Tracing the history of Cartooning in Karnataka
To trace the history of Kannada Cartoons
we need not have to delve in to deep past, but we have very few documents as
relics. Though the print media is almost 220 years old (First Kannada news
paper was Mangalooru Samachara started in 1843 by German, Rev. Hermann Friedrich Mögling,
a Christian Missionary of the Basel Mission)
and hundreds of dailies, weeklies and monthlies started later throughout
Karnataka, publishing of political or social cartoons started rather very late.
‘Tai Nadu’ which started as a weekly from Mysore in 1926 was later converted in
to a daily and published from Bangalore from 1928. Gulur, an Advocate used to
write Political Cartoons to ‘Tai Nadu’.
A
century after Mogling started Mangalooru Samachara Ra. Shi. aka R. Shivaram, a
Doctor by profession but an humourist by nature heavily influenced by the
British satire magazine ‘Punch’, started a Kannada satirical
magazine ‘Koravanji’ during March 1942 which for the first time started giving
prominence to cartoons. R.K.Laxman who was a student of Na. Kasturi at that
time was identified and in fact Koravanji was the stepping stone for Laxman as
a Cartoonist who drew for ‘Koravanji’ for almost four years.
Pioneers in Kannada Social cartoons
which saw a bloom of cartoons during 1960s are Nadig, K.R.Swamy, M.T.V.Acharya,
Rag, M.Vishwanath, Hublikar (of Chingari fame in ‘Prajamatha’), Prem Kumar (who
started a pocket cartoon in ‘Udayavani’ by name Chinakuruli), S. Srinivasulu, V.R.Chandrashekhar,
S.S. Anand. Nadig and K.R.Swamy became household names and their cartoons
started inspiring many a budding cartoonists. M.T.V. Acharya, an art teacher
started Drawing and Cartooning postal correspondence coaching which was a first
in its type in teaching Cartooning. But a cartoonist who was born in Coastal
Karnataka took shape as a Cartoonist elsewhere during 1940s itself. Kanneppadi
Ramakrishna who wrote by name Raghu was born in 1925 in Putturu, Dakshina
Kannada District published his first cartoon in ‘Orient Illustrated Weekly’ in
1943 when he was a student at Benares and he was appreciated by his Vice
Chancellor Dr.Sarvapally Radhakrishnan. Soon his cartoons started appearing in
‘Aaj’ a Hindi daily of Benares and ‘Amrit Bazar Patrika’ of Allahabad. After
his graduation he started his life as a full time cartoonist and joined ‘Kalki’
a Tamil Weekly of Chennai on the advice of Dr.S.Radhakrishnan. Raghu worked
there for 10 years as a cartoonist. Later he joined ‘Navbharath’, a Kannada
daily published from Mangaluru in 1956. He became popular and a household name
by his pocket cartoon ‘Shinganna’ in ‘Udayavani’ and later ‘Chinakurali’ in ‘Prajavani’.
He tried unsuccessfully to bring out a cartoon weekly in Kannada called
‘Indradhanush’ during 1962-63. He has brought out ‘Shinganna’ and his political
cartoons published in ‘Navabharat’ in a collection. Kannepadi Ramakrishna
breathed his last on 23rd July 2000.
As R.K.Laxman moved to Mumbai to ‘Times
of India’, Political cartooning in Kannada News Papers had stalwarts like
B.V.Ramamurthy who drew in ‘Prajavani’ (Kannada) and ‘Deccan Herald’ (English),
V.G. Narendra in ‘Samyukta Karnataka’ and later in ‘Kannada Prabha’.
N.
K. Ranganathan of Bangalore who is known to the cartoon world as Ranga is best
known for his two-stroke line drawing of Mahatma Gandhiji and is perhaps the
best known line drawing of the Mahatma in the world. Though Ranga did not write
to Kannada News papers or magazines, Ranga's professional life began in ‘Shankar's
Weekly’ the brain child of the legendary cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai. He
worked at various times for ‘The Statesman’, ‘The Indian Express’ and ‘The
Tribune’, besides drawing for various other publications across the country for
nearly four decades. He is also in the Limca Book of Records for having the
highest collection (of some 2,000 autographed cartoons/sketches) of National
and International celebrities. Ranga had the habit of sketching celebrities
while interviewing them for AIR. On one such occasion, the late Russian
President Nikita Kruschev liked his sketch so much that he asked for a copy.
After that, Ranga began drawing two cartoons: One for the celeb and one with
his/her autograph for himself. At a photo-op or press briefing, Ranga would
calmly draw, unruffled by the jostling of reporters and security men. In fact,
he perfected the art of drawing two sketches in the time taken for one, to save
time!
