An anonymous artist is chronicling Modi government’s ruinous Covid-19 response with wit and satire

In an unexpected move, late evening on March 24, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the world that India would go into an unprecedented nationwide lockdown at midnight to stop the spread of Covid-19. With just around four hours to prepare for the curfew – that was initially supposed to last only 21 days but continued for over 10 weeks – most Indians scrambled to stock up necessities or to rush back to their hometowns.

One person, however, saw the humour in this adversity and started drawing comics.

On April 5, 2020, PenPencilDraw posted its first graphic on Twitter, taking a dig at the short notice that was given before the lockdown.

pic.twitter.com/0psxWQpHjw

— Pen Pencil (@penpencildraw) April 5, 2020

Over a year later, the handle has become a go-to for pandemic-related political satires and memes in India.

PenPencilDraw – a name derived from “pen-pencil,” a generic Indian term for the mechanical pencil – currently has over 26,500 followers on Twitter and over 15,400 on Instagram.

Most recently, as thousands of Indians grappled with a deadly second wave of Covid-19, a graphic by the handle, which showed the timeline of absurd statements by Indian lawmakers, went viral – shared not only on Twitter and Instagram but widely passed around on WhatsApp groups.

As hundreds of new…

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