Flipping through the recently published collection of R. K.
Laxman's cartoons chronicling Indian democracy (titled Brushing
Up the Years: A Cartoonist's History of India 1947–2004,
2005), I was intrigued by the dynamic nature of
the material collected together. It is indispensable as a teaching tool
that displays the many vicissitudes of Indian democracy over the years.
But also, the active nature of actual democratic life pulsated through
each and every framed visual satiric political presentation. What is it
about his visual melancholic humor that seems to question democratic
functioning at its kernel? There is nothing funny/trivial about
democratic governance, but by drawing in the comical aspect of a
functioning democracy, Laxman's cartoons draw out a democracy alive
to its inherent possibilities; a democracy laughing at itself for the
aberrations from its idyllic potential.