Stuge Posted May 11, 2012 Posted May 11, 2012 New Delhi: A cartoon depicting Dr BR Ambedkar published in an NCERT textbook led to loud protests, disruption of both Houses and a government apology in Parliament today. The cartoon depicts Dr Ambedkar, the author of the Indian Constitution, sitting on a snail and the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru standing behind him, brandishing a whip. The text alongside criticises Dr Ambedkar and suggests he went slow on framing the Constitution. Sketched by renowned cartoonist Shankar in the 1960s, the cartoon has been part of an NCERT book for Class XI since 2006. Today, MPs across parties waved copies of the cartoon in Parliament and said it insulted both leaders. Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha had to be adjourned till 2 pm and when Parliament resumed, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal's short apology on the issue could barely be heard as the din continued. Mr Sibal apologised in the Lower House that he had already directed NCERT to remove the cartoon on April 26 this year. "The text book will not be further distributed. We have great respect for BR Ambedkar. There is no question of maligning him. I was not a minister at that time. As soon as I got to know I have taken action. I however apologise if it has caused hurt and this is not a political issue," he said.The cartoon was removed three days ago. The HRD ministry has ordered an inquiry into how it made it to a text book. Mr Sibal also said outside Parliament that when it the came to his notice last month that the textbook had this cartoon, he asked to see it, ordered its removal and also asked for the removal of several other objectionable cartoons. He said that a panel would also be set up to review all NCERT textbooks and that distribution of this book had been stopped. Earlier in the day, as MPs across parties protested angrily Leader of the Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee agreed with them and said, "I do not know who has brought out this cartoon, and with what impression. It is totally wrong." But BSP leader Mayawati would not buy the government's explanations; she said in the Rajya Sabha that removing the cartoons was not enough action and the government must explain its stand. She also demanded that the minister concerned make a statement in the Upper House as well." Outside Parliament she said, "The matter is very serious. It's the duty of central government to solve the issue. Baba Saheb was not a normal person. If government does not take care of Baba Saheb's respect and image then it's unfortunate for them, and not for Baba Saheb." Speaking in the Rajya Sabha later, Mr Sibal reiterated that the cartoon was objectionable. "Concrete steps will be taken to ensure such things are not repeated," he assured the House. CPI Leader, D Raja told reporters outside Parliament that the cartoon was derogatory to both Mr Nehru and Mr Ambedkar. "If it was a private publication, there would not have been an issue," he said. It was Thirumaa Valavan Thol of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a UPA constituent, who brought up the issue as Lok Sabha reconvened this morning. He trooped into the Well waving a placard on the cartoon. He then distributed copies of the cartoon, upstaging the BJP's protest against Home Minister P Chidambaram over the Aircel-Maxis deal http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/uproar-in-parliament-over-ambedkar-nehru-cartoon-in-government-textbook-209426
CSK Fan Posted May 11, 2012 Posted May 11, 2012 Werent worst and funnier cartoons drawn during the RK Laxman era post independence? Some of the cartoons made to mock Indira Gandhi, etc were epic Why are we going backwards as a country?
saneindian Posted May 11, 2012 Posted May 11, 2012 A cartoon made in 1949 (Baba Saheb and Nehruji were still alive) creates a ruckus in 2012!
Stuge Posted May 11, 2012 Author Posted May 11, 2012 A cartoon made in 1949 (Baba Saheb and Nehruji were still alive) creates a ruckus in 2012! vote bank:cantstop:
asterix Posted May 11, 2012 Posted May 11, 2012 ^ :cantstop: Mastana, if possible replace CONSTITUTION by TEAM INDIA or BCCI or IPL..
mastana Posted May 11, 2012 Posted May 11, 2012 ^ :cantstop: Mastana, if possible replace CONSTITUTION by TEAM INDIA or BCCI or IPL.. Done sir jee. :bow:
Sachin=GOD Posted May 12, 2012 Posted May 12, 2012 for some reason we seem to be losing our sense of humor.
Stuge Posted May 12, 2012 Author Posted May 12, 2012 mastana cartoon deleted I guess ?please upload again .
Clarke Posted May 12, 2012 Posted May 12, 2012 Werent worst and funnier cartoons drawn during the RK Laxman era post independence? Some of the cartoons made to mock Indira Gandhi' date=' etc were epic Why are we going backwards as a country?[/quote'] I reckon the 'issue' here is that its part of the official textbook.
