By Somya Panwar
A poster advertising a future workshop on “South Asian Capitalism” has caused a storm online after it replaced the classic “We Fool You” imagery of a retro anti-capitalist cartoon with caricatures of Indian political figures, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
The conference, co-hosted by UC Berkeley, IIT Bombay, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will be held on September 12-13, 2025. Its poster reimagines the hundred-year-old “Pyramid of Capitalist System,” a well-known graphic depicting society perched atop the shoulders of farmers and workers, but with India-centric faces on the second and third tiers.
The image is borrowed from a 1911 cartoon in the Industrial Worker, the paper of the Industrial Workers of the World. That photo, constructed on the foundations of earlier European and Russian caricatures, showed a rigid social pyramid under capitalism: workers at the bottom, then soldiers, priests, and elites, culminating in moneybags at the top. The message was uncomplicated, the whole pyramid exists only through labor at the bottom.
On the original, the second level bore the phrase “We Fool You” and featured clergy of various religions, which indicated the manner in which religion was perceived to enforce inequality. On the new poster, however, such clergy figures are replaced by India’s best-elected leaders, which critics state turns a general criticism of capitalism into a sharp, partisan jab.
The poster was originally reported on X by user @MehHarshit, who said:
“IIT Bombay sponsors an event on South Asian Capitalism. The poster shows @AmitShah, @narendramodi, and @myogiadityanath with a caption ‘WE FOOL YOU’. No Maulana or Father shown; only a Hindu Monk in saffron robes. Why @iitbombay? @dpradhanbjp.”
The response came fast. Some blamed IIT Bombay for providing political ridicule in the guise of academia. One user commented: “Humanities in IITs was an epic blunder.” Another user commented: “Sitting govt leaders are being ridiculed at a tax-funded institute. And our so-called liberals still maintain that there’s no freedom of speech.”
Others demanded more radical structural overhauls of IITs: “Technical institutes should be purged of humanities. Let’s keep them poison-free.” Another blog post bluntly questioned: “Why should public money be spent on events that openly insult the government?”