LONDON: Vivid drawings of the Indian famine by the “News Chronicle” cartoonist, Vicky are published today [Feb 1]. Vicky brilliantly depicts the Indian scene and renders the alien background with great conviction. The drawings are full of grim irony and recall the drawings of Picasso and Grosz. The drawing “Behold we starve”, shows two ill-fed Indian children, a boy and a girl, while the drawing “In the shadow of the palace” shows beggars sitting in front of the palace. The other drawings include “God help the starving poor” and “Children of the Empire”.

The Indian novelist, Mulkraj Anand, contributes an introduction to these drawings in which he says that the scenes of the Indian famine are “a humiliation and a shock to civilised intelligence. Most sensitive men in England have experienced this kind of humiliation if they have ever been in India... This is the age of the rediscovery of the fundamentals of bread, water, air, freedom of speech and opinion. The values we are insisting upon are not specifically Indian or English or American but based on those elementary human needs and interests with which men in all parts of the world are concerned”.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2020