Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:38:20.683Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cartooning Democracy: The Images of R. K. Laxman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2007

Sushmita Chatterjee
Sushmita Chatterjee
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

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.

Type
SYMPOSIUM—GLOBAL POLITICS
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 303 - 306
Copyright
© 2007 The American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bhandari, Dharmendra. 2004. “A Brush With Laxman.” Harmony Magazine (August). www.harmonyindia.org/hportal/VirtualPageView.jsp?page_id=997.Google Scholar
Laxman, R. K. 1967. You Said It, Volume I. Bombay: Pearl Publications.Google Scholar
Laxman, R. K. 1968. You Said It, Volume 3. Bombay: Pearl Publications.Google Scholar
Laxman, R. K. 2000. The Best of Laxman: The Common Man Goes to the Village. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Laxman, R. K. 2000a. The Tunnel of Time. In Collected Writings. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Laxman, R. K. 2005. Brushing Up the Years: A Cartoonist's History of India, 1947–2004. New Delhi: Penguin Viking.Google Scholar
Laxman, R. K. 2005a. The Best of Laxman: The Common Man Casts his Vote. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rushdie, Salman. 1981. Midnight's Children. New York: A. A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Siegel, Lee. 1987. Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Verkey, Bobby John. 2000. “On his Latest Book, The Best of Laxman: The Common Man in the New Millennium.” Outlook India.com, 21 August. www.outlookindia.com/10question.asp?fodname=20000821&secname=Books.Google Scholar