Cartoonist getting arrested for painting Tamil Nadu 'nude' is as undemocratic as it gets
Section 66A of the Information Technology Act may have been struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015, but the suppression of criticism and dissent runs in India's blood. On November 5, freelance cartoonist G Bala earned the wrath of the Tamil Nadu government by criticising the chief minister and the district administration for their inaction.
The reason for Bala's criticism: on October 23, P Essakkimuthu, a daily wage labour from the state set his wife and children ablaze before immolating himself outside the Tirunelveli Collectorate. According to reports, Essakkimuthu, who had borrowed Rs 1.45 lakh from Muthulakshmi, a moneylender, was allegedly being subjected to constant harassment, despite the couple having repaid more than Rs 2 lakh in interest.
According to Essakkimuthu's brother Gopi, the labourer had, on several occasions, complained to weekly grievance redressal meetings at the collectorate; in fact, the collectorate had directed the police to take action against the moneylender. The police, however, failed to do so. What more, according to Essakkimuthu’s brother, “The superintendent of police is attempting to bury the facts by portraying my brother as a wilful defaulter.”
G Bala, enraged by the police’s inaction and the blatant corruption the state of Tamil Nadu, drew a cartoon that depicts three naked figures: Tirunelveli police commissioner Kapilkumar Saratkar, the district collector Sandeep Nanduri and Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswami trying to cover themselves with wads of cash; their eyes shut, unable to see the burning body of a child in front of them. The cartoon posted on his Facebook page has been shared more than 13,000 times, besides being tweeted and shared by others independently.
Cartoonist Bala arrested by TN Crime branch for this cartoon pic.twitter.com/1fbHUdg06r
— Arvind Gunasekar (@arvindgunasekar) November 5, 2017
Of course, the caricature managed to grab the district collector’s attention. Unhappy with his depiction and that of the others in this satire, the collector filed a complaint against the cartoonist. Bala was subsequently booked under Section 501 of the IPC and section 67 of the IT act.
"This highly demeaning cartoon shows the government officers (collector and commissioner of police) in poor light and also casts aspersion about their integrity. The cartoon also shows the honourable chief minister of Tamil Nadu in a highly derogatory and belittling way. The cartoon is published without verification of facts and is highly humiliating. It is defamatory in nature and is meant to create among the public, hatred towards the officers and CM," reads the FIR.
The arrest of G Bala was met with a lot of criticism. Many on social media tweeted their anger over this move under the hashtag “StandWithCartoonistBala”. Even the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Party came out in the support of the cartoonist. Speaking to ANI, DMK leader TKS Elangovan said the arrest of Bala is a matter of shame.
"What has happened is a great shame to the state but these ministers cannot do anything. They are incapable of doing anything. So when they are criticised, they don't have answer. Since they don't want to show they are incapable they arrest the person who is criticising. This is the attitude they follow," Elangovan said.
There is, however, some good news.
On Monday, November 6, a Judicial Magistrate Court in Tirunelveli granted Bala bail. According to a report in The Hindu, Bala’s counsel S Vanchinathan argued that filing of the FIR in non-cognisable offences punishable for three years and below could not be registered straightaway on getting the complaint as per the Supreme Court verdict in the case of Arnesh Kumar Vs State of Bihar in 2014 and hence no arrest could be made automatically.
Vanchinathan further observed, “In fact, the Supreme Court, while hearing the case of Ram Dev in connection with the police chasing away his supporters participating in the dharna against corruption in New Delhi in 2012, had observed that the government should support these protests in a bid to strengthen democracy. Hence the filing of case and the arrest are illegal.”
“This kind of oppression by the State Government, which gleefully continues to be a slave of the BJP-led Union Government, cannot suppress freedom of expression through the tactics of this sort. My cartoon just portrayed the nude and shameless Tamil Nadu Government. I’ll continue to do the same thing in the days to come also,” Bala told The Hindu, adding that he had never been harassed in anyway by the DMK government when he was critical of M Karunanidhi.
Bala’s arrest over basic dissent and criticism of the government machinery — that too with a caricature — comes only days after the arrest of S Thirumurugan, a 19-year-old from Tamil Nadu, who was taken into custody on October 30 for allegedly making abusive comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a private Facebook conversation.