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It is difficult to imagine a world without cartoons. By cartoons this reviewer is, of course, referring to those humorous illustrations in print, usually single-panel drawings, and not animated films or, what used to be the original meaning of the word — a preparatory drawing for a piece of art such as a painting or a tapestry.
British and American journals and newspapers, both in the broad sheet and tabloid format make good use of cartoons to lighten up their pages. Which reader can truly say, with hand on heart, that it was the cartoon that he looked and never really read the article. Cartoons can be found not only in magazines specifically devoted to humour like the Soviet satirical magazine Krokodil and the late lamented Punch, but also in publications that specialise in a variety of subjects and disciplines.
Some of the finest and funniest cartoons that this reviewer has seen during the last fifty years appeared in Punch and Private Eye, two British publications, The New Yorker, an American periodical and a few Indian newspapers that have specialised in the political cartoon.
The first issue of Punch, which could arguably be regarded as the market leader in humour, appeared in 1841. During the 1940s the circulation peaked at 175,000. But from 1953 to 1957 under the editorship of the anti-monarchist Malcolm Muggeridge the journal suffered a dreadful reversal and the circulation plummeted to a mere 6,000 copies, ceasing publication in 1992. It was revived in 1996 and was finally laid to rest in 2002.
The New Yorker, known for its reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry surfaced in the mid-1920s, and has achieved a high measure of sophistication. And Private Eye, a hard hitting satirical and current affairs journal, which is published every fortnight, has, since it first appeared on the news stands in 1961, been a prominent critic of public figures deemed incompetent, inefficient, or corrupt.
Unlike the West and India, Pakistan has had very few cartoonists who made an impression on the reader. The artist Ajmal Hussain who spends a great deal of his time in Paris, started his career as a cartoonist in the 1960s when he sketched for Dawn, before taking up painting professionally. Two other cartoonists of the first rank are Feica (Rafiq Ahmed) who draws caricatures for Dawn, Akhtar Shah of The News and Vie Ell (Yousaf Lodhi) who was the star of the Frontier Post.
Cartooning, like cricket, came to India with the British and created a bond between the two countries. There is virtually no newspaper in India that doesn't have a cartoonist or is not on the look out for one, and it is a curious feature of cartooning in the world's largest democracy that a disproportionately large number of its leading practitioners come from the southern state of Kerala. In the world of cartoons India has an embarrassment of riches.
Fortunately for the media in that country, many of India's prominent leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Rajagopalachari who laid the foundations for a stable democracy, had a sense of humour and enjoyed seeing cartoons about themselves. The quip attributed to Gandhi bears retelling. When a foreign correspondent asked him what he thought of western civilisation, the sage replied, 'It's a good idea.'
The political cartoon, in the words of Adlai Stevenson, is reason illustrated and enriched by humour, something that India's great cartoonists never lost sight of. A peek into the newspaper files during the period between 1960 and 1990 reveals an astonishing number of brilliant cartoons, drawn by highly gifted artists.
This reviewer always looked forward to seeing a caricature by R.K. Laxman of The Times of India, Sudhir Dar of The Hindustan Times, Mario Miranda of The Illustrated Weekly of India, B.V. Ramamurthy of The Deccan Herald, Abu Abraham of The Sunday Observer, Ravi Shankar of The Indian Express, Vishnu Sharma of Shankar's Weekly...and another 43 artists that this reviewer would be happy to write about on another occasion.
The cartoon reproduced on this page centres on themes common to both countries in the subcontinent — corruption, greed, alleged manipulation of the legal system, gross ineptitude and wanton waste. If it can evoke a smile on the face of the local reader, it would have served its purpose.
