‘Overstepping threshold of freedom of speech’: Cartoonist under fire over edited toon gets interim relief – Alt News

On July 15, the Supreme Court granted Indore-based cartoonist Hemant Malviya interim relief from arrest. The top court’s direction comes a day after it reproached the cartoonist over an “inflammatory” caricature by him of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Malviya had approached SC after the Madhya Pradesh High Court denied him anticipatory bail in the case.

The relief came after Malviya submitted an apology and deleted his social media post featuring the toon.

Malviya has been charged after a cartoon by him on COVID-19 vaccines featuring PM Modi and the BJP’s parent organisation, RSS, was edited by a social media user with allegedly objectionable commentary on the caste census. Malviya had reshared the post on May 1, 2025, after which a case against him was registered at Indore’s Lasudiya police station by an RSS worker under several sections of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The First Information Report (FIR) names him under sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 302 (uttering words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings of any person), 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace), 353(3) (with intent to incite, or which is likely to incite, any class or community of persons to commit any offence against any other class or community) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000—punishment for publishing or transmitting material containing sexually explicit acts in electronic form. Except BNS section 352, the others are non-bailable offences.

The ‘Inflammatory’ Edited Cartoon

The cartoon that has landed Malviya in trouble shows a man dressed in a white shirt and khaki shorts, similar to the RSS uniform, pulling down his shorts and a bearded elderly man, bearing resemblance to PM Modi, gives him an injection on his backside.

The Hindi text on the toon translates to, “Oh, incarnation of Lord Shiva! Here’s my backside is here, give me such a strong dose of caste census that I forget all about Pahalgam, Waqf board”.

But here’s the twist. Malviya sketched the two characters in 2021 in an entirely different context. The Hindi text with references to Hindu god Shiva, the Pahalgam massacre, the Waqf amendments or the caste census were not part of his creation.

According to popular political cartoonist Manjul (@MANJULtoons), whose satirical, tongue-in-cheek political sketches have also been flagged by Indian law enforcement authorities on X, the toon that has landed Hemant Malviya in trouble wasn’t exactly created by him.

“He created the sketch in 2021 in a different context, and someone else altered the text and posted it in the comments, and the same was brought to Hemant’s notice by a friend. Hemant found it funny, so he simply reposted that image,” Manjul told Alt News.

Hemant Malviya’s original cartoon, posted on Facebook on January 6, 2021, actually carried very different text next to the sketch. In English, it translates to: “Hey, why are you scared? Serum’s Poonawalla has said that the vaccine is basically water. You won’t die due to side effects of water”.

Published when the government had approved COVID-19 vaccines while the pandemic was raging, the cartoon pertains to a comment made by Serum Institute of India’s CEO, Adar Poonawalla. In a TV interview on January 3, 2021, Poonawalla had said that there were only three vaccines with proven efficacy—Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s— and the rest were “safe, like water”. The Serum Institute of India makes Covishield, based on the Oxford-AstraZeneca formula. Many believed that Poonawalla was targeting Covaxin, manufactured by rival Bharat Biotech.

Notably, this toon had Malviya’s signature, which was removed from the recently edited version that landed him in trouble.

Alt News also accessed screenshots of Facebook comments where users shared the original cartoon with edited text, referring to Pahalgam, Waqf amendment and the caste census and attributing it to a “Shiva avatar”. We were unable to determine the exact date of the comment, but it was likely posted on or the day after April 30, considering that’s when the government announced the inclusion of caste in the upcoming decennial Census.

Who is to Blame?

On May 1, 2025, Malviya reposted the edited cartoon (made by someone else and shared in his post’s comments), adding, “Everyone is free to use my cartoons with their name and commentary. My work is for the people, by the people and dedicated to the people. Whoever wrote this did a good job…”

So, while little is known about what action was taken against whoever edited Malviya’s work with their own text and interpretation, several serious offences have been slapped against the cartoonist for endorsing the edited cartoon. Note that this edited version of Malviya’s cartoon was publicly available even before he reposted it on Facebook.

Sources close to Malviya said that he was just tagged in a Facebook comment and reshared it. Thousands of his cartoons are on social media often reused by readers with their own captions, they said. They added that he was an amateur cartoonist, following in the footsteps of his father who was among the first cartoonists in Indore. The character in khaki shorts had been Malviya’s ‘common man’ figure since 2017. They added that this wasn’t the first time Malviya’s work came under fire.