Sachin=GOD Posted May 20, 2012 Posted May 20, 2012 Drawing the line Karan Thapar May 19, 2012 The popular view is that political anger against the use of cartoons in NCERT text books is unjustified. Most people also say it smacks of intolerance and amounts to an infringement of academic freedom. But let me, this morning, present a contrarian position. If, nothing else, it might make you think again. First, the specific BR Ambedkar cartoon that has become a cause celebre. As I look at it, it's comic. But to some it could be closer to ridicule. After all, he's riding a snail and looks pathetic. Indeed, that may well be how we're meant to see him. More significantly, the cartoon also suggests Ambedkar is a laggard who Nehru had to goad to get a move on. Isn't that why Nehru is standing behind with a whip in his hand? Now this raises two questions. First, is the cartoon an accurate reflection of how the Constituent Assembly functioned and Ambedkar's handling of the Constitution? Dipankar Gupta, one of our most reputed sociologists, who has studied the Assembly, tells me it's not. Far from being slow, Ambedkar personally initiated and forced through some of the most critical sections of the Constitution. Next, does the cartoon compliment or contradict the accompanying text? While the text explains that writing the Constitution took time it doesn't say Ambedkar was slow or Nehru had to speed him up. Nor is it critical of Ambedkar. So, the cartoon, it would seem, conveys a different message. Finally, the view it's only a cartoon and we should not over-react. No doubt that's how Nehru and Ambedkar saw it contemporaneously. But times and attitudes change and whether a cartoon is acceptable or offensive can, as a result, alter. It's like Gollywogs and Enid Blyton stories. Once upon a time they were considered ideal toys or books for children. No more. In Dalit eyes has the same happened to this Ambedkar cartoon? You can, therefore, argue that this specific cartoon was poorly chosen and ought not to be in the book. But that only leads to a wider and more fundamental question: Are cartoons a helpful or misleading tool in teaching? This, I'm sure you'll agree, is the real issue. Let me raise three questions and, then, you can decide for yourself: First, given that cartoons are designed to poke fun, lampoon or ridicule are they an appropriate tool for teaching or will they inevitably deflect and distort the message? Second, there's no doubt cartoons are easy to understand and they make dry subjects accessible but would a student in Class 9 be able to say to himself it's only a cartoon, it's not the full reality and it needs to be put in a wider perspective? Third, don't politicians have a point when they say cartoons which ridicule politics and politicians re-inforce the prejudiced opinion of politicians as 'sab chor hain' and, if you agree, ask if that is what education is supposed to do? You can see what conclusion I'm driving at. But now let me, briefly, turn to the government's response. These books were cleared by several committees above and beyond the NCERT. We, therefore, need a high-powered and thorough inquiry to discover why the problem wasn't detected by any of these reviewing authorities. They share responsibility. Also, shouldn't the minister have waited for that review before withdrawing the books and promising action? Instead, what's happened is the books have been withdrawn and tough action threatened before a review establishes the reasons for this. Link
Sachin=GOD Posted May 20, 2012 Posted May 20, 2012 The laughter challenge Several years ago, when Sharad Pawar was returned to Maharashtra as chief minister by then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in whose cabinet he had been defence minister there was a brilliant cartoon by renowned cartoonist RK Laxman that said it all. The cartoon depicted a plumpish Pawar straddling two scales one scale read `New Delhi and the other read `Bombay? A concerned doctor was bent over those scales even as Pawar looked rather anxious. The doctor was depicted as saying, "Sir, I am sorry to say you have lost weight both there (in Delhi) and here (in Bombay)." A thousand more words could not have described PawarÃÔ situation better for a man who had just contested the prime ministerial race against Rao and been defeated fair and square, to have to return to his home state as a mere regional chieftain was a real comedown. It took a long time for him to claw his way back up the central ladder again but even as that cartoon stuck in my mind, I remember, a few weeks later, another cartoon by the same cartoonist. The second one was identical in every way to the first. Only this time the doctor reported, ``Sir, you have gained weight both here and there.Ãò It was instantly clear to me that Pawar had, perhaps, not liked the earlier depiction at all and had wanted the damage undone. Or, perhaps, Laxman thought he had been too unduly harsh (though I thought that one to be his best bit of work during my time as a political journalist reporting out of Maharashtra) and that he had thought to soften the impact by reversing the message. But even when you wear two hats, like Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray does that of a cartoonist and of a politician -- he has no sense of humour and cannot appreciate a joke against himself. More than a decade ago, I had a cover story in Outlook, the magazine I worked for at the time, which had digitally elongated ThackerayÃÔ face from an original picture to make him look rather ridiculous. The story said many nasty things about Thackeray its theme was how the Sena tiger, who ran terror through Bombay once upon a time, had reduced himself to a `tamasha by various ludicrous acts like taking public pride in the use of his personal bathroom by international singer Michael Jackson (who had held a show in Bombay and dropped in on Thackeray without whose consent the show could not have gone on) when graver issues like lack of electricity and water supply deeply concerned the state during the Shiv Sena-BJP regime at the time. His supporters, of course, hated that story but Thackeray, I discovered was not concerned about that per se. He was more upset about the picture on the cover that made him look like himself but rather silly. When I told him it was a decision by my editor over which I had had no say, he said, ``Tell your editor, then, that I can make him look even more ridiculous. I am a cartoonist, not he.