The comedians and influencers standing up for their right to mock Modi

The video begins with “Narendra Modi” enthusiastically shaking hands with a foreign leader, before it dissolves into bursts of laughter, an exaggerated hug and a candid look to the camera mid-conversation. The English is deliberately garbled, the pauses theatrical, but the mannerisms unmistakable. As a satire of India’s prime minister it is sharp, absurd, and instantly recognisable.

Posted on Instagram by comedian Pulkit Mani, the reel captioned “POV: How Moody Gee Greets Foreign Ministers” racked up more than 16 million views before it suddenly disappeared for users in India.

In its place now sits a stark notice saying access to the content has been restricted “pursuant to a legal request” from the government under the country’s information technology laws.

This is not an isolated case. In recent weeks, popular X accounts known for satire and political commentary have been taken down or restricted, only to be partially restored later following court intervention. Even then, some posts remain blocked, pending review by government-appointed panels.

The takedowns have sparked growing concern among digital rights advocates and creators, who warn of an expanding crackdown on online speech critical of the government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The restrictions come as the government moves to widen its regulatory net, proposing amendments that would extend rules governing news publishers to ordinary users, including influencers, comedians, and independent journalists, who post about “news and current affairs” on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and X.

Critics say the move could fundamentally reshape online freedom of speech in India, giving the authorities greater control over what hundreds of millions of users can say and how far their voices can travel.

For Prateek Sharma, the man behind a parody account called Dr Nimo Yadav that posts satirical political content, the shift from amusing side-project to all-consuming legal battle came abruptly and in the middle of the night.

“I received an email from X on 19 March at 12.23am,” he recalls in an interview with The Independent. “It said that we have blocked your account on order from MeitY,” referring to the Ministry of Electronics, Information and Technology.

The message, he said, offered little clarity. “We don’t have blocking orders, X’s mail said. And they told me to get in touch with MeitY for account restoration.” Sharma wrote to the ministry asking why his account had been withheld and which posts had triggered the action. “I did not receive a response,” he said.

The Independent has reviewed the tweets cited in the blocking order. Most were critical or satirical of prime minister Narendra Modi or his Bharatiya Janata Party.

In an email exchange between X and MeitY seen by The Independent, the ministry said the flagged accounts fell under Section 69A of the IT Act. This provision allows the government or intermediaries to block content in the interest of sovereignty, integrity, defence and security of India, as well as to maintain relations with friendly states and prevent incitement to violence.

The ministry added it had attempted to identify and contact the users but was unsuccessful. It also alleged that posts by the Dr Nimo Yadav account contained AI-altered content that defamed the government and the prime minister, spread false narratives, and portrayed him as incompetent – content it said could harm public order and pose a security risk.

Sharma disputes this, saying he did not receive any formal communication from the ministry before the blocking.

According to the blocking order, also seen by The Independent, at least 11 other accounts, including Nehr_Who and Activist Sandeep, known for critical or satirical posts about the prime minister, were withheld in India. MeitY directed X to block them within an hour or face action.

The Elon Musk-owned platform pushed back against the 18 March directive, arguing the accounts did not meet the legal threshold under the IT Act and that the action was disproportionate. X also sought a fair hearing for the account holders, noting the order showed no clear attempt to contact them. It suggested withholding specific posts, rather than entire accounts.

A lawyer for X, advocate Ankit Parhar, tells The Independent that the platform sees account blocking as “disproportionate” and in instances of defamatory content, X suggests taking down posts instead of blocking the account as a whole. Ultimately, however, the government orders are passed under a legitimate and legal takedown regime in India. “We have to comply,” he says.

“There is some pushback,” he adds, “For instance, if the account is generally posting newsworthy content and in some posts there may be something that MeitY finds objectionable, then the pushback is to please block only the posts you think are objectionable,” says Parhar. “Don’t block the entire account.” He says that it is “rare” for the ministry to take X’s objections into account.