In 2022, Malviya was summoned to the Kankhal police station in Haridwar after an associate of Yoga guru Baba Ramdev filed a report against his friend, who had shared his sketch featuring Ramdev and PM Modi.

‘Misuse of Freedom of Speech and Expression’

Interestingly, while denying him anticipatory bail on July 3, Justice Subodh Abhyankar of MP HC, who was hearing the case said that Malviya “clearly overstepped the threshold of freedom of speech and expression, and does not appear to know his limits”.

“In the considered opinion of this court, on the face of it, the conduct of the applicant in depicting the RSS, which is a Hindu organisation, along with the Prime Minister of this country in the aforesaid caricature, couplled with his endorsement of a rather demeaning remark, dragging unnecessarily the name of lord Shiva in the comments tagged to it, is nothing but the sheer misuse of the freedom of speech and expression as enshrined under Art.19(1)(a) of the Constitution, and falls under the definition of offence as contended by the complainant,” the order reads [sic].

It added, “In the considered opinion of this Court, the post becomes more unsettling when the aforesaid derogatory lines involving Lord Shiva are also added to it… the applicant ought to have used his discretion while drawing the aforesaid caricature, and he has clearly overstepped the threshold of freedom of speech and expression, and does not appear to know his limits.”

Malviya then moved the Supreme Court. On July 14, a two-judge bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi took up his plea and asked his counsel, Vrinda Grover, if he was willing to delete the post. Agreeing to this, the counsel sought interim protection since the matter pertained to personal liberty and did not amount to an offence. She also argued that Malviya was over 50 and should be granted relief, to which the bench replied, “Still no maturity. We agree that it is inflammatory”.

The following day, a two-judge bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Aravind Kumar granted the cartoonist interim relief after he submitted an apology and directed both parties to complete the pleading till the next date, August 15. During the hearing, Justice Dhulia remarked, “One of these posts is very, very offensive. What is happening today, this is all kinds of statements are being made. The language they use. There are some among the lawyer community also doing this”. He was reviewing social media posts made by Malviya, submitted by Additional Solicitor General, KM Nataraj.

Ire Against Satirists

The case against Malviya comes amid a seemingly growing intolerance for satire and political cartoons against the ruling party, its allies and associates. Historically, editorial cartoons have both attracted and evaded censorship owing to their cryptic nature, but serve as a powerful, critical tool to look at political regimes and current affairs, holding a mirror to society.

A prominent case was the arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, who was booked under sedition charges for his sketches, which allegedly mocked the Indian constitution. Trivedi was arrested on September 8, 2012, under sedition charges for displaying sketches by him during the Anna Hazare movement in November 2011. The case was registered based on an FIR filed by Amit Katarnayea, a legal advisor for a Mumbai-based NGO, in December 2011, who said that the cartoons displayed by Trivedi were “derogatory” and depicted the National Emblem and the Parliament in a bad light. In protest, Trivedi refused to get himself a lawyer or even apply for bail. Later, the charges against the cartoonist were dropped after Advocate General Darius Khambata told the court that on taking a “closer look, it can be seen that there is clearly no case under section 124(a) of the Indian Penal Code for sedition”.

In 2021, editorial cartoonist Manjul, who has been actively talking about the case against Malviya on X, also received notices from X for his satirical, tongue-in-cheek political sketches, which had been flagged by Indian law enforcement authorities.

In February this year, the government at the Centre blocked Tamil news outlet Vikatan’s website for a political cartoon after BJP leader Annamalai lodged a complaint with the Union ministry of information & broadcasting and the Press Council of India, claiming that the cartoon was offensive. The cartoon showed PM Modi, shackled in chains, sitting next to US President Donald Trump. However, on March 6, a single-judge bench of Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy of the Madras High Court directed the I&B ministry to unblock Vikatan’s website once the ‘offensive’ cartoon was temporarily taken down. Justice Chakravarthy said, “…It is evident that the only issue in dispute is the offending caricature, and the entire website need not be blocked. The journal can remain accessible to the public and its subscribers. Therefore, the petitioner shall remove the offending page containing the cartoon, and the website shall be made operational immediately thereupon”.

Recently, comedian Kunal Kamra also came under fire for his satirical comedy that allegedly mocked Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde for switching sides. In 2022, Shinde, along with several other Sena MPs, left the party and allied with the BJP, throwing the then-coalition government into crisis and eventually leading to its downfall. Kamra was issued threats by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation workers, while Shinde’s supporters also vandalised the venue where he performed months ago.

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