Can India’s version of The Onion beat hate with laughter?

New Delhi, India – On January 22, J*, a student who lives hundreds of miles away in Kerala’s southern state, was about to post his opinion of the controversial Hindu temple on Instagram as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was inaugurating it in the northern city of Ayodhya.

The 21-year-old student of humanities criticized the Hindu nationalist leader for allegedly undermining India’s secular constitution by holding a religious ceremony at a temple constructed from the remnants of a 16th-century mosque in the post “Remains of Indian Constitution Beneath Ram Mandir: ASI Survey.”

Since India’s independence in 1947, dozens of Hindu groups, led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the far-right ideological mentor of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claimed the Mughal-era Babri Mosque stood at the exact site where Ram, among Hinduism’s most prominent deities, was born. In 1992, a Hindu mob demolated the mosque, causing deadly riots that claimed more than 2, 000 lives and fundamentally altered India’s political landscape.

After the demolition, the state-run Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) backed the Hindu groups ‘ claim as the dispute went to the country’s top court, which in 2019 gave the site to a government-backed trust to build a Ram temple. Muslims were given another piece of land in Ayodhya, several kilometres away from the temple, to build a mosque.

Modi inaugurated the grand temple in January of this year, setting the tone for his record-elective third term by placing the foundation stone there a year later.

As soon as J made the Instagram post, it went viral. It invited backlash from right-wing Hindu trolls. But it also helped The Savala Vada to grow exponentially.

using humor to “report truth”

J and his two coworkers who work with him on the handle prefer to remain anonymous because they fear they could “be attacked or killed” as they put it.

According to J, “there is an entire ecosystem in place that is aimed at people who disagree.” It’s also about standing up for oneself when speaking up against the ruling class and authority in online forums. Anonymity gives me that protection”.

Al Jazeera sought comments from multiple BJP spokespersons on J’s allegations, but did not receive a response.

The Savala Vada, a satirical article published on local and international news in the United States, was the inspiration for J’s launch on July 21, 2023. “Savala” in Malayalam language means onion, and “vada” is a popular South Indian snack. J remarked that his endeavor is also a “homage” to the work of The Onion.

He told Al Jazeera, “The idea was to create a space where we could discuss and present contemporary sociopolitical events with a humorous and satirical spin.”

It also concerned using comedy and satire tropes to report the truth in a democratic, secular, and pluralistic environment.

According to J, the Instagram handle initially focused on news and current affairs before shifting to posts about historical or cultural events. He claimed that this was because the mainstream media had become more and more hostile toward minority Muslims and Christians, and that it was also serving as a subservient to Modi.

In the current polarized world, it is extremely difficult for me to express my dissent, according to J, who added that his goal was to “combine humor and resistance” with reaching out to Gen Z and millennials through his satire.

Apart from The Onion, J said he was also inspired by American comedian George Carlin, British stand-up John Oliver, and Australia’s The Juice Media, which posts satirical takes targeting the government.

Over the past year, The Savala Vada has made more than 680 Instagram posts and gained close to 69, 000 followers. Last month, it saw 7.8 million views on its posts and stories.

The handle responds to significant national and international events by condensing its precise and direct headlines in a way that challenges the conventional wisdom.

For example, when Israeli air strikes denied targeting hospitals in Gaza during the continuing genocide, The Savala Vada wrote: “Israeli Defence Forces Claim Gaza Armed With Self-Exploding Hospitals”.

The handle for several Indian journalists who had traveled to Israel to cover the Israeli-Palestine conflict read, “Air India Flights To Israel Cheaper Than To Manipur for Indian Journalnos,” a retort against the same journalists or their organizations’ refusal to report on ethnic riots that have been occurring for more than a year.

They once made fun of the state of Indian journalism by saying, “Mainstream Indian Journalism Committed To TheSacred Duty Of Endangering Lives of Muslims.”

Some of their posts responded to the tense Indian-administered Kashmir region, which Modi’s administration in 2019 stripped of its swayed autonomy. The move, Kashmiris say, is aimed at stealing their resources and changing the demography of the Muslim-majority region.

