KARACHI, Sept 9: Speakers at a seminar on Monday said slowly and gradually cartoons have made their place in newspapers in the country and their importance has been increasing with time.

The seminar on “Role of Cartoons in Journalism” was organized by press and publication committee of the Arts Council of Pakistan.

Former Editor-in-Chief of Dawn, Ahmad Ali Khan, in his presidential address said a good cartoonist needed to have a strong news sense.

A good cartoonist should also be a good artist so that he could translate his ideas into a simplified form of a caricature or cartoon that could be understood and enjoyed by everybody. The third quality of a good cartoonist is that he should be a satirist.

Ahmed Ali Khan said not many cartoons were published in newspapers during the pre-partition days and even for over four decades after the partition the political atmosphere in the country did not allow much room for emergence of political cartoons.

He said whenever a new newspaper was to come up, the management would be looking for good reporters, good sub-editors and peripheral staff, but not much efforts were made to find and hire a good cartoonist, as printing cartoons was considered to be a risky practice that the newspaper management usually did not like to encourage.

He said many cartoonists feeling that the situation was not favourable to work on political issues also shifted their attention to social, civic and other issues.

But, he said, for over a decade now the situation seems to be comparatively relaxed for the press as many new newspapers have come up and are accommodating cartoons.

“So, in fact, cartoons, particularly the political ones, are still in their initial phase, but hopefully if more good cartoonists came forward they will soon establish their permanent place in newspapers.”

Mr Khan said cartoons and caricatures are an integral part of good newspapers so good cartoonists should be encouraged and their work be published.

He also recalled writing an editorial in which the then Editor of Dawn, Altaf Hussain, added a few lines at the end which embarrassed the then all-powerful Governor, the Nawab of Kalabagh, who became angry and Mr Hussain was about to be arrested, but later things cooled down. Mr Khan said had there been a cartoon on the subject the editor would have faced even more harsh treatment from the government.

Referring to the role of cartoons, he said literacy rate in the country is between 25 and 30 per cent — though the government claims it to be much higher — but keeping in view the standard of education very little section of the literate population could read newspapers.

He said unfortunately in a country with a population of over 140 million the combined circulation of all newspapers is just a few hundred thousands, so the role of the press to guide or lead the political process is very limited and the role of cartoons in the process is even more minimized.

Mr Khan said democracy and free press have a direct relation with each other and as democracy has not been allowed to get roots in the country the press has also not become as stronger as it should have been.

Azhar Hussain Jaffery said a columnist could describe an issue in one or two pages, but a cartoonist could highlight the same issue by just one good cartoon.

Cartoonist Mohammad Rafiq alias “Feica” proposed establishment of a museum for cartoons where the good work that have been published over the years could be put on display.

Hassan Abidi, Ghazi Salahuddin, Dr S. M. Moeen Qureshi, Nisar Ahmad Zuberi, Shahida Hassan, Prof Anees Zaidi and others also spoke.