A standup comic in India posted a seemingly innocent Instagram reel in March, parodying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overly acquainted conduct when he meets overseas leaders — the extended bear hugs, the verbal fumbles, the nervous bursts of laughter.
A few weeks later, after the video had amassed hundreds of thousands of views, it was blocked by Instagram. The identical day, on X, a number of different accounts in style for his or her political satire and memes were blocked beneath Indian authorities strain after they criticized Delhi’s dealing with of a cooking gasoline scarcity brought on by the U.S.-Iran conflict, or in any other case poked enjoyable at Mr. Modi.
Satire, it appears, is the newest goal of the Modi authorities’s systematic muzzling of public discourse on this planet’s largest democracy. Since his Bharatiya Janata Celebration got here to energy in 2014, it has steadily eroded civil liberties and elevated its grip throughout all layers of society, together with neutering legacy media that has traditionally demanded authorities accountability. Now it’s tightening management of the digital commons, weaponizing the specter of authorized legal responsibility to make sure compliance from Massive Tech gamers keen to keep up entry to India’s huge person base.
The worldwide attain of platforms like X, Instagram and Facebook makes what’s occurring in India a worldwide concern. Mr. Modi’s authorities is constructing a possible template for different nations that search to limit on-line self-expression.
The Indian authorities’s major weapon is the Info Expertise Act. Initially enacted in 2000, it empowers authorities to take down on-line content material deemed to pose a risk to Indian sovereignty, safety, public order or overseas relations. It has been used over time by various Indian administrations to focus on content material important of them.
Mr. Modi’s authorities has wielded the act with increasing frequency and strengthened it lately with a collection of amendments.
His administration has now proposed new ones that take even more explicit aim at atypical web customers who put up — or merely share — on-line content material on information and present affairs. Which means if I, as an unbiased journalist, put up an Instagram reel important of Mr. Modi’s insurance policies, the put up — and maybe my account — could possibly be blocked. Each the platform and I might face legal repercussions. The Press Club of India and the Internet Freedom Foundation have warned that the amendments can have far-reaching penalties on free expression and social media platforms in India.
This can be a logical extension of the ruling social gathering’s throttling of free speech. Its intimidation of the once-rambunctious conventional Indian media has left bloggers, YouTube content material creators, unbiased journalists and the typical web person to fill the gap in holding the government accountable. Now we, too, are being focused.
In 2021 the federal government ordered Twitter to close down accounts that criticized Mr. Modi over unpopular new agricultural legal guidelines and associated widespread protests by farmers. The legal guidelines have been ultimately repealed. Two years later, the federal government blocked on-line entry to a BBC documentary important of Mr. Modi. These days, the policing has intensified: Final yr, a 19-year-old college student was arrested after sharing a put up that questioned the official narrative of India’s temporary army battle with Pakistan in Might 2025, and in the previous couple of months new circumstances have resulted in unbiased digital news outlets and popular satirists being purged from social media.
That is sending a chill by means of society, forcing residents to weigh whether or not talking out is definitely worth the threat. For a lot of, it isn’t.
The stakes are significantly excessive for Muslims like me, who face fixed strain in Mr. Modi’s Hindu-chauvinist India to prove our patriotism even because the ruling social gathering weakens our voting rights and in any other case marginalizes us. Once I share a political put up on Instagram, it’s practically at all times adopted by a panicked name from my dad and mom, anxious concerning the authorized repercussions. Each phrase I write, together with on this essay, is tinged with concern. Like many others, I’ve develop into much less vocal on social media. With every passing day, our voices are diminished.
Free speech in India is way from being fully extinguished. The political opposition proved its resilience within the 2024 elections wherein Mr. Modi’s social gathering misplaced its parliamentary majority, and sometime, Mr. Modi will probably be gone. However much more liberal future governments would possibly discover it exhausting to withstand the equipment of silence being put in.
And what’s occurring in India could not keep in India. Freedom of on-line expression has been beneath long-term strain globally even in democracies like the US, the place the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to squelch important information protection and satirical content material, and the place Silicon Valley executives have proven an growing willingness to please the president.
India is exhibiting the place this leads: Even on this planet’s largest democracy, when individuals are afraid to specific themselves, they don’t.
