No Laughing Matter: The Ambedkar Cartoons, 1932-1956 (Thank You Video)

Описание: On 14 April 2019 we released the book "Laughing Matter: The Ambedkar Cartoons, 1932-1956" into the world. The overwhelming response moved us to put together this video as a gesture of thanks.


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buy: https://navayana.org/products/no-laug...


This history like no other asks you to consider what you are laughing at.

In 2012, the inclusion of a 1949 cartoon by Shankar showing Jawaharlal Nehru whipping a snail-borne B.R. Ambedkar in a school textbook, evoked dalit protest, and a savarna counter on the grounds of artistic freedom. Scholar and cartoonist Unnamati Syama Sundar then undertook an archival survey of cartoons on Ambedkar in the English language press. The result, a collection of over a hundred cartoons from India’s leading publications, drawn by Shankar, Enver Ahmed and R.K. Laxman, among others, lays bare the perverse and thoughtless hostility Ambedkar often contended with. The incisional commentary woven around each cartoon offers a veritable biography of a man historically wronged.



Unnamati Syama Sundar grew up in Vijayawada on a diet of Calvin and Hobbes, Dennis the Menace, Chacha Chaudhary and Amar Chitra Katha. He is doing his doctoral research at Jawaharlal Nehru University on the art featured in Chandamama, the popular Telugu children’s magazine founded in 1947. Syama Sundar is well-known for his Ambedkarite cartoons in the non-savarna social media world. His work is featured regularly on the website roundtableindia.co.in.

Endorsements:

No Laughing Matter seamlessly captures the synergy between words and images … carefully decoding each cartoon with historical precision and an anti-caste filter.—Firstpost

A book that overturns the usual assumptions about political cartooning.—from an excerpt in The Hindu

No Laughing Matter goes a long way to show that the media and cartoonists do not only make great men, but sometimes villains too. If you love Ambedkar, and if you read this book, get ready to be offended and the angry at the same time.—The Print

Four years of search and research has resulted in No Laughing Matter featuring 122 cartoons [which show how] cartoonists deliberately targeted Ambedkar even if there was nothing really to make fun of.—from an excerpt in The Print

Each cartoon is a lesson in the history of the making of the Republic of India. No Laughing Matter is steeped in satire.—Mid-Day

The book works like one big cartoon. One-sided, adversarial, unsparing. Cartoonists can’t complain. They are getting a taste of their own medicine.—The Indian Express