Ãò Cartoonist, yes ---- but not a cartoon. He severely objected to himself being depicted as one. Like RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav today, he was quite unable to see that it was not his face but his acts that lent themslves to good cartoons for, as Laxman once said, he made such a good cartoonist for his `raw material' (politicians' shenanigans) was inexhaustive. They kept him in business. With West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee earlier arresting a professor for circulating a cartoon of hers and the Parliament now uniting in withdrawing some from books prescribed by the NCERT, Shreyas Navare, the HT Editorial cartoonist (you can find some brilliant ones from him on the HT website) rues that tolerance for differing views that is a cornerstone of democracy is fast disappearing. ``Laughing at ourselves is the best way for a society to develop this tolerance.Ãò He does not agree that students are immature to appreciate cartoons. ``Cartoons are the best of way of bringing to them a sense of politics, history and philosophy. By keeping students away from cartoons, which are tools of self-introspection through laughter, they will be denied the fullest scope of what democracy has to offer,Ãò says Navare who began cartooning at the age of 12, when he was a student of VII. So did Laxman. And so also did Bal Thackeray, who is even today so proud of his cartooning skills. But, clearly, as politicians our leaders are greatly laughter-challenged! Link
Sachin=GOD Posted May 20, 2012 Posted May 20, 2012 Unfunny, literally Swapan Dasgupta 20 May 2012, 04:50 AM IST Am I alone in imagining that the outrage over the Govt's cowardly decision to delete the contentious Nehru-Ambedkar cartoon from future NCERT textbooks has been relatively muted and overwhelmed by squeamishness? True, many intellectuals have been vocal in the oped pages of newspapers and on TV channels. But imagine if some socalled ‘right-wing’ loonies had descended on the office of a professor and ransacked it, would the country not have seen the usual suspects furiously signing petition after petition and hosting seminars denouncing fascist forces? When in an act of churlish impulsiveness, Mamata Banerjee’s government arrested a Jadavpur University lecturer for circulating a cartoon that lampooned the chief minister and the Union railways minister, the biddyajan—loosely translated as people of intellectual substance-—went apoplectic. Pillars of academia took to the streets and gave media interviews to explain why they were marching: “Any normal, innocent activity may invite retribution.” By contrast, Kapil Sibal’s pusillanimity has merely provoked sniggering despair over India’s inability to laugh at itself. One explanation is that intellectuals with links to academia are loath to be too critical of the HRD ministry, even when the issue is inextricably linked to pedagogy . But this is being needlessly cynical about honourable men and women truly attached to their versions of enlightenment. My sense is that the professional petition writers were confronted with an awkward dilemma. They had to weigh their instinctive commitment to a liberal ethos and historical maturity against the weight of political correctness. For a long time, enlightened voices have sought to distinguish between reactionary and progressive assertions of identity. All grievances, they have held, are not equal; some are more equal than others. In short, there are no uniform standards: judgment is always dependant on the context. The Dalit activists who flagged the cartoon controversy were not remotely concerned by the use of a Shankar cartoon as an imaginative relief from the drudgery of high school lessons on the Constitution. What agitated them was the depiction of Babasaheb Ambedkar as a mortal, a mere political player. In their agitpropinspired imagination, Ambedkar was an icon and had to be depicted with the reverence associated with calendar art. Just as many crude Hindutva-types couldn’t countenance departures from Raja Ravi Varma’s portrayal of the sacred and went after M F Husain, the upholders of Dalit identity were outraged that Ambedkar could be presented as a caricature—and that too in an officiallyapproved textbook. This mindless attachment to literalism should, ideally, have been debunked, if only for the pursuit of enlightened education. However, when it comes to Dalit issues, or for that matter any issue centred on the self-expression of communities that are in need of empowerment, liberal principles are expediently set aside. Doing otherwise would invite charges of hegemonic conduct—and that’s just not on in a world infected by political correctness. Last month, for example, a clutch of Dalit activists in Hyderabad’s Osmania University organised a beef festival on the campus. It was an act of provocation and defied every rule governing “common decencies” —philosopher Roger Scruton’s telling description of an unwritten social consensus. Yet, this grandstanding, which could so easily have triggered a major disturbance, was stoutly defended by many academics as a protest against “food fascism”. The point to note is that in the over-enthusiastic bid to nurture Dalit empowerment and atone for centuries of institutionalised discrimination, the normal rules governing civic and political life have often been set aside. Yet, far from persuading disadvantaged communities that the political order is receptive to their material well-being and political empowerment, the double standards have often served to encourage a fringe. These social entrepreneurs have grasped the possibilities of high returns from unreasonableness. The international seminar circuit is saturated with ‘oppressed voices’ that have turned guilt tripping into a fine art. They have learnt valuable lessons from the West’s only growth industry—multiculturalism. The Constitution accorded a special status for the victims of social oppression to facilitate the eventual creation of a level playing field. Turning the world upside down and creating new hierarchies were never the goals. Yet, India is sleep-walking its way in that direction, unmindful that equality as an ideal is still worth fighting for. Link
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