Cartooning Democracy: The Images of R. K. Laxman

Abstract

Flipping through the recently published collection of R. K. Laxman's cartoons chronicling Indian democracy (titled Brushing Up the Years: A Cartoonist's History of India 1947–2004, 2005), I was intrigued by the dynamic nature of the material collected together. It is indispensable as a teaching tool that displays the many vicissitudes of Indian democracy over the years. But also, the active nature of actual democratic life pulsated through each and every framed visual satiric political presentation. What is it about his visual melancholic humor that seems to question democratic functioning at its kernel? There is nothing funny/trivial about democratic governance, but by drawing in the comical aspect of a functioning democracy, Laxman's cartoons draw out a democracy alive to its inherent possibilities; a democracy laughing at itself for the aberrations from its idyllic potential.

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