Graphic Novel: a term that emanates a grandeur of sorts, which makes anybody who comes across it, intrigued. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the graphic novel “is a type of text combining words and images—essentially a comic, although the term most commonly refers to a complete story presented as a book rather than a periodical”. However, it has to be maintained that the graphic novel is neither the conventional novel, ranging across various chapters and numerous pages, nor the conventional comic book, which includes comic strips along a story line, typically that of a superhero. Graphic novels draw elementally from the aforementioned, however, they emerge as a genre in and of themselves. They adopt creative interpretations of plot, action, characters, dialogues, representation, settings, and predominantly, of themes. They primarily delve into topics that are individualistically deep-rooted, historically inclined, and psychologically probing.
The term “graphic novel” was coined by famed comic writer Will Eisner in 1978, in A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories, a book which is considered to be an early example of a graphic novel in the US. In the history of graphic novels, 1986 stands out to be a momentous year, in which three graphic novels were published: Watchmen by Alan Moore, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, and Maus by Art Spiegelman. These works deal with issues of the individual and the relationship of the individual with the milieu at large. Graphic novels can also be traced back to influences from Japanese Manga Comics. The modus operandi of giving expression to grievous and dreadful affairs like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the repercussions of the war—comes from Manga.
Having established the fundamental meaning of graphic novels, adding the prefix ‘Indian’ to it opens up a whole Pandora’s box of complications. The history of Indian graphic novels can be traced to the pioneers of comic books in India in 1967: Pran and Anant Pai. They were the ones who introduced us to characters like Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu, comics like Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle.
The themes of re-presentation of history, alternate narratives of history, socio-political predicaments fazing our milieu were straitened in comics and newspaper strips. Literary theorist and feminist critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak writes, in her famous work Can the subaltern speak?, quoting French writer Simone de Beauvoir, “the personal is political”. The issues concerning the “personal” in India came to be holistically broached upon and explored with the advent of graphic novels in the realm of Indian English Literature. This was ingeniously done by inculcating Indian artistic traditions of the yore and juxtaposing them with the lure of the aesthetics of comic books, like thought and speech balloons.
The first Indian graphic novel is considered to be River of Stories in 1994, written and illustrated by Orijit Sen. It meditates on socio-political impediments that had come about with the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river. This form of expression of social issues through a synthesis of art and words can be traced to Spiegelman’s Maus, wherein, he spoke about the individual and the Holocaust. By spurring the flux of manifesting the suppressed, oppressed, and repressed forms of histories, an alternative narrative of history is presented as a platform for the individual and societal voices, who were massacred by the superimposing biased past.
Antarleena Basu, a research scholar, rightly captures the essence of the Indian graphic novel when she says, “[..] the Indian graphic novel, from its very inception, has manifested an inclination to bring to the surface issues under-reported in conventional news media, thereby serving to unravel an alternate history”. For example, Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s Delhi Calm captures the Emergency of 1975-77, Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand’s Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability explores the issues of the caste system through the biography of B.R. Ambedkar, This Side That Side: Restorying Partition weaves a story about partition and its legacy, Malik Sajad’s Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir chronicles the story of a boy and his reality of the trauma of living in a conflicted zone, and Amruta Patil’s Kari is a story about a lesbian relationship. Works like these, among others, are not only re-telling history but connecting it to our present and future. They present a form of literature that battles social issues in an enhanced physical, emotional, and cognitive level.
Using Jacques Derrida, an Algerian-French philosopher’s term, to “de-centre” the centre of conventional mythologies, graphic novels not only deal with the concerns of the milieu, but also our Indian past by revisiting mainstream mythologies. These revisitations give voice to the characters of these mythologies, which were worthy of being celebrated, and thereby disrupting the very idea of such mainstream mythological narratives and proffers alternative chronicles. Such manifestations include Vijendra Mohanti’s Ravanayan, Amruta Patil’s Adi Parva: Churning the Ocean, Sarawati Nagpal’s Sita: Daughter of the Earth, Samhita Arni’s Sita’s Ramayana, among many others.