While most leaders gladly autographed
his sketches, only two leaders demurred. Former British Prime Minister Margent
Thatcher felt he had not done justice to her new hair style. Ranga immediately
re-touched the sketch, and the Iron Lady signed it. In the second case,
however, the celeb would not oblige: Prince Charles thought Ranga has done a
poor caricature of his, and refused to sign. On yet another occasion, former
Park Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did sign, but made his displeasure
clear: “A bad cartoon. I do not look anything like this,” he scrawled on
Ranga's sketch.
Ranga died of a massive heart attack on
July 28, 2002 in Bangalore.
B.V.Ramamurthy’s perpetually
puzzled Mr. Citizen grappling with the trials and tribulations of life,
has greeted Karnataka in the past every morning for over 33 years. For decades,
with his gentle humour, B.V.Ramamurthy, perhaps the progenitor of the
pocket cartoon in South India, has been making readers of ‘Deccan Herald’, ‘Prajavani’,
‘Sudha’ and ‘Mayura’ chuckle. His Mr. Citizen had become a habit with
Karnataka. In fact, when at one point, Mr. Citizen abandoned his trademark
Mysore ‘ Peta' (turban) and displayed a bald pate, readers demanded that he don
the ‘Peta' again.
Murthy, as he is known to
friends (he also jokingly calls himself ‘3Thi' - a pun of his name in Kannada), had honed his
drawing and sketching skills even while in college. He graduated in Science
from St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, in 1955. It was ‘Kidi' Sheshappa, a
firebrand journilist of the ‘50s, who uncovered Murthy's talent as a
cartoonist, in his paper ‘Kidi’, literally meaning Spark. This sparked
the growth of a genius. Murthy's talent was further nurtured by the legendary
Pothan Joseph, who provided him a stronger spring-board and a large canvas ‘Decan
Herald’ and ‘Prajavani’. He encouraged Murthy to draw a pocket cartoon
every day. Mr. Citizen soon became the morning Toast of Karnataka's readers, their
spokesman for all things under the sun- by being mere a spectator (or rather a
witness) and never uttering a word!
Among cartoons that brought
Murthy international attention was one titled ‘Grin of the year' caricaturing
Jimmy Carter, the former US President. While he is known mainly for his
cartoons, he was dexterous in illustrations and watercolours also.
V.G. Narendra is another senior Cartoonist of Karnataka who worked under
Cartoonist Shankar and is the person who gave Cartoonists of India a National
Forum by establising the Indian Institute of Cartoonists at Bangalore, the
first National-level organization of cartoonists in India. He was influenced by
the cartoons of the great Shankar during his school days. Even while in school,
he was contributing cartoons to several periodicals. During his college days,
he started drawing pocket and political cartoons for newspapers. After
graduating with a science degree from Karnataka University, Narendra headed to
Bombay to make a career for himself. He soon started contributing to the ‘Illustrated
Weekly of India’, ‘Dharmyug’ and other magazines. After a while he joined Ranga
Rekha Features, Mumbai, the first Indian Comic Feature Syndicate. His pocket
cartoon ‘Reporter Sanju' began appearing in over 15 dailies in several
languages.
A chance visit to office of the ‘Free Press Journal’ resulted in an
invitation to contribute political cartoons to the paper. His work caught the
eye of Shankar, who sent him a message asking him to meet him in Delhi.
Narendra went over, and worked with Shankar on an experimental basis for a
week. An impressed Shankar invited him to join ‘Shankar's Weekly’. That was a
turning point in Narendra's life.
Two years later, when ‘Shankar's Weekly’ was forced to close down
because of the Emergency, Narendra moved to Bangalore and joined ‘Samyukta
Karnataka’ daily as a Staff cartoonist in 1976. After 11 years there, he moved
to another leading Kannada daily, ‘Kannada Prabha’ in which he worked for 20 years. Since the
establishment of the Indian Institute of Cartoonists in 2001, he has been
devoting his time and energy to promote the art of cartooning in India, as
Managing Trustee of the Institute. His talents were recognized and honoured by
Karnataka Cartooninsts Association, Karnataka Media Academy, Bangalore Press
Club, Kannada Sahitya Parishat and other organizations.
