Emergency's children: satire in the hindi comics of Hawaldar Bahadur. Issue 1 (2nd January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Prateek,
• Is Part Of: Journal of graphic novels & comics. Volume 14:Issue 1(2023)
• Page Start: 70
• Page End: 88
• Publication Date: 2023-01-02
• Subjects: Hindi comics -- vidushaka -- Sanskrit drama -- Hawaldar Bahadur -- satire; Graphic novels -- Periodicals; Comic books, strips, etc -- Periodicals; Popular culture -- Periodicals; Art, Modern -- 21st century -- Periodicals; Art, Modern; Comic books, strips, etc; Graphic novels; Popular culture; Comicroman; Comic; Periodicals; 741.5
• DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2022.2038225
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2150-4857

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explores an unusual connection between the poetics of ancient Sanskrit drama and Hindi comics. This interconnection highlights how satire was used in Hindi comics after India's twenty-one-month Emergency was declared from 1975 to 1977. I argue that Hawaldar Bahadur comics negotiate with the ancient Vidushaka tradition of Sanskrit drama to overcome the angst of the post-Emergency world. In the first part of the article, I analyse the function of Vidushaka, a humorous character considered to be the personification of laughter, by first looking into its earliest example, the Sanskrit satire play, Bhagavadajjukiyam ( The Ascetic and the Courtesan ). I then study the modern rendering of the Vidushaka tradition through an analysis of Habib Tanvir's 1975 production of Charandas Chor ( Charandas the Thief ). In the second part of the article, I demonstrate how Hawaldar Bahadur of Manoj comics deploys the idiom of Vidushaka to create a new model of resistance, which in turn critiques the mainstream discourse of resistance – that is, of the 'angry young man' popularised by Bahadur of Indrajal comics. Overall, I examine satire in Hindi comics to understand how humorous characters have contested the discourse of an autocratic nation-state.