Kesava Shankar Pillai, considered to be the father of political cartoons in India, worked as a cartoonist for the Hindustan Times till 1946 before starting his own journal ‘Shankar’s Weekly’. Below is the text of a note written for the public by Jawaharlal Nehru (then the President of Congress) on 24 February 1937. Nehru had famously told him after becoming the Prime Minister, “Don’t Spare me, Shankar”.
“How many of us have waited from day to day for Shankar’s cartoon? How many have turned to the page containing his cartoon before we have seen the news of the day? That cartoon has not only given us pleasure but also a new insight into current events. For a true cartoonist is not just a maker of fun, but one who sees the inner significance of an event and by a few master strokes impresses it on others.
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Shankar has that rare gift, rarer in India than elsewhere, and without the least bit of malice or ill-will he points out, with an artist’s skill, the weaknesses and foibles of those who display themselves on the public stage. That is a service to all of us for which we should be grateful. For we are apt to grow pompous and self-centered, and it is good to have the veil of our conceit torn occasionally. And, so, I gladly pay my tribute to Shankar, and I hope that he will long continue to enlighten us and amuse us and pull us down a peg or two.”
