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COMMENTARY

Economic & Political Weekly EPW may 26, 2012 vol xlviI no 21 13

Cartoons, Caste and Politics

Manjit Singh

The controversy over the

Ambedkar cartoon in school

textbooks is more a reflection

of the hurt sentiments of the

political class rather than of the

dalits. It seems that an artificial

hurt has been created through

a misreading of an innocuous

cartoon from six decades ago. In

a context where the social justice

agenda is often neglected, suchemotional issues provide political

players with an opportunity to

maintain their popular support.

The degree of hostility, often taking

a hysteric form, that the Indianpolity is now displaying at the

slightest display of dissent makes it diffi-

cult to believe that it is the same country

where two and a half millennia back

Buddha achieved enlightenment. People

cannot feel secure when a cartoon simply

forwarded by a professor can land them

in trouble because it lampoons a political

leader. Such intolerance towards creative

art and literature was first noticed in an

organised form with the campaign

against M F Husain who was accused of

depicting Hindu deities in a vulgar man-

ner and attacked repeatedly by Hindu

fundamentalists.

The Cartoons

Suddenly, however, such attacks have

started coming up frequently and from un-

expected quarters. Ambikesh Mahapatra

of Kolkatas Jadavpur University was

picked up by the police for allegedly for-

warding cartoons of West Bengal chiefminister and Trinamool Congress chair-

person Mamata Banerjee. The cartoon,

based on Satyajit Rays movie Sonar Kella,

allegedly showed Banerjee and present

railways minister Mukul Roy discussing

how to get rid of party Member of Parlia-

ment (MP), Dinesh Trivedi, who was then

railways minister. Mahapatra was also phy-

sically attacked by Trinamool supporters.

What has happened on 11 May 2012

in the two houses of Parliament over a

cartoon is really worrisome as it has

exposed the hollowness of the worlds

largest democracy. The punitive attitude

of the state towards the creative arts and

literature is only too well known in the

history of democratising societies. How-

ever, the nature and sharpness of the

reaction witnessed, both from the oppo-

sition parties in Parliament as well as the

government, over the reproduction of a

1949 cartoon by Shankar in the textbook

ofXI class only shows how fragile ourdemocracy is and how alienated our

political parties are from the people.

The cartoon at the centre of the contro-

versy has a historical context. It depicts

B R Ambedkar riding a snail, which is

representative of the Constitution-making

process, while Nehru stands with a limp

whip behind wondering whether to goad

it to move faster. While it has been inter-

preted as Nehru whipping Ambedkar, alook at the cartoon will show that it is

the slow-moving snail that both men are

trying to move, Ambedkar with the reins

and whip in hand too. It shows Nehrus

anxiety, as prime minister, to give a

Constitution to the people of India as

early as possible. Ambedkar, as chair-

person of the Constituent Assembly (CA),

on the other hand, did not want to leave

any loophole in the Constitution lest

development bypasses the poor or social

justice is undermined. He consulted all

contemporary constitutions of successful

democracies before finalising the draft

for approval as well as allowed the

consultative process within the CA to

unfold itself. There is an ambient con-

flict between the two stalwarts of Indian

democracy one is worried at the delay in

declaring India an independent republic,

whereas the other wants to ensure every

bit of detail of the social agenda to be

included in the draft before finalisingthe Constitution. Precisely for these rea-

sons nobody misunderstood the cartoon

60 years back.

The Iconography

In independent India the social justice

agenda of the Constitution has rarely

been taken seriously. The policy of reser-

vation is implemented by the ruling

political parties not as much with the

intention of empowering the marginalised

dalits and tribes of India as to use it as a

tool to garner political power. It is for

the same reasons that the voices of 117

scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe

(ST) MPs rarely reverberate with such

unison on the issues of unemployment,

poor health and low wages of workers as

on such emotive issues. In a socially, cultur-

ally and economically skewed society,

bringing identity and emotive politics to

the fore costs nothing to the politicians

to secure positions of power. Corporatisa-tion of politics amidst innumerable castes,

ethnic groups and cultural identities is

Manjit Singh (manjits@pu.ac.in) is director of

the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion

and Inclusive Policy, Panjab University,

Chandigarh.

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COMMENTARY

may 26, 2012 vol xlviI no 21 EPW Economic & Political Weekly14

the hallmark of the present-day Indian

democracy. This approach has weak-

ened political parties to the level where

they are not sure of popular support of

the people even when in power and thus

they resort to such political gimmickry

to secure it.

Dalits, on the other hand, are nowin search of an alternative spiritual sys-

tem outside the brahmanical umbrella.

