The call came late on Friday night. Government primary school teacher Saket Purohit was told that he had been suspended.
In a village 170 kilometres from Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri town, Purohit’s family had already seen the video. They had watched Purohit, a school teacher and in-charge of the local chapter of the state’s “Happiness Department” initiative, mimic Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cadence for a few seconds at a social gathering. He was suspended soon after the video went viral.
His father, a kathavachak — a reciter of religious stories from sacred texts — began to pray. His brother and sister-in-law, both teachers themselves, fell silent. “They think something will happen to me,” Purohit said, his voice steady but his words carrying the weight of a family’s fear. “They are scared for my life.”
Purohit, himself, is harder to rattle. “It is the people’s right to raise their voice,” he said.
“Teachers have the right to speak. In the last few years, I have seen that satire and comedy have restrictions,” he said, adding, “People are getting offended, and there is action on it.” After a pause, he continued, “If people have a fear of speaking out, then it’s their issue. I felt I should speak my mind.”
The video was from a gathering at the local Anand Bhawan, which comes under the Happiness Department, where Purohit chose to perform a mimicry act on the recent LPG supply crisis. “People come to entertain. Some sing, some act. I did a mimicry act,” he said.
The act involved Purohit imitating PM Modi’s speaking style while riffing on the rising cost of LPG cylinders. “I was making fun of the fact that prices might push people back to cooking on traditional chulhas,” he said.
He did not think the video would travel. When it did go viral, he deleted it. “I don’t know how I disrupted the peace with a joke,” he said.
By that night, Pichhore BJP MLA Preetam Lodhi had submitted a written complaint to the district administration, alleging that a government servant publicly “mocking” the Prime Minister violated service conduct rules. The District Education Department completed a preliminary inquiry. District Education Officer Vivek Srivastava confirmed the suspension, citing provisions under the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Conduct) Rules. Purohit was attached to the Block Education Office in Badarwas and placed on subsistence allowance.
He had not, he says, been served a show-cause notice before the order came. “Taking action without hearing my side is not justified,” he told reporters, adding, “I was suspended in the night, and not even sent a show-cause notice.”
Purohit teaches classes 1-5 at the government primary school in Shivpuri district. “I had been preparing for competitive exams in my youth. When I cracked some, I decided to join the education system.”
He was posted to the local primary school in 2014. By 2017, he had become a “master trainer in happiness” at the Anand Bhawan.
His specialisation, he said, was “how to spread happiness in tough times.”
Purohit has previously been in the news over his contribution to local blood donation camps and his work during the pandemic.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, when oxygen cylinders became desperately scarce, I organised a community collection drive, and we collected Rs 3.5 lakh. At the time, the newspapers did stories on me for my social work; now, they accuse me of disrupting the peace,” he said.
