Amid the citizenship law protests across the country, artists and illustrators have stepped forward with artwork that represents the angst and anger of the people.

Their work, tinged with satire, has been shared across social media platforms, and appears on posters displayed at the protests. It’s become emblematic of the fury of the common Indian against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens, the violence on university campuses, and the Bharatiya Janata Party government in general.

Orijit Sen’s illustration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, titled “Goons”, was so widely shared within 24 hours of him putting it up on Facebook that he wrote a post on it: “It's humbling, liberating and exciting to be able to let go of feelings of individual ownership and credit — and have one's work become anonymously part of the collective voice in this way.”

Sen, an artist and graphic designer, has been a vocal supporter of the protests. He thinks art, though sidelined when people have “a normal life”, steps to the centre when people feel oppressed, since it has “the power to express dissent”.

How have cartoons, specifically, been used to express dissent in the past and present? “The power of cartoons is that they can say various things at the same time,” he says. “Cartoons, through satire, can express anguish and tragedy. Visual art can speak directly and also at multiple levels, which is very unique.”

Comparing the visual arts to other mediums, Sen says, “Visual arts can easily go out in the public sphere…Graphic art is something that can go out in streets in many forms and doesn't require any specialised condition or equipment to view.”

Sen is an old hand at using art for social causes. He was involved with the Narmada Bachao Andolan and protested against the government during the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. “I have been using my art as a way to speak about a society, so that we can uphold our democratic rights,” he says.

He thinks the rise of social media facilitated the growth of artists and the expression of their views since they can now “find their audience”. Sen himself says he does not watch television; he depends on the internet and newspapers. In this way, he picks topics that might not get a lot of media attention, but that he thinks need public notice.

“The Citizenship Amendment Act is very much out there in the media but through my art, I try to do something which would further motivate the protesters, or something that was missed out,” he explains. His art is something that allows him to depict his outrage with the establishment, Sen says, because if he succumbs to this outrage, there’s no point in being an artist anymore.

Allen Shaw, a Germany-based illustrator and traveling artist, says visuals give people a “voice”. “What is happening in this country right now is quite complex and people are trying to understand,” he explains. “And they are not able to put it together with words…My job as an illustrator is to give a voice to the people. When I do an illustration, I’m not thinking about the number of likes. I look for the shares — especially when it is a political post.”

Shaw’s recent works have also lambasted Tata’s contribution to electoral bonds, and the silence of Bollywood celebrities on the citizenship law protests. What drove him to create art around the government and the protests?

“I’m an artist who travels and paints and I was painting all these pictures which are pretty to look at. I would have felt like an idiot if I had done nothing,” Shaw says. “I feel responsible. The idea to create an illustration is to produce a language which is a visual language and which is something to which people can easily relate.”

Shaw says his artwork has reached a lot of people. “If I have to explain the Citizenship Amendment Act in words, it will be very boring and complex at the same time,” he points out. “Whereas cartoons, which have an undertone of political satire along with humour, make it easier for people to understand.”

Abhishek Choudhury, a freelance artist based in Guwahati, says he had a “conversation” with himself on how art can impact people at times like these. Art played an important role during the World Wars and the Communist Revolution, he says, but when violence broke out at JNU earlier this month, he questioned the impact art could have in the time of quick updates on social media.

So, for Choudhury, the JNU incident was a “wake-up call”. “I was very angry with what happened inside the JNU campus on January 5.” So he made a piece of artwork that, he says, resonated with a lot of people. Choudhury’s image figured on posters at protests on January 6, and found its way to the profile photos of WhatsApp groups in support of JNU.

He says he truly realised the power of art during the citizenship protest in Assam, when the internet was shut down. “I realised we’ve got habituated to this whole digital lifestyle,” he says. “I was thinking only in terms of Instagram. I realised: there is no internet, how will I distribute my work? How will it reach the masses?”

That’s when Choudhury and a couple of friends started looking at analogue art — traditional art on paper, posters at protests, graffiti on walls. “It’s more in your face, it’s on the street, it’s in a public space,” Choudhury says. “So this has more reach.”

Freelance cartoonist Somsesh Kumar’s recent work has come out loud and strong against the citizenship law. He says if a cartoon has “too many layers”, it destroys its purpose. “If your communication is based upon too many references that people need to know to really get it, then it limits the artist’s audience.”.

He adds: “The idea is…to keep it open enough, sometimes open enough that people who you are making fun of can also laugh at it without realising that they are being made fun of.”

How does he choose topics for his work? “Right now we’re flooded with material,” Kumar says. “Sometimes we really don’t need to do much: [the material] is already there. We just need to show the fun side of it.”

On January 13, the Instagram handle @nishlesh shared six panels of a comic strip with the text of India’s national pledge. Showing Shah and Modi in conversation, blood staining both their hands, the strip found its way to Twitter, Facebook and beyond, shared multiple times on multiple platforms.

Its artist, Nishlesh Patil, is an independent animator, illustrator and story-teller based in Pune. Though he’s sometimes “scared” of posting this sort of artwork on social media, he thinks the matter at hand is “bigger” than the fear he feels.

“I like what I am seeing when it comes to the creativity that these issues are sparking,” Patil tells Newslaundry. “People are coming up with some great content and independent news platforms are giving out real, non-doctored news that is not funded by any political party. I have never seen the country question her leaders this responsibly in the last six years. I hope to see more of that.”

Patil says Modi and Shah hold a “great deal of unchallenged power” in their hands. Today’s protests are a “direct result of the abuse of this power”. “On the other hand, journalists, activists and artists have a far bigger mine of untapped power,” he says.

He quotes Uncle Ben from Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility.” “Spider-Man himself interpreted this as: ‘When you can do the things that I can but you don't do them, and then the bad things happen — they happen because of you’,” Patil explains. “We have our right to remain silent, but our silence eventually lets the fire burn for longer. That's pretty much when I picked up my pen and made this cartoon.”

He adds: “As artists, we have that power that no amount of saffron paint can cover.”

When Abhimanyu Ghimiray was a student at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, he and his classmates would discuss how Modi is “similar to Hitler”. “Slowly, we can see that happening in this country,” he says.

Ghimiray, now a freelance artist and illustrator, says he was very disheartened by the mob violence in JNU on January 5. “I was upset with the government, as to why they can’t see the humanity behind it,” he says. “As an artist, I work on my emotions so my art is also generated from my emotions. For me, humanity is the most important thing.”

On his Instagram handle @raixic, artist Rai also contributed to the conversation around the JNU violence — specifically singling out the Akhil Bharatiya Vishwa Parishad. “Cartoons are the most impactful tools available, because we can’t really go and give lectures on complex issues like the Citizenship Amendment Act,” he says.

Rai graduated from NID, Ahmedabad, last year. He says cartoons are “inviting”, allowing anyone to read and understand. “I get a lot of hate mail because of the cartoons I make,” he adds. A likely reason is that several of his cartoons appeared in a magazine, whose owner distributed it “to a lot of right-wingers, who then distributed it amongst their children,” Rai says.