“Laughter in the Communal: Partition Politics and Cartoons in Indian Press, 19461947

Anup Beniwal,
Dr. Barnali Saha
ACADEMICIA
2019
Back to library
Summary: 
The Partition of India as a problematic moment in the sub continental historiography has generally been approached and appropriated through creative-imaginative representations. As such, research on Partition has largely focused on the critical reading of literary narratives resulting in an obvious lacuna in the genre. The present research paper seeks to address this epistemological gap by problematizing the politics and poetics of cartoons on Partition by the Indian press as popular cultural texts visually documenting the phenomenon. It aims to enter the cartoons cape of the time to ascertain how the contours of the human tragedy of the Partition and the politics of Indian independence have been represented by the medium of cartoons through their topical discourse. In doing so, the paper first, intends to supplement the genre of Partition studies by incorporating the medium of cartoons as popular cultural representations that by virtue of their epistemological and pedagogical constituent visualize the cataclysmic event with a unique combination of language and interpretation. Second, the paper attempts to direct attention to the importance of broadening the genre of Partition studies by including myriad cultural texts apart from literary narratives. This is done by reading cartoons as fundamental cultural texts, at par with other fictional and non-fictional documentations of the Partition (and Indian independence) that need to be problematized for their social and political undertones as popular important creative-imaginative representations. indianjournals.com/ijor.aspx?target=ijor:aca&volume=9&issue=9&article=002
Language: 
English