Maya Kamath (1951-2001), born in Mumbai is a Post
Graduate in English Literature spent her formative years in Delhi. Drawing was a childhood hobby and she became an
illustrator with MacMillan publishers and started to work as a drawing teacher
at Sophia's School. It was the sight of sketches in a book titled ‘For Better or for Worse’, by Lynn
Johnston, that inspired her to draw
cartoons. Kamath's career as a cartoonist began in 1985 with ‘The Evening
Herald’ a publication of the Deccan
Herald group. She later worked for
Indian newspapers such as ‘The Indian Express’, ‘The Asian
Age’ and ‘The Times of India’. She also contributed environmental cartoons in a German
collection called ‘Third World’. In October 1998, the Karnataka Cartoonists' Association presented her with an award at
their 7th Cartoonists' Conference. Maya who breathed her last at the age of 50
was India's only female political cartoonist at the time of her death. Her
husband, Amarnath Kamath, instituted the annual Maya Kamath Memorial Award
(MKMA) in 2008 under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Cartoonists. It recognises excellence in cartooning and is followed
by an exhibition of the cartoons at the Indian Cartoon Gallery.
B.G.Gujjarappa who is popularly known as
Gujjar is dexterous in drawing illustrations, political cartoons and
caricatures. Gujjar is featured in world’s 100 best caricaturists, has been in
and out of several newspapers and media firms during the last 30 years. He is
now Art Director at Bangalore based Indya Comics, which is bringing out in graphic
novels in various Indian languages. His artistic skills are being put to use to
picturise Indian classics.
A Post Graduate in History Gujjarappa started
as a Lecturer in History. But cartooning beckoned him more than books and soon
he was part of the initial team that started ‘Lankesh Patrike’, a tabloid, as a
cartoonist. Later he joined Printers (Mysore) Ltd that published ‘Deccan Herald’
and ‘Prajavani’ and worked as a staff cartoonist for 14 years. He did political
cartoons for ‘Udayavani’, a Kannada newspaper on a freelance basis. He has also
worked for ‘Business Standard’ Delhi.
Children are Gujjar’s favourtites. He loves
illustrating children’s books. He also writes for them. Gujjar has illustrated
over 1000 books for children, which includes his own seven books, and varied
subjects. To his credit are numerous national and international awards.
He is very passionate about caricatures. He
has been experimenting in various styles of caricaturing. His cross hatching
style caricatures are popular among readers. Gujjar has been featured in worlds
100 best caricaturists. He also worked for a Canada based Cartoon syndicate
Artizans. He has been commissioned to do the caricatures of Prime Ministers,
VVIPs, corporate CEOs and scientists. He was a member of Public Relations
Committee, Karnataka Government and also a member of Karnataka Lalithakala
Academy. He is a recipient of Kempegowda
award instituted by Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.
End
of Editorial Cartoons?
At the International level ‘The New York Times’ in response to outrage created by a syndicated cartoon which showed the caricatures of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald J. Trump stopped publishing Editorial Cartoons and cancelled its contract with two cartoonists. In India people used to eagerly wait for cartoons of R.K.Laxman in ‘Times of India’ and in Karnataka to cartoons of Ramamurthy and Narendra in ‘Prajavani/Deccan Herald’ and ‘Samyuktha Karnataka/Kannada Prabha’ respectively. Now those days are over. Still many Kannada News Papers encourage cartoonists and publish editorial and pocket cartoons. P.Mohammed a great and sensitive cartoonist worked for ‘Prajavani’ for many years and is now settled in Mudabidri and draws pocket and political cartoons for ‘Vartha Bharathi’. Prakash Shetty who is a great caricaturist now draws pocket and editorial cartoons for ‘Prajavani’. Earlier he has worked for ‘The Week’, english weekly of Malayala Manorama. Youngsters like Raghupathi Shringeri and Kantesh Badiger illustrate and draw pocket cartoons for ‘Vijayavani’ and ‘Samyukta Karntaka’ respectively. Raghupathi Shringeri says he was inspired in to cartooning his by his late brother and cartoonist Dr.Satish Shringeri. Dinesh Kukkujadka who earlier drew pocket cartoons for ‘Vijayavani’ quit because of ideological differences with the editors and is now a freelancer.
Satish Acharya who shot to fame with his ‘He drew first’ cartoon in response to killings of editors of French magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ is an avid and prolific cartoonist and is famous for his ‘anti establishment’ cartoons which are published throughout India. In addition to drawing cartoons, he is known to encourage cartooning among civilians and youngsters by conducting ‘Cartoonu Habba’ in his home town Kundapura and as well as in Bangalore.
Social Cartoons
Social cartoons have a special place in Kannada News papers and magazines and has encouraged a breed of cartoonists since the days of Koravanji, a monthly started in 1942 by R.Shivaram and which stopped publication after twenty five years. Later its memory was revived by A.R.Sethurama Rao in 1983 as ‘Aparanji’ and now Shivakumar son of R.Shivaram is editing the magazine. They have also brought out in digital form and the old ‘Korvanji’ issues are available in a CD form.
