“He hit the nail when he said, “We like laughing at others. We like watching others. We are a voyeuristic society...” Another reason why political jokes about Modi and Shah were relatively rare is because of the fierce, violent and often abusive retaliation by trolls on social media.

But it is not just Broacha but the Prime Minister himself who admits to ‘ fear’ while cracking jokes. Modi, who loves to ridicule political rivals and often uses street-smart jokes, is on record as saying, “I am in fear, there is no humour left in public life because of this fear. Everyone is scared. I am in fear. My speeches used be humourous. I see it in Parliament, that humour is finished there too. It is a matter of concern.”

But notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s own endorsement for humour in public life, people, comics and cartoonists who tried to have some fun at the expense of the PM have paid a price, detained by the police, transferred by state Governments and hounded by trolls.

At least 18 people were arrested and another questioned in just one month since the BJP won the general election in 2014 , 16 of them in Kerala alone for posting content perceived to be against Modi.

In a report in 2017, Forbes reported that Indians were struggling to discover a sense of humour. It said, “India’s most popular comedy group All India Bakchod (AIB) was booked by the Mumbai Police Cyber Cell for posting a meme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Snapchat's puppy filter. Mumbai Police filed a First Information Report (FIR) against AIB cofounder Tanmay Bhat. in response to rightwing outrage around the tweet, on the grounds that it insults and defames the Prime Minister.” The post from July 13 showed a Modi lookalike using his phone at a train station, alongside a selfie-like image of the prime minister’s face superimposed with the Snapchat puppy filter and the hashtag “#wanderlust,” presumably making a light hearted joke about Modi’s flurry of foreign travel.

“It was arguably a rather cute meme, casting Modi in much the same sort of cuddly light he seems to enjoy casting himself in when he hugs heads of state across the globe. But India seems to be struggling to find its sense of humor. Hundreds of conservatives on Twitter lashed out at Bhatt and AIB for “hurting national sentiment,” reported Forbes. The tweet was soon deleted.

Last year TV channel Star Plus first recorded and then dropped the performance of comic Shyam Rangeela after he mimicked the Prime Minister. The channel had invited him after his mimic on Youtube had become viral but developed cold feet even after the judges at the audition of the reality show gave Rangeela a standing ovation. The judges ironically included Bollywood star Akshay Kumar.

The channel got back to Rangeela and suggested that he could mimic Rahul Gandhi but not the Prime minister.

And still, the situation has changed considerably since 2014. In a newspaper report published in 2013 in the run up to the general election, the writer pointed out that there was not a single political joke on Narendra Modi that could be found on the Internet. The jokes were all on Rahul Gandhi.

After Prime Minister Modi’s four years in office as Prime Minister, the joke is now on him. Cartoonists are having a field day, Twitter is on fire and the Internet is full of memes and barbs making fun of the Prime Minister.

During the Gujarat election a spate of jokes on the PM’s pet theme of ‘ Vikas’ or Development did the rounds. While waiting for a son who would have been named ‘Vikas’, one of the jokes maintained, the Modi Government had already given birth to three daughters, namely Notebandi, GST and Inflation.

Another joke put a poser, What is the one thing that you can hear but cannot see? The answer of course was ‘Vikas’ (Development). Heart-shaped potholes appeared on social media with the caption ‘Vikas has fallen in love’ and posters were put up close to road full of potholes that read: “Be careful, there is too much of development ahead”.

Ironically, one of the earliest jokes cracked on him was by Rahul Gandhi when in a spin on the slogan ‘Ghar Ghar Modi’ by Modi supporters, he described the PM as ‘Arhar’Modi when the price of the pulse Arhar or Tur Daal went through the roof, doubling from Rs 70 a Kg in June, 2014 to Rs 175 a Kg one year later.

Demonetisation provided one more occasion for people to coin jokes on him. Immediately after Demonetisation, the Prime Minister called for feedback from the people. Days later he tweeted that an overwhelming number of Indians supported Demonetisation and his effort to take out black money.