudonym Pana Sama. A final screening at the Berlin Human Rights Film Festival will take place on October 12.

Edited by: Brenda Haas