The grand old  man of Indian cartooning RK Laxman has a delightful anecdote that embodies the charm of  political cartooning. Soon after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, Laxman lampooned Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his much-maligned defence minister Krishna Menon. That evening, Laxman got a call from the prime minister’s office. Picking up the phone, he was petrified of being at the receiving end of Nehru’s ire. He need not have...

The colonial government took a liberal view of the merciless lampooning that it received at the hands of cartoonists in the Indian press A cartoon is a written expression of the comic impulse, and the cartoonist is an artisan of nib and brush who puts down complex processes of reason and argument in drawings and pictures. His impact is that readers sit up, smile, frown, or simply laugh. In short, cartoons...

At last, the real anxieties lurking behind what has come to be called the “Ambedkar cartoon” controversy are out in the open. It is hideously clear by now that MPs “uniting across parties” are acting as one only to protect themselves from public scrutiny, debate and criticism. It turns out, as some of us suspected all along, that the “sentiments” that have been “hurt” this time are the easily bruised...

Recently, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, the highest body that funds and guides the social sciences in India, has initiated an in-house debate about the current state and the future prospects of such research. What is the quality of work that has come out of our universities and research institutes over the past 10-20 years? Which new areas of inquiry deserve more time, money and attention in the...

The controversy over a cartoon in an NCERT textbook sends a chill down the spine as it shows the extent to which the culture of intolerance has eaten into the vitals of our democratic polity. The cartoon in question shows B R Ambedkar sitting on a snail (Constitution) and flogging it while Jawaharlal Nehru too is brandishing a whip standing behind Ambedkar. It is clear that he is also aiming his...