One of the eminent graphic novels is Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand’s Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability, which encompasses B.R. Ambedkar’s experiences of being a Dalit, an untouchable, and the ramifications of the caste system in society even today. Sarnath Banerjee, one of the most famous graphic novelists, described how he considers himself to be a “recorder of history” by being a graphic novelist. He records and represents the unrepresented part of history as we know it. History, more often than not, is represented through the eye of the oppressor, usually a man. Deliberate narratives of oblivion and amnesiac memories are propagated wherein the oppressed lose the legitimacy of their voice.
Dalits are represented as a downtrodden and suppressed community who cannot stand up for themselves in history. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is known as the Father of the Constitution, however, in contemporary history books, we do not get a glimpse of him, as Supriya Banerjee, a scholar writes, “for his skills as a jurist, his capacity as the first Law Minister of Independent India, or his contributions to the freedom movement, or even as a sound critic of the Post-Independence Nehruvian policies”. He, being an “untouchable” himself, strongly propagated the emancipation of Dalits and the dismantling of the caste system, something which we do not read in our history books.
Bhimayana triumphantly nullifies these notions. It puts forth a narrative of a conversation between a Dalit woman and an upper-caste Hindu man. Through the devices of imagery, irony, metaphors, symbolism, parallelism, reportage, and journalism, the narrative puts forth aspects of the anti-caste movements and the current situation of Dalits in India. The book is divided into the elements of water, shelter, and travel; three aspects which were refused in the life of Ambedkar due to his belonging to an “untouchable” caste. The incorporation of illustrations through Gond artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhas Vyam acts as a fillip, which reinstates the richness of our artistic tradition. It coalesces into a whole that promulgates a re-telling of history that was buried in the crevices of History, as we knew it. It presents aspects not just of the atrocities against Dalits by Hindus, but how other major religions also adhere to the differences promulgated on the basis of the caste system and how more support was given to the Satyagraha movement over Ambedkar’s resistance in Mahad, among others. It opens up newer layers of history, which is not part of the mainstream narrative.
A rebellion and revolution of the subaltern has begun through these alternative narratives of history to form a different genre of literature. It is alluring not only in its style, but also in its treatment of socio-political issues. Graphic novels appeal to young and adult minds alike. They can help us unravel and rewrite our past, our present and future, all of which are coloured by the ‘I-dentities’ of our multifarious diversities.
WORKS CITED
Banerjee, Supriya. “An Analysis of the Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability- A
Departure from the History Book Heroism of India” in South- Asian
Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp. 165-172.
Web.
Basu, Antarleena. “Representation of History in the Indian Graphic Novel: An Analytical
Study of History through the Frame of Graphic Narratives” in IAFOR
Journal of Arts and Humanities, Volume 4- Issue 2- Autumn 2017, pp. 25-
39. Web.
Gravett, Paul. “The Indian Graphic Novel is Here to Stay” .
Jain, Isha. “Indian Graphic Novel and How It Emerged”.
Nandan, Ayushree. “‘Bhimayana’: Why You Should Be Reading This Anti-Caste Narrative
Shubham. “Voices from the Margin in Bhimayana: A Postmodern Perspective” in
International Journal of English Research, Volume 4, Issue 5, September 2018,
pp. 36-39. Web.
Smriti has done her BA in Literature from Hindu College, Delhi University and MA in Literature from Jamia Millia Islamia University. She is also an Alumna of SBI Youth for India Fellowship.
In a room of her own, you will often find Smriti speak to spectral masked vigilantes who save the world of mortals during nocturnal hours. As a sensorial hybrid, she believes in the sight of bright colours, sound of mountain rivers, loving touch of jumping puppies, and fragrance of old books. Smriti aspires to work as a teaching faculty to create a dialogic classroom space with vibrant discussions.