Ambedkar, who himself converted to

Buddhism towards the end of his life is

often a natural choice for many dalits as

he is the only iconic figure acceptable

across different castes and thus provides

not simply the political philosophy for

dalit mobilisation, but also tends to fill this

spiritual void. It is worth remembering

here that Ambedkar was against any idol

worship and, true to Buddhist teachings,

while addressing the CA on 25 November

1949 said, Bhakti in religion may be a

road to the salvation of the soul, but in

politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure

road to degradation and to eventual

dictatorship. In step with the teachings

of Buddha, Ambedkar wished each one

of his followers to be a source of his own

light instead of slipping into a path of

idol worship. Mainstream politicians

however would like nothing better thanto convert Ambedkar into an idol that

they can use for political capital.

A closer look at the sequences of the

events shows that the move was not

simply limited to the intolerance to

Nehru-Ambedkar cartoon, there are many

other cartoons lampooning politicians

included in the political science text-

books of classes IX to XII produced by the

National Council of Educational Research

and Training (NCERT). Members of the

Parliamentary Forum on Children had

met NCERT officials on 8 May 2012 to

express their concern on the inclusion of

such cartoons in their textbooks and

sought a meeting with the people re-

sponsible in the third week of May. A

cartoon of R K Laxman included in the

class IX textbook depicts the hypocrisy

of Indian politicians by drawing their

two contradictory faces, one before the

elections and the other immediately af-

ter, holding the reins of power. It istherefore now amply clear why political

parties of different hues joined hands in

opposing the inclusion of cartoons in

the textbooks.

It was a dalit activist Thirumavalavan,

Lok Sabha MP from Chidambaram and

leader of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi

(Dalit Panthers Party) of Tamil Nadu, who

first objected to this cartoon, followed

soon by Ramdas Athawale of the Republi-can Party of India from Maharashtra.

Thirumavalavan raised this issue in

Parliament on 11 May and was soon joined

byMPs from all parties waving copies of

this cartoon claiming it was insulting to

Ambedkar, Nehru and the whole nation.

Thirumavalavan even asked for Sibals

resignation and the minister on his part

responded by saying that he has no

hesitation in apologising to the nation.

Kapil Sibal has already announced an

inquiry into the role of NCERT officials

responsible for the inclusion of such car-

toons, the withdrawal of this textbook until

revisions are made and a further review of

all textbooks for derogatory or insensitive

material. Bahujan Samaj Party leader

Mayawati demanded criminal prosecution

for those responsible for putting this

cartoon in the textbook while Ram Vilas

Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party wanted

the government to disband the NCERT.

Taking refuge under the cartoon contro-versy manyMPs openly expressed their

fear that the entire institution of Parlia-

ment and the concomitant democratic

process is under attack from certain

quarters. In this chorus of condemnation

the only dissenting voice was of Sharifud-

din Shariq of the Jammu and Kashmir

National Conference who defended these

cartoons and advised his parliamentary

colleagues to do some soul-searching.

The MPs have argued that satirical

cartoons in textbooks can spoil the

tender minds of young students. Our MPs

seem to forget that in todays world of

free-flowing information and communi-

cation, children watch politicians on tele-

vision viewing pornography inside state

legislatures, parliamentarians abusing

and shouting at each other and holding

entire sessions of Parliament to ransom

over trivial matters and read about the

corruption and criminality in our polity.

Can such schoolchildren, especially thosewho are soon to become voters, be

fooled by these cartoons? Therefore, it is

not these cartoons in textbooks which

are responsible for the poor image of

political leaders, the parliamentarians

are themselves to be blamed for their

present disconnect from the people. It is

worth remembering here the public trial

of Socrates who was, besides other

things, accused of spoiling the youth ofAthens. There is no difference between the

argument of ancient state of Athens and

that of the parliamentarians of our time.

The Danger Ahead

It also needs to be noted that both the

advisors to the NCERT Political Science

textbooks, Suhas Palshikar and Yogendra

Yadav, had submitted an explanation to

the objections raised by parliamentarians.

In that they had pointed out the historical

context of the cartoon, its pedagogical

uses today and also that these textbooks

had been seen by an expert committee of

some of Indias leading social scientists,

like Mrinal Miri, G P Deshpande, Gopal

Guru and Zoya Hassan belonging to dif-

ferent persuasions and perspectives.

The stance of the MPs soon inflamed the

emotions of the dalits outside who deem

both the Constitution and its architect as

sacrosanct. However they missed a clear

difference between the official positionand an individual persona. Shankar did not

lampoon Pandit Nehru or B R Ambedkar.

It was a satire on their respective public

position they were endowed with by

the great republic then in the making.

Our parliamentarians, by their irre-

sponsible acts added fuel to the casteist

fire. Consequently, the very next day, on

12 May, some activists allegedly belong-

ing to Republican Panthers Party of

India ransacked the office of Palshikar.

Ramdas Athawale justified the attack

and demanded criminal cases against

Yadav and Palshikar.

At the end of the day, what is most

dangerous is that political representatives

of the people are joining hands in in-

flaming all sorts of casteist, ethnic and

religious feelings as part of their power

games, instead of addressing the basic

needs of the people. Earlier this was lim-

ited to some right-wing sections of Indias

polity but now it appears to be on its wayto becoming the norm. This is the real

threat to the future of Indian democracy.