A Bengali artist duo’s socio-political cartoons face bans in India, though their accounts remain active

A Bengali artist duo’s socio-political cartoons faced a ban in India, though their accounts are still active. Some of their most viewed posts, which had over millions of views were taken off Instagram in India, leaving the artists in doubt over the trigger of the ban.

The artists, who run the Instagram pages ‘almost_bobby’ and ‘bob_almost’, recently informed their followers that several of their animated videos had become inaccessible in India following what appeared to be legal requests from law enforcement authorities.

The duo took to social media on Monday (February 2) to share the news with their followers. They took to humour to document the ban and wrote “It feels good that our art reached the right people (iykyk – if you know you know). It feels bad that you all have to now book international flights to see some of our works.”

Still from one of the videos that were banned.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Over the years, Bob (Susruta Mukherjee) and Bobby (Saswata Mukherjee), who are illustrators, filmmakers, and animators by profession, are twin brothers from Kolkata who have talked about many social issues through their art. They often rely on satire and humour in their storytelling to shed light on pressing issues in society. 

“Not sure what triggered it. All the videos were on fictional characters. If you had seen, the characters were completely different looking from anyone living, with different hairstyles and appearances,” Bob told The Hindu following the post on social media about the ban.

“We made harmless animated shorts on fictional characters, without any mention of a real name or place. And they got banned,” said Bobby, when asked whether artistic expression was becoming increasingly difficult in the present socio-political environment.

The artists also shed light on the increasing tendency in society and artforms to become apolitical. However, “I think its Because as a society we have been made to forget that in a functioning democracy it’s a normal thing to question power,” Bobby added.

The duo added that they have received threats before as well, but none of them amounted to getting banned on social media and that this was their first encounter with a ban. 

Despite the restrictions on their work, the artists reiterated that they will continue making art and made backup social media accounts to archive their work in case further action is taken against their primary accounts.

The ban notification artists revieved.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

An attack on cartoons

The censorship of cartoons has been a long battle between artists and people in power. Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested in 2012 for his cartoon series which had a satirical take against corruption. His arrest led to widespread protests as many called it an attack on freedom of expression.

Veteran cartoonist Manjool who goes by the name Manjool Toons faced similar issues when, in 2025, police asked X to remove two posts from the Manjultoons X account on grounds that it “violates the law(s) of India”. The two posts were critical of the Mamata Banerjee government. Manjool has faced many similar issues over the years.

Not just creating cartoons, but sharing them also got people in trouble sometimes. Jadavpur University’s Chemistry Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra was arrested in 2012 for forwarding a cartoon that allegedly showed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a negative light. Prof Mahapatra fought an 11-year-long battle and was finally acquitted in 2023.