Book

'Caricaturing Culture in India: 

Cartoons and History in the Modern World'

by Ritu Gairola Khanduri

Publisher: Cambridge Press, April 2016

In the book, Ritu Gairola Khanduri, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in the UT Arlington College of Liberal Arts, reveals how cartoons serve as teaching moments about identity politics and democracy.

“We just have to look around to observe the frequency with which cartoons are debated in our world,”

Here is a short write up about the book by Cambridge Press:

Caricaturing Culture in India is a highly original history of political cartoons in India. Drawing on the analysis of newspaper cartoons since the 1870s, archival research and interviews with prominent Indian cartoonists, this ambitious study combines historical narrative with ethnographic testimony to give a pioneering account of the role that cartoons have played over time in political communication, public discourse and the refraction of ideals central to the creation of the Indian postcolonial state. Maintaining that cartoons are more than illustrative representations of news, Ritu Gairola Khanduri uncovers the true potential of cartoons as a visual medium where memories jostle, history is imagined and lines of empathy are demarcated. Placing the argument within a wider context, this thought-provoking book highlights the history and power of print media in debates on free speech and democratic processes around the world, revealing why cartoons still matter today.