Renowned cartoonist Satish Acharya quits Mail Today after editor censors anti-BJP content

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Cartoonist Satish Acharya, in a Facebook post has said that he decided to exit the media organization Mail Today after the editor chose to publish a photo instead of his cartoon on China.

The renowned cartoonist said that this was not the first time he had to struggle to get his cartoons published. Previously, he has received comments from his editor like “Replace Modi’s character with any general BJP character.”

China effect! @sifydotcom cartoon #Maldives #China pic.twitter.com/fMIeYcBVCF

— Satish Acharya (@satishacharya) August 11, 2018

In a Facebook post dated August 11, he wrote:

According to Acharya, his ‘anti-government’ cartoons were rejected several times by the news organisation, citing reasons like, “editor is not comfortable with Muslim angle in the cartoon” or “editor didn’t like the demonetisation link with 100% electrification” or “the editor is not too happy with the cartoon with cow”.

Once, the editor asked Acharya to “replace Modi’s character with any general BJP character.”

Earlier, in a similar event, Two journalists from ABP News, Managing Editor Milind Khandekar and Punya Prasun Bajpai reportedly resigned, stirring debates on Twitter and leading Congress to allege that the government of India was interfering in the media after both journalists had carried out a story that contradicted the government’s claim.

Bajpai, in his show, Masterstroke, ran a video which showed Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi interacting with beneficiaries of various government programmes held on 20 June. One of the participants from Chattisgarh shared that her income had doubled after she switched from cultivating paddy to growing custard apples.

However, the show reported that the woman had been told to make a false claim. The report was picked up by Congress in a video tweet which said, “Evidence is surfacing that ABP News is seeing journalists resign and benched due to their involvement in stories criticising the Central Govt. Watch how in the age of free information, India under Modiji seems to be anything but free.”