The Independent reached out to MeitY for a response to this and other points raised throughout this article, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Sharma has decided to fight the take-down order in court, a course of action that has transformed the anonymous satirist into a litigant at the centre of a wider debate over free speech – one that, according to digital rights advocates, has been building for years.

“This concern is not speculative. It is empirical,” says Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. “Section 69A blocking orders have been issued for reasons like ‘decency and morality’, which are not grounds permitted under the statute.”

Gupta argues that a pattern is already visible in the kinds of content that gets removed. “Accounts running political satire of the prime minister have been throttled or taken down. So when you ask whether this architecture could be used to curb dissent, it already is.”

Part of the issue, he says, lies in how the system itself is structured. Blocking orders are confidential by design, meaning users often only learn about them after the fact, if at all. At the same time, mechanisms such as the government’s Sahyog portal have streamlined and scaled the process, allowing multiple agencies to send take-down requests to all platforms quickly and in bulk.

“The swiftness is structural, not episodic,” Gupta says, adding that platforms tend to over-comply because the cost of resistance, the potential loss of legal protections for hosting user content, is too high. The result, he argues, is a system “engineered for over-removal”.

The whole process lacks transparency, he says. There is no public register of takedown orders, and users are often left in the dark about why their content was blocked or who ordered it. Even when legal recourse exists, it is difficult to access in practice.

“If you don’t know your content was blocked, you can’t challenge it. If you do know, the costs and timelines of constitutional litigation are prohibitive for most individuals,” he said. “The process is the punishment.”

For Sharma, the consequences have been both immediate and deeply personal.

An engineer by profession, he had been running the account since 2018-19. What began as a joke – created on his birthday under the name of fugitive businessman Nirav Modi – gradually grew into a following of 1.3 million users, drawn to its sharp takes on political messaging.

A watershed moment came when Sharma used the account to take part in a pro-Modi PR campaign called #MaiBhiChowkidar (I too am a watchman). When an automated response from the prime minister’s account thanked “Nirav Modi” – a fugitive pursued for extradition from the UK by the Modi administration – it quickly went viral.

Sharma believes it was this episode that put him on the radar of political operatives. “After significant trolling… the [automated PM’s] tweet was deleted,” recalls Sharma. He began receiving a backlash of his own online, with attacks labelling him “Pakistani” or “Bangladeshi” because of his decision to list his location broadly as “South Asia.”

Still, he insists his content stayed within legal and constitutional boundaries. “I take complete responsibility that none of my posts were in bad taste,” he says. “It was not derogatory… I do not think I have written anything that the Constitution does not allow me to write.”

The legal battle has also stripped away the anonymity he once relied on. Forced to approach the courts, Sharma had to reveal his identity, something he had deliberately protected for years.

“I was hoping to stay anonymous. But it is not possible now,” he said. “With my identity card they have all my details,” he says referring to the ID submission in court to the ministry. “It is easy for them to target me,” he says, fearing harassment from the right-wing supporters of the prime minister.

Since then, he claims to have received threats online. “We now know where you live and who you are… we will not spare you,” some messages read, according to him. Others allegedly called for violence.

The Delhi high court later directed that Sharma’s account, along with another parody account called “Nehr_Who”, be restored. However, individual posts flagged in the original order remain withheld pending further review.

The court also instructed that the matter be examined by a review committee within MeitY, which must determine whether the content falls within the scope of the law.

For Sharma, the fight is far from over. “If they continue to withhold the posts, then… we will file a fresh writ,” he says.

The government has described some of the flagged content as being in “bad taste” and potentially harmful to public order – an assessment that Sharma strongly disputes.

“How are my tweets derogatory?” he asked. “We live in a democracy… we have the right to criticise our PM or any public figure. We are not living in North Korea.”

Despite the risks, Sharma says he does not plan to change what he does.

“I have never done anything that can disrupt public order. I don’t intend to either,” he says. “However, if I think there is something that should be criticised, then I will continue do it.”