Syed Ali Mujtaba
CHENNAI — A cartoon that depicted Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting handcuffed next to US President Donald Trump has stirred a hornet’s nest in Tamil Nadu since it appeared in Vikatan Plus, a Tamil magazine.
The cartoon was envisaged to showcase Prime Minister Modi sitting in a chained position as representative of India’s silence to the inhumane treatment meted out to ‘illegal’ Indian migrants deported from the United States.
On February 15, Tamil Nadu BJP President K. Annamalai filed a complaint with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) and the Press Council of India saying that the cartoon was ‘objectionable’. The central government immediately swung into action and blocked the Vikatan’s website.
The next day, February 16, some men from Press Information Bureau of India visited Vikatan’s office to verify whether the cartoon was also available in the print format. They were informed that it was only for the digital publication. The PIB men did not explain why Vikatan’s website was blocked.
This is not the first time Indians were deported from the US Under the Biden administration also this took place. But the key difference is, that earlier deportees were transported via chartered flights without being handcuffed.
The External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had called the returnees as ‘irregular migrants’ and not as ‘illegal immigrants.’ The question is, if that is the case, why India did not negotiate a dignified return of the deportees?
Here the question arises is why the Vikatan cartoon was published while the PM was abroad?
The publisher however said, “PM Modi’s official trip to the US started on Feb 13 whereas the cartoon was published on Feb 10. At that time, PM Modi was still in India and by then two batches of Indians had ‘returned’ in chains.”
According to experts in Constitutional Law, “En masse deportation with restraints violates human dignity which is also against international human rights laws. Handcuffing individuals during deportation, especially on a flight exceeding 10 hours, is inhumane and raises human rights concerns.”
Syeda Hena Rizvi, a Supreme Court lawyer, says, “Vikatan cartoon points that PM Modi preferred to remain quiet and did not raise any voice of protest against inhuman treatment of its citizens. This shows how helpless India is vis-a-vis the only superpower.”
“On the other hand the Trump administration by restraining individuals with handcuffs and leg chains during long-haul flights points to how complex is the India- US relationship,” she adds.
The magazine in a press note says, “Vikatan has a long history of political satire, having criticised leaders from Winston Churchill to the current leadership. Vikatan remains committed to upholding press freedom and journalistic integrity.”
The press note further says, “Vikatan has fought multiple defamation cases under various governments. The publication was shut down by the British in 1942. Its editor was jailed in 1987.”
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The author is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com
