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Journalism of Courage
We live in an age of manufactured confessions. In writing, this has meant the explosion of the first-person singular — most pieces are permeated by the perspective of the “I”. For the young and the “connected”, this self-obsession is exemplified by the selfie. Every passing thought, every opinion, and every trauma seems so often to have meaning only in its performance, in the degree to which it can elicit either plaudits or abuse.
Even without this context, “The Wry Eye”, an exhibition of a selection of cartoons by the late Inder Bhan Madan being exhibited by the Foundation for Contemporary Indian Art (FICA) at Lado Sarai in Delhi till May 31, tells fascinating stories. Madan, born in 1909, worked for the Department of Post and Telegraph for much of his professional life. He served as a communication officer during the 1962 Sino-Indian War, and as a senior civil servant, saw early India’s modernity-in-the-making. But Madan is unlike the colonial diarists that preceded him, or the self-reflecting (and often self-serving) work of those who reminisce about their days in government. Or, even from the more noble desire of most artists, who at their best, need to give expression to an impulse or a thought and once having put it to paper, canvas or any other medium, need it to be seen.
Madan died in 2007, aged 98. For the last decade, his daughters Chandra and Shobha Madan have helped sort through his work and put this exhibition together, which has been designed and curated by Shambhavi Gairola at FICA.
For 50 years, from the 1950s to the early 2000s, Madan drew a cartoon or image almost every day. He hardly ever dated or signed his work — he never meant for it to be seen. But in his work, he covers the events that the ancients said (according to British-American author Christopher Hitchens) every person must experience for a complete life — love, poverty and war. The exhibition at FICA provides only a glimpse of his vast archive. But the curation manages to bring out the depth of his engagement with a variety of issues.
Madan’s cartoons from the time he served as a communications officer during the China war are refreshing. Had he been commenting on more recent conflicts, in the current political milieu, one would have understood why he never published them. He brings out the absurdity, a la Catch-22, of the conflict: at times, soldiers appear like ants on a hill — the bird’s-eye view of the powers that be — and at others, all too human and similar, no matter their nationality. In one cartoon, for example, two prisoners of war from either side talk about “their wonderful experience”.
Madan’s keenest observations, though, are of the state, bureaucracy and how it makes “policy” for the poor. The politician and bureaucrat are the butts of his most cutting observations. Is this an act, perhaps, unwitting of self-criticism? It is interesting to see him subtly take on the hypocrisies of scientific temper and mechanised agriculture, especially at a time when so many of us view Nehruvian India with rose-tinted glasses, given the excesses that we are living through. But, democracy was a work-in-progress even when Madan drew the pompous government scientist leading the charge of mechanised agriculture, as the farmer looks on, hapless, with his cows and bullocks in tow.
In frame after frame, he points out the vast distance between those who make policy for “the people” and the people themselves, whose burdens don’t seem to abate.
This is not to say that his political satire is from the standpoint of a socialist, anti-statist, or environmentalist. It is, in a sense, truly unbiased — every hypocrisy, including those of student protestors, is targetted.
As time went on, Madan moved away from strictly political and economic themes to more reflective ones. The black-and-white political cartoons gradually become coloured panels and, eventually, portraits that explore the nature of marriage, children and the sad questions we all ask ourselves as life goes on. He comments, for example, on how society saw women: “They must work, never play”. A portrait of a woman is captioned, “does she still love me?”
It is impossible to say, over a decade after his death, whether Inder Bhan Madan was articulating his own pain with his later drawings. He never intended any of his work for public consumption. The glimpse into his art — the drawings, and writing — show a remarkable degree of skill. They indicate also that he was a connoisseur of the political cartoon, and a great practitioner of the form that is polemical, journalistic and satirical all in one. He is stark when he needs to be, and has an economy with the brush and pen that is rare.
There have been, and still are, thousands of Indians who write diaries, who have insights that will be unseen. What makes Madan’s work so captivating is that he processed his day, for over 50 years, through an engagement with the political while remaining impersonal. His cartoons provide a deep insight into India’s first few decades as an independent nation, but tell us little about the man. He is, in a sense, an unintentional archivist.
Madan stopped drawing after his wife, Kamala, died in 2003. She was the one who had preserved his work, almost daily, for decades.
No, Madan did not make this vast body of work to be seen. More importantly, he did not need it to be. Perhaps, that is why in the age of self-promotion and commodification, of political agendas that make commentary (and even satire) seem like job applications, his work stands out for its simple beauty and unselfconscious honesty.
