India’s highest office is asking creators to use their influence for public good, even as authorities question how that influence is used to promote surrogate products and betting platforms. This is not a warning to every creator. It is a warning to anyone still treating a paid post as consequence-free.
When brands ask for a rate card, creators sell influence, reach, trust, recall and, when the campaign works, conversion.
But when a questionable endorsement attracts official attention, influence suddenly becomes “just content.” The creator merely followed the brief, the agency cleared the script, the brand handled the legalities and the audience, we are told, made its own choice.
Now both these things cannot be true. If influence is valuable enough to invoice, it is powerful enough to carry responsibility. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest appeal to India’s content creators has brought that contradiction into the open.
A request, not a raid
During Mann Ki Baat, PM Modi spoke about the “Nasha-mukt Yuva for Viksit Bharat” campaign and called on musicians, students, theatre groups and content creators to help build a drug-free India. He asked creators to produce content in different languages, use creativity as an instrument of social change and share their work under the #NashaMuktYuva campaign.
The appeal didn’t come with any threats or new content rules. No creator was told what political opinion to hold or which cultural conversation to avoid. In fact, the Prime Minister publicly acknowledged that creative work can sometimes travel further and hit harder than a formal campaign.
So, should creators be worried simply because the Prime Minister has entered the influencer conversation? No. Should they pay attention to what his entry represents? Absolutely.
The government is no longer treating creators as people who merely entertain. It is recognising them as a communication force capable of shaping public behaviour. That recognition brings opportunity, but it also destroys the industry’s favourite escape route: I only posted what I was given.
The packet says cardamom. The audience remembers pan masala.
The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration’s recent action makes that point far more sharply.
The state authority issued warnings to Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff over advertisements for cardamom. According to the notice reported in the media, the FDA’s concern was that the brand’s identity is largely associated with pan masala, a prohibited product in Maharashtra. The actors were asked to remove the advertisements from their social channels, avoid further cooperation in their broadcast and provide details of their endorsement agreements. These were regulatory notices, not findings of guilt and that distinction is what matters here.
But the principle behind the action matters too. A surrogate advertisement does not have to show the restricted product to keep selling its memory. The legal packet may contain cardamom. The colours, name and celebrity may still lead the audience straight back to pan masala.
That is precisely why “I endorsed the legal product” is no longer a complete defence in the court of public trust. An endorser is not paid only for pronouncing the product name correctly. The endorser is paid for everything the audience already associates with the face, the logo and the brand.
Creators therefore have to investigate what a promotion communicates, not merely what the script claims it communicates.
“I didn’t know” is not a compliance system
The betting-app investigation involving actor Nidhhi Agerwal presents a different category but the same underlying problem.
Agerwal was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in Hyderabad as part of an ongoing money-laundering investigation connected to the promotion of online betting platforms. Reports said she had promoted betting apps in 2024 and told investigators that she had not understood the possible legal implications, regretted the endorsements and would not accept similar promotions again.
Questioning does not establish guilt, and the investigation must be allowed to reach its own conclusions. But the episode exposes an uncomfortable weakness in the endorsement economy: too many people treat legal due diligence as somebody else’s department.
A brand email is not a legal opinion, an agency approval is not immunity and a signed contract does not make an unlawful promotion lawful.
Before accepting a campaign, creators and their representatives should know what the platform actually offers, whether it can legally offer it to the intended audience, whether its advertising is restricted, and whether the promotion could expose the creator to action in different states. If the answers are vague, the fee should not make them clearer. Ignorance may explain a bad decision but it does not turn that decision into good governance.
The rules were already in the room
The idea that creators are suddenly being ambushed by government attention is convenient, but completely inaccurate.
These developments are not one coordinated government campaign, and it would be irresponsible to present them that way. But the direction of travel is difficult to miss: a public appeal from the Prime Minister, state-level notices over surrogate branding, and enforcement questioning over betting-app endorsements. The distance between the creator economy and government scrutiny is shrinking.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has previously cautioned celebrities and influencers against directly or indirectly promoting unlawful betting and gambling activities. Its advisory warned that such endorsements would face rigorous scrutiny and that action could extend across the commercial chain, including advertisers, publishers, platforms, celebrities and influencers.
Consumer-protection rules also require endorsers to exercise due diligence. Endorsements should reflect a genuine and reasonably current opinion, be based on adequate information or experience, avoid deception and clearly disclose material connections with advertisers. The rules also prohibit surrogate advertising and allow penalties and temporary endorsement bans for misleading advertisements.
In other words, the government has not invented creator responsibility overnight. What appears to be changing is the willingness of authorities to make that responsibility visible.
That is not the same as dictating every reel.
There is a line between regulating commercial endorsements and controlling creative expression, and the government respects it. But paid promotion occupies different ground. Once money, consumer persuasion and a potentially unlawful product enter the frame, “creative freedom” cannot be used as a convenient synonym for freedom from consequences.
So, who should actually be worried?
Creators who disclose their commercial relationships, verify claims, check the legality of products and platforms, reject surrogate promotions and build compliance protections into their contracts should not panic. For them, the Prime Minister’s appeal is recognition of the creator economy’s public value.
The people who should worry are those whose entire due-diligence process consists of a WhatsApp brief, a brand assurance and a payment confirmation.
They should also worry if their contracts say plenty about deliverables, usage rights and payment dates but nothing about legal review, withdrawal rights, regulatory cooperation or responsibility when a campaign crosses the line. Governance does not begin after a notice arrives. It begins before the content is approved.
The influencer industry is welcoming clear, proportionate and predictable enforcement. A mature creator economy must be capable of demanding creative freedom while accepting commercial accountability.
PM Modi’s appeal does not mean the government is coming for every creator’s content. It means the country’s most powerful office has openly recognised that creator influence can change behaviour.