As ‘Koravanji’ was a stepping stone for R.K.Laxman, ‘Sudha’, ‘Mayura’, ‘Prajamatha’, ‘Karmaveera’, ‘Kasturi’ and later ‘Taranga’ and ‘Tushara’ magazines have encouraged a host of cartoonists. Nadig from Bhadravathi and K.R.Swamy from Shimoga were very much popular during 1960s and have inspired many a cartoonists. Nadig drew daily pocket cartoon for ‘Udayavani’ a Kannada Daily. K.R. Swamy, whose first cartoon was published in 1965 is still active and draws cartoons. Premkumar was popular with his pocket cartoon Chinakuruli which was published in ‘Udayavani’. Ganeshaiah of Mysore, V.Gopal of Malur and V.R.Chandra Shekhar of Shringeri were active in the field of Social cartoons. V.Gopal breathed his last during 2019. V.R.C.Shekhar who at present is the President of Karnataka Cartoonists Association is an academically trained artist and is still teaching at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath. He is recipient of several awards and his cartoons and art works have been exhibited on several occasions throughout India.
Prabhakar Rao who published cartoons under the name Raobail was popular with his unique style of cartooning. He was born in 1937 in Kasargod. He worked as an illustrator and designer in the Art Department of the Life Insurance Corporation of India at Mumbai and after retirement settled in Dharwad. Raobail has contributed cartoons and illustrations to a host of newspapers and magazines including ‘Indian Express’, ‘Times of India’, ‘Reader’s Digest’, ‘The Illustrated Weekly of India’, ‘Debonair’, ‘Blitz’, ‘Inside Outside’ etc. His cartoons have featured in the ‘Penguin Book of Indian Cartoons’ edited by Abu Abraham. Raobail has designed and illustrated children’s books for UNICEF. He has done greeting cards for CRY and Concern India. In 2009, he was selected by Indian Institute of Cartoonists for their Lifetime Achievement Award. Raobail died on April 4, 2018 at the age of 80.
B V Panduranga Rao a free lance Cartoonist was born in 1944, is a retired Senior Manager from Bhilai Steel Plant. His cartoons have been published in various News Dailies, Magazines, Technical Journals, Comics etc. in English, Kannada and Hindi. He is famour for his 3D cartoons. He has participated in many National and Inter National Cartoon Contests. He has won over dozen of Prizes at National level and his cartoons have been selected over 30 times at International level cartoon Contests Exhibitions and also printed in 29 cartoon Catalogues from various countries. His achievements have been entered as National record in prestigious Limca Book of Records and India Book of records. Panduranga Rao was felicitated with Life Time Achievement Award by the former President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam at Cartoon Festival – 2011 at New Delhi.
H.B.Manjunath, S.V.Padmanabha, G.S.Naganath, James Vaz of ‘Taranga/Udayavani’, Nanjundaswamy, Vishwanath, S.S.Anand, Sharad Kulakarni, Venkatesh Inamdar, Bhajantri, John Chandran, Panju Gangolli, Harishchandra Shetty, Jeevan Shetty, Gangadhar Adderi, Ramadhyani, Vasantha Hosabettu, Sharanu Chatti, G.M.Bomnalli and many other cartoonists (this list is only indicative and not exhaustive) are active in Karnataka today either professionally or on free lance basis. Among women cartoonists apart from Maya Kamath, Geeta Shastri used to draw social cartoons in magazines.
Social media is another equivalising factor today and one need not have to wait for publication in print media to let the world know about your cartoon. People draw, experiment and share instantly over Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter etc. Digitisation has made the artists work easy to an extent.
Karnataka Cartoonists Association
It was during 1977 an idea to institutionalize and bring under one umbrella the cartoonists of Karnataka emerged. Nadig from Bhadravathi, K.R.Swamy from Shimoga, N.Shivanand, S.S.Anand, Ramamurthy, V.R.C.Shekhar, Narendra, M.Vishwanath, M.T.V.Acharya and Ganeshaiah from Mysore met at an old choultry in Gandhinagar, Bangalore. Thus was born Karnataka Cartoonists Association with Nadig as its President, K.R.Swamy as its Secretary, Narendra and others as Executive Committee members.
The Association organised a small conference and exhibition at Shimoga during 1978 and first State level Karnataka Cartoonists Conference was organised at Udupi during 1978 itself and it was hosted by MGM College. It was inaugurated by Ku.Shi.Haridasa Bhatta and Cartoons were exhibited. B.V.Ramamurthy was honoured and felicitated.