One of their viral posts about the mountainous region known for its snow and skiing, read, “Lapse Disappoints Indian Tourists While Lack of Human Rights Disappoints Kashmiris.” Another statement made reference to one of the world’s most militarized regions, where the army enjoys enormous powers and impunity, and the Indian Army started teaching political science in Kashmir high schools.

Rana Ayyub, a journalist for The Washington Post and a critic of the Indian government, claimed for Al Jazeera that she regularly shares their posts online and follows The Savala Vada, underscoring how “gasping for breath” mainstream journalism in India is.

According to Rana, “they speak for the oppressed the way that our mainstream media doesn’t.” The handle is an excellent illustration of how satire and hitting the nail on the head work together to maintain power. They have filled the empty space left by the mainstream media in India.

“Remarking the absurdity of reality”

The Savala Vada’s situation, however, hasn’t been pleasant. Its X handle has twice been blocked. In the first instance, it changed the handle name and image to “Narendra Modi” so that it could post a greeting for Eid Mubarak, and made a promise to outlaw RSS and release all political prisoners to honor the Muslim holiday.

The X handle was also hacked twice, once after Hindu right-wing trolls, some with tens of thousands of followers, reported it to the microblogging platform in large numbers. “It’s a means of intimidation, to stop us from doing our work”, J said. It “denotes unmistakably that what we post has disturbed them.”

J claimed their Instagram handle has also often been shadow-banned by the platform. Then there are online abuses and threats, with people calling them “mullah” (a slur for Muslims), “Jihadi”, “Pakistani”, “Chinese” and “antinational ‘ among other things.

They have also been threatened with legal action, the most recent of which occurred during the Ram Temple’s dedication in Ayodhya, according to J.

” It feels scary and depressing. But it is also funny sometimes, “he said”. We laugh off those slurs when we hear them. People, mostly from the right wing, often don’t get sarcasm. We pin those comments]on social media] and joke about it.

Our goal is to highlight the absurdity of the world we live in rather than to offend any particular community. And satire gains popularity because it resonates with viewers, he added.

Satire is also risky. It’s difficult to pursue satire in the largest democracy in the world. You could end up in jail for a joke, J said.

India placed 159th in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, which is released every year in a slight improvement from the ranking of 161 in 2023, but it is still significantly below the 140-point mark.

In a report released earlier this year, watchdog Free Speech Collective claimed that “free speech in India has sunk into a perilous abyss, and steadily falling press freedom indices underscore the danger of crossing a line that is becoming increasingly contentious.

According to J, The Savala Vada does not want to launch a website or launch a print version of The Onion because of the country’s censorship and surveillance. It will leave a digital footprint online, according to J. J.

We refute narratives, we say.

The Savala Vada and Australia’s The Juice Media collaborated on their Honest Government Ads project, which satirizes the state of democracy in poll-dense nations, during the Indian general elections this year. This year, they included 14 nations, including India, Pakistan, the United States, Indonesia and Iran, among others.

A video posted by the group on YouTube featured a “public service announcement” that critiqued the Modi government for imprisoning opposition leaders, threatening journalists, bulldozing the homes of Muslims and targeting free speech in the world’s largest democracy.

Following a request from the Indian government, YouTube removed the video. A government agency in India, according to The Juice Media, lodged a legal complaint against the Australian business for provocation, insulting the Indian flag, and violating the Indian Constitution.

J feared the government would act against The Savala Vada after the video was removed. He continued, “I thought they were going to come after us,” adding that the fear had forced him to remove any mention of The Savala Vada from its Instagram page.

Anand Mangnale, a journalist and researcher who studies media, claims that there is a more organized form of right-wing outrage on social media.

“Earlier there would be abuses and trolls online, but what we witness now is much more organised”, he told Al Jazeera.

“As of right now, online communities are being established to target specific individuals or report specific content. Then, it serves as legal case ammunition. According to him, the cases are not based on the rule of law but rather on the fake outcry they generate on social media.

A number of mainstream Indian journalists have recently taken to YouTube and Instagram to continue their work after refusing to abide by their employers’ diktats or leaving private companies. J claimed that he and others are attempting to “democratize the same information space with a satirical spin.”

“In the current world that is so bleak and dystopian, we are trying to imagine a different world, a world where we counter narratives, uplift marginalised voices, and fight against hate”, he said.

Source: Aljazeera