The new censorship policy Deletion Baba Ashwini Vaishnaw has introduced is about two weeks old but it is already apparent that the sole purpose of a lot of the content blocking orders being issued by his IT ministry is not to protect India from threats, real or imagined, but to save the Dear Leader from ridicule.Consider this.There is a rather ridiculous post put out on X (formerly Twitter) by the Kalam Center on February 23 which says Modi claimed during an interaction with students that he actually built a robot as a school student:“During an interaction, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled an interesting incident from his childhood, saying that he had once built a robot as a student and even received a medal from his school for it. The remark quickly caught public attention, especially among young students and technology enthusiasts, as it reflected an early curiosity for innovation and creativity. According to the Prime Minister’s recollection, the incident happened during his school days, when he experimented with creating a simple robotic model.”Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Now, I don’t think Modi actually made such a (laughable) claim and I cannot find a single news source to back up what the Kalam Centre has said. The social media handle has over one million followers but Deletion Baba is clearly not bothered by the wide reach that this fake news story has. As of now, Indian users on X have access to it. Yet, folks on social media who have mocked Modi for this (ridiculous) boast have had their posts on X deleted.For example, on February 25, the respected editor Mrinal Pande posted a pretty lethal joke on X, riffing off another post by @CommonBS786OM who had asked how Modi could have made a robot in the 1960s when the first robot in India was created by the Tata Institute in 1982.Pande received an email from X at 7:56 PM the same day which said, “In the interest of transparency, we are writing to inform you that X has received a blocking order from the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology citing Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, regarding your X account: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/social-media-firms-must-remove-unlawful-hurtful-content-within-three-hours-says-centre-101770771838803.html.”By the time I got to click on the link, it was past midnight and X had already implemented Deletion Baba’s orders. Remember, the new rules give them a three hour deadline to comply or risk criminal liability. I used a VPN to access the link, wondering what law Pande’s post had broken. Since Section 69A empowers the government to delete content “in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence,” I figured it must be something pretty bad.This is what her post says:“See the Czech writer Carl Capek in 1920 wrote a science fiction play R.U.R. It introduced the word “robot” to the English language and to science fiction as a whole. It is quite possible the play may hv been staged in Gujarat in English before Tatas created a real one on 1982.”Screenshots of two tweets ordered blocked by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.Evidently, the only line Pande crossed was satire, the unwritten law of New India that thou shalt not mock the ‘vishwaguru’. Clearly, it won’t do to have people giggling at the idea of Bal Narendra reading a Gujarati translation of a Czech play and reaching for his tools. Of course, the post she quoted has also been disappeared by X.It is worth asking why Deletion Baba has not asked X to kill the Kalam Centre post. I offer two possibilities. First, since that post presents Modi’s childhood robot claim as something very positive and inspiring: “The anecdote fits into a broader message that PM Modi has frequently highlighted in public speeches — encouraging young minds to think creatively and move beyond rote learning. He has often stressed that education should nurture innovation, curiosity, and problem-solving rather than simply producing “robots” in a metaphorical sense.”But there is a second possibility, which springs from the authoritarian nature of the regime: Vaishnaw cannot be sure his boss did not make such a claim. And there is no one he can really ask without appearing to doubt Modi’s limitless talent.As an aside, the govt has probably asked X to not say publicly – as it has done in the past – that the posts being blocked have been ‘withheld due to a legal demand’. Since there is actually no law outlawing laughter against Modi, at least not yet, X has replaced that message with something vague and un-incriminating: ‘Nothing to see here – yet’.These are early days under the Modi government’s new censorship regime. You ain’t seen nothing – yet.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.