Contending comically: Mahatma Gandhi’s cartoons in South Africa and its after effects

Abstract

In a postcolonial country, colonial cartoons prove an indispensable source for voicing contemporary public opinion either for initiating resistance towards colonizer’s leadership or for suppressing the colonized who dared to launch resistance in the first place. Simultaneously, humour generated through these cartoons is valuable in identifying the iconicity of an individual as the extent of distortion employed in caricaturing them explains the level of popularity enjoyed by them. This implies that a cartoon can effectively increase/decrease the number of followers of a person who is either glorified or belittled through distortions. In this article, I argue that colonial cartoons despite of their attempts to ridicule Mahatma Gandhi for his rivalry with the British administrators paradoxically went on to glorify him. Cartoons converted him into a popular icon, the one who was easily recognized by masses. Their intention of generating humour by depicting Gandhi in cartoons made people visualise enormous trouble that he was creating for colonizers thus turning him into a celebratory figure against British in South Africa. This moral shaming created from visual depiction of inhuman British rule led to withdrawal of many horrendous acts and laws which were primarily meant for exploitation of Indian immigrants in South Africa.