Caricature’s realism

Ritu Gairola Khanduri's book Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World (2014) is a pioneering study of the rich and complex history and artistic concerns of the newspaper cartoon in India. Consistent among its multiple objectives – part history, part ethnography and part personal journey – is an attempt to map an alternative historiography of the nation by archiving cartoons. The author applies the terms 'tactile' and 'tactical' to refer to the humour and politics associated with cartooning. These terms describe a way of understanding lived experience. In the postcolonial world, Khanduri seems to imply, the universal structure of capital is only available as caricature. The author sees in this the potential for oppositionality, a reason that is visceral, where we are able to make use of all our senses. This allows everyone to become an expert critic.

There are two key questions regarding the role of humour and caricature in the Subcontinent, which Khanduri's book does not raise directly and yet forces us to ask: first, the question of labour or class relative to vernacular agency (derived from notions of a communitarian identity) and, second, the fate of difference or alterity in an age of global capitalism. The book assumes that the rich and diverse modalities of being in the Subcontinent cannot be explained through class analysis. Her important contribution to the study of Indian humour brings out key questions of difference and totality in understanding cultural and social opposition, helping to elucidate what is at stake in the debate between Marxist and postcolonial theories of culture.