A cow is a cow

The concept of subtlety is extremely modern, one that has come into expression only over the last 150 years. It also carries with it certain notions that actually developed in the West – ideas about reduction and minimalism, saying less than you should say. Yet I have no problem with a sense of melodrama in the visual. These are highly melodramatic works we see here today. This is, I think, the Subcontinental visual sensibility; we don't need to reject it. Therefore, we don't need to Westernise in the modernist sensibility of the West.

Cartoons in Southasia often exemplify truisms: you show a cow and call it a cow. Looking at 'traditional' expression from this part of the world, there is a tendency to overstate – to be a little loud, to over-decorate – which could sometimes contain regressive values, but at other times also carry interesting traditional discourse. Moreover, there is a way of reaching out to a larger public with this imagery, which cartoonists probably understand better than editorial writers. Although it was Pablo Picasso who said that it was not the job of the artist to clean up the mess left behind by politics in society, it is increasingly clear that it is the job of the cartoonist to pick up that mess. Indeed, many of them do see themselves in that role, and therefore there is a certain moralism attached to the practice of cartooning, much more than to the act of editorial writing or reportage in the media. I think cartoonists have an in-built moral premise, which is very strong because it means that you come with a certain innocence of the eye and innocence of intent; you are looking at society a little more severely than perhaps the rest of the world looks at it.