One of the fundamental rights that Chennai as a city seems to guard about itself is it’s right to laugh. Mocking is a very serious profession here. Political cartoons, memes, stand up, comedy shows, Chennai has time and again shown that it has the ability to laugh at itself. Time and again people in the city have landed in trouble for having dared to laugh and time and again they have triumphed upholding the right to mock, to be make fun of in all good humor without any malice aforethought.
These are times when people are touchy and anything that is written or spoken or depicted is apt to create trouble somewhere or the other but if you thought that, this is something new just looking into The Hindu’s archive during the Second World War will set us right. That was the time when the internationally renowned cartoonist David Low was drawing for The Hindu as well.
The paper’s centenary volume records that the best catch was “David Low and devastating criticism untouched by malice, of wrong, folly and injustice regardless of the power or the prestige of the offenders coupled with an amazing faithfulness in portraiture made his cartoons world famous, especially those relating to dictators whom he lampooned mercilessly”. What is interesting is that, during the war, the Germans tried to stop Low’s cartoons from being published in The Hindu. Under German pressure, the firm Krupps threatened to withdraw their advertisement from The Hindu unless Low’s cartoons were stopped. The then editor and proprietor Kasturi Srinivasan returned Krupps contract, telling them that he would not tolerate any external interference on the right of the editor to publish what he chose. That was in the 1930’s.
Privilege motion against magazine
Cut to 50 years later in 1987 when in the issue of March 29th, the Ananda Vikatan published a cover cartoon which the Tamil Nadu Assembly deemed to be derogatory as far as politicians were concerned. A privilege motion was brought up in the Tamil Nadu Assembly and a debate followed. It is interesting that even within the ruling party, the AIADMK at that time, opinion was divided but the speaker P.H. Pandian ruled that unless in its issue of 4th April the Vikatan published an apology, the editor would have to face the consequences of the law. S Balasubramanian, the editor of the Vikatan refuse to comply.
P.H. Pandian, former speaker. | Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH
The debate on whether action needed to be taken began in the Tamil Nadu Assembly in the afternoon of April 4, 1987. It was a Saturday. At the conclusion of the debate, despite strong protest from the opposition and some amount of the prevarication on the part of the Congress, and a request to desist from Nanjil Manoharan of the DMK, the Speaker ruled that the editor of the magazine Vikatan would have to be arrested. Police landed at the editor’s residence in Padappai and took him to the central jail. The next day being Sunday, no legal recourse was available and Balasubramanian spent his time in prison. In the meantime, protests spread in the popular press of that time. The Hindu was in the forefront of it, as were several other newspapers. Cartoons in support of Balasubramanian appeared in practically every magazine and newspaper all over the country. Eventually, the Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran intervened.
On Monday, at the request of MGR, the Speaker ordered the release of Balasubramanian. He was brought out of prison at 12:40 that afternoon and there the matter should have ended. But Balasubramanian was a man of sterner stuff.
S. Balasubramanian, Ananda Vikatan group | Photo Credit: PRABHU M
He took the matter to court claiming that he had suffered wrongful arrest and defamation of character. The court ruled in his favour and he was awarded Rs. 1000 as damages to be paid by the Tamil Nadu Assembly. That is how one of the most interesting episodes on the freedom to criticise was played.
In today’s times these make for very relevant reading. Chennai continues to retain that way, no matter what pressures may build. Long may our memes flourish.