During that time V.G.Narendra was a staff Cartoonist at ‘Samyukta Karnataka’ and Association thought his contacts would help build the Association and cause of cartoonists and hence was made its President and Prem Kumar as Secretary. At the end of 1978 when Narendra took over the reins, R.S.Naidu who was residing at Mysore was felicitated at his home itself by Narendra and other members of the Association.
During 1978-79 a conference was held under the auspices of Karnataka Vidyavardhaka Sangha, Dharwad and the famous poet and Jnanapitha laureate Da.Ra.Bendre inaugurated the conference.
The second State level conference was organised for 2 days on a grand scale at Kannada Sahithya Parishath when Ham.Pa.Nagarajaiah was the President of the Parishath in which R.K.Laxman and Abu Abraham were invited to participate. During that time Mario Miranda was in Bangalore and Narendra immediately contacted him and requested him to participate which he duly obliged. R.K.Laxman inaugurated the conference and Nadig was felicitated in that Conference.
The third State Level Conference was held at Badami House, Bangalore (Badami House which later housed Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy has now been razed to give way for more modern buildings) in which Narendra, Hublikar and others participated. Madan a cartoonist of ‘Tughlaq’, a Tamil Magazine was also invited.
After Narendra’s term, B.V.Panduranga Rao took charge as President. Later Hublikar was made the President of the Assoiation and Narendra as Vice-President. Next conference was held at Kalaburgi at the artist Andani’s Ideal Art School. Telugu Daily Eenadu’s cartoonist Sridhar was invited and felicitated at this conference.
Later S.Srinivasulu took the reins of the Association as President and the conference was held at Bangalore. Marathi cartoonist Vasant Saravate was invited and felicitated.
Almost after a gap of 20 years V.G.Narendra was made as President of the Association for the second term. To commemorate the twenty years of the Association’s existence a grand Anniversary function was held at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. The Anniversary function was inaugurated by none other than the then Hon’ble Chief Minister of Karnataka J.H.Patel. Ranga was invited. Most of the cartoonists of Karnataka including Ponnappa, Maya Kamath participated in the function. Ramamurthy was conferred with Life Time Achievement Honour by the then Kannada and Culture Minister M.C.Nanaiah. During the same time Raghu (Kannepadi Ramakrishna) was felicitated at Chitra Kala Parishath in a function organised by the Association and Chowta was the President of Karnataka Chitra Kala Parishath at that time.
The association to promote the art of cartooning and caricaturing among the young and budding cartoonists, the Association organised its first two day Cartoon Workshop during 1980 at Yavanika, Dept. of Youth Services, Govt. of Karnataka. Similar worksops were conducted regularly thereafter.
In the State level Conference held during 2009 Life Time Achievement honour was bestowed on Toms (Thomas) of Kerala, Unni (Indian Express), Vasant Saravate (Mumbai), T.Venkata Rao (Andhra Pradesh), Madan (Tamil Nadu) and Raobail of Karnataka.
H.B.Manjunath of Davanagere later took the reins of the Association as President followed by Padmanabha. After the sad demise of Padmanabh, V.R.C.Shekhar was made the President and continued for the second term also.
It was the dream of V.G.Narendra to form
a National level institute of Cartoonists and thus was born Indian Institute of
Cartoonists during 2001 with Ramamurthy as Chairman, Narendra as Managing
Trustee and Mario Miranda as Chief Patron. With the support of Government of
Karnataka the Institute was inaugurated at Hotel Parag in a two days function
which was inaugurated by the then Hon’ble Governor of Karnataka Smt.Rama Devi. Many
cartoonists of South India participated in that function. Mario Miranda, Pran,
S.D.Phadnis, Nadig, Yesudasan, Bapu, Gopulu were conferred with Life Time
Achievement honour and were felicitated by the then Hon’ble Chief Minister of
Karnataka S.M.Krishna who also inaugurated the website of the Institute.
The Institute organised another function
during 2002 in which R.K.Laxman was conferred with Life Time Achievement Honour
by the then Hon’ble Chief Minister of Karnataka S.M.Krishna.
The first Cartoon Gallery in the Country was opened by the Indian Institute of Cartoonists during 2007 at M.G.Road, Bangalore and it was inaugurated by the then Hon’ble Governor of Karnataka T.N.Chaturvedi.
[Dr.J.Balakrishna,
author of this write-up is a Professor at University of Agricultural Sciences,
Bangalore is a writer, translator and a cartoonist. He is also interested in
the history of Cartoons. He has been drawing cartoons since 1976 and his works
have been published in all the major News papers and Magazines of Karnataka. At
present he is recording the history of Cartoons and Cartooning and has plans to
bring out it in the form of a book soon.]
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