The team of Political Kida gets a Twitter notice over caricaturing of Uddhav Thackeray

The Maharashtra government seems to be resorting to its draconian measures of curbing free speech, expression and dissent once again. This time the target for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government seems to be caricature artists for their unique way of criticising the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. At least two caricaturists have now received notices from microblogging platform Twitter for allegedly violating Indian laws. Incidentally, nothing could be more ironic, since Twitter has been doing the same for quite some time now. What Twitter called content which violated “Indian laws” was in fact a set of spoofs aimed at the Maharashtra government.

Twitter has sent a notice to the team of ‘Political Kida’ for caricaturing Uddhav Thackeray. An important point to note here is that ‘Political Kida’ often makes cartoons and videos on politicians like Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee, but the posts for which Twitter sent a notice to them was specifically on the rather intolerant Maharashtra government.

It is ironic how out of all the content published by ‘Political Kida’, only spoofs intended against the Maharashtra government led by the MVA have caught the eye of Twitter – which now claims the posts violate “Indian laws”. It shows that Twitter was alerted, or perhaps, been directed by the Maharashtra government to take action against such caricaturists for daring to express themselves against the Shiv Sena supremo and his partners.

These are among those posts of Political Kida which have been flagged by Twitter to be in contestation of Indian laws. Reacting to the quite evident involvement of the government of Maharashtra in the entire fiasco, Political Kida took to Twitter to say, “So much hate for Balasaheb Thackeray from Uddhav Government. Just because Balasaheb once said “Main mere Shivsena ki Congress kabhi nahi hone dunga”. Now they are sending legal notice to Twitter to remove Balasaheb’s video.” This was in relation to a video of Balasaheb Thackeray and Arnab Goswami, which too, has been accused of being in contempt of Indian laws.

Political Kida is not the only account which is being targeted for publishing anti-Maha Vikas Aghadi spoofs and caricatures. Cartoonist ‘Vikaso’ has also been targeted for his cartoon on Uddhav Thackeray – in which the Shiv Sena supremo is shown getting confused between “lockdown” and “vasooli (extortion)”.

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It is shocking how the government of Maharashtra is targeting satirists and those who dare to criticise the MVA government through spoofs and caricatures. It is especially startling that the party of Balasaheb Thackeray would lead such an effort, even while the Sena patriarch is known to have said that journalists must not be hounded by governments for sharing a satirical cartoon and that if they do so, it speaks of their fear. Balasaheb Thackeray was himself a renowned cartoonist.