Adventure Comics and Youth Cultures in India
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ADVENTURE COMICS AND YOUTH CULTURES IN INDIA This pioneering book presents a history and ethnography of adventure comic books for young people in India with a particular focus on vernacular superheroism. It chronicles popular and youth culture in the subcontinent from the mid-twentieth century to the contemporary era dominated by creative audio-video-digital outlets. The authors highlight early precedents in adventures set by the avuncular detective Chacha Chaudhary with his ‘faster than a computer brain’, the forays of the film veteran Amitabh Bachchan’s superheroic alter ego called Supremo, the Protectors of Earth and Mankind (P.O.E.M.), along with the exploits of key comic book characters, such as Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruv, Parmanu, Doga, Shakti and Chandika. The book considers how pulp literature, western comics, television programmes, technological developments and major space ventures sparked a thirst for extraterrestrial action and how these laid the grounds for vernacular ventures in the Indian superhero comics genre. It contains descriptions, textual and contextual analyses, excerpts of interviews with comic book creators, producers, retailers and distributers, together with the views, dreams and fantasies of young readers of adventure comics. These narratives touch upon special powers, super-intelligence, phenomenal technologies, justice, vengeance, geopolitics, romance, sex and the amazing potentials of masked identities enabled by navigation of the internet. With its lucid style and rich illustrations, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of popular and visual cultures, comics studies, literature, media and cultural studies, social anthropology and sociology, and South Asian studies. Raminder Kaur is Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. She is the author of Atomic Mumbai: Living with the Radiance of a Thousand Suns (2013) and Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduism (2003/5). She is also co-author of Diaspora and Hybridity and co-editor of Arts and Aesthetics in a Globalizing World, Mapping Changing Identities: New Directions in Uncertain Times, Censorship in South Asia: Cultural Regulation from Sedition to Seduction, Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema through a Transnational Lens and Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary Cultural Politics. She has also written several scripts for theatre at www.sohayavisions.com. Saif Eqbal is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He graduated in Political Science from B.R.A. Bihar University, and Politics, and completed his master’s degree (with a specialisation in International Relations) and MPhil from the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is the co-author (with Raminder Kaur) of ‘Gendering graphics in Indian superhero comic books and some notes for provincializing cultural studies’ in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2015). ‘With an irreverent verve wholly befitting their subject matter, Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal take us on a magical mystery tour of north Indian superhero comics, a genre which, despite its ubiquity and its tremendous popularity, has until now not been given the dignity of a full-scale analysis. From its humble beginnings to its current multi-mediated Indofuturistic avatars, Kaur and Eqbal offer us a fascinatingly different globalization story. So, get ready: here be superpowers!’ William Mazzarella, Neukom Family Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, USA ‘An enthralling journey into the worlds of the superheroes of north India’s vernacular adventure comics: colourful, larger than life and distinctively desi. Two enthusiasts share their passion, exemplary fieldwork and historical and textual research to make an exciting contribution to our understanding of contemporary popular youth culture in mofussil India, from the golden age of the 1980s action heroes and super- heroines to today’s millennial, Indofuturist fantasies. Insightful and enormous fun.’ Rosie Thomas, Professor of Film, Westminster School of Media, Arts and Design, London, UK ‘This fascinating and rich study of the popular visual culture of Indian adventure comics is a timely and well-researched contribution on how India’s socio-economic and political transformation from the 1980s has shaped young readers’ imaginaries of the nation’s position in a globalising world. It convincingly brings to the fore how these ‘superhero’ graphic media reflect complex turbulences related to diverse forms of knowledge production and circulation, to changes in labour and gender roles, and to the different facets and faces of nationalist dystopia and ‘Indofuturism’.’ Christiane Brosius, Professor of Visual and Media Anthropology, Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany ‘A timely volume in our current age of surging nationalism in different parts of the world. The superhero comics in India are analysed visually and verbally to offer critical insights into its youth culture and its complex landscape of desire, action and political conflict. With its focus on the intersection of the transnational and the vernacular, the book enables us to grasp the slippery terrain of South Asian globalization amidst uneven modernity and the reworking of indigenous philosophies for contemporary times.’ Parul Dave Mukherji, Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India ADVENTURE COMICS AND YOUTH CULTURES IN INDIA Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal The right of Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to contact owners of copyright regarding the text and visual material reproduced in this book. Perceived omissions if brought to notice will be rectified in future printing. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-20188-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-35868-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-43421-1 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC For Suraya and Sohana CONTENTSCONTENTSCONTENTS List of figures ix List of plates xi Acknowledgements xiii 1 Action India 1 2 The making of modern mythologies 18 3 The golden age of the Indian superhero 46 4 Gendering graphics 63 5 A haven of super creativity 83 6 The fantastic familiar 101 7 The state of the nation 116 8 A forensics of evil 131 9 Readers’ worlds 152 viii Contents 10 In one of my dreams, I defeated America 173 11 Future presents 196 Glossary of key Indian adventure comic book characters 216 Index 221 FIGURESFIGURESFIGURES 2.1 Chacha Chaudhary (n.d.), Diamond Comics Digest, front cover 27 2.2 Bela and Bahadur, Jangal ke Chor (Thieves of the Jungle, circa 1986), Indrajal Comics, front cover, courtesy of bahadurbela.com 31 2.3 Fauladi Singh aur Robot Hunter (Fauladi Singh and Robot Hunter, n.d.), Diamond Comics, front cover 33 2.4 Vinashdoot (1985), Raj Comics, front cover 34 3.1 Nagraj in the foreground with his spiritual guide, Gorakhnath, in the background, Nagraj (The King of Snakes, 1986), Raj Comics, front cover 50 4.1 The superheroine, Chandika, Super Commando Dhruv’s aide (n.d.), Raj Comics, publicity image 64 4.2 Super Commando Dhruv with a schematic silhouette of Dr. Virus behind him, Code Name Comet (2013), Raj Comics, front cover 67 4.3 Nagraj and Visarpi recline on Sheshnag (usually associated wth the Hindu god, Vishnu) with allies, Saudangi, Sheetnag and Nagu, as part of the snake’s many heads (n.d.), Raj Comics, publicity image 69 4.4 The superheroine, Lomri, vanishes from Doga’s view, in Lomri (The Fox, 1996), Raj Comics, p. 19 72 4.5 The alter ego of Shakti, Chanda, encounters the supreme light of Kali after being thrown virtually lifeless into a remote valley, in Doga-Shakti (1998), Raj Comics, p. 12 76 4.6 Chanda as Shakti fighting the superhero, Doga, Doga-Shakti (1998), Raj Comics, front cover 78 5.1 Professor Nagmani inserts a brain-controlling microchip in Nagraj, illustrated by Pratap Mulick, in Nagraj (1986), Raj Comics, p. 28 95 x Figures 5.2 Nagraj fights an adversary, illustrated by Sanjay Ashtaputre in Nagraj ki Kabra (The Tomb of Nagraj, 1986), Raj Comics, p. 10 96 5.3 Nagraj fights a demonic octopus, Octosnake, sent by the evil tantric, Vishkanya, illustrated by Anupam Sinha, Vishkanya (Poison Maiden, 1996), Raj Comics, front cover 97 6.1 The evolution of the supervillain, Mkahamanav, as narrated by Super Commando Dhruv to his friend, Dhananjay, a scientist from the underwater city, Swarn Nagri, in Mahakaal (A Mammoth Death, 1997), Raj Comics, p. 15 106 6.2 Many avatars of Nagraj in a tilism (labyrinth) along with his assistant, Nagu, in Hadron (2008), Raj Comics, p. 5 109 6.3 Nagraj confronts the supervillain, Black Hole, in Hadron (2008), Raj Comics, p. 55 110 7.1 Conjoined temple-mosque on the India–Pakistan border, in Border (circa 2000), Raj Comics, p. 9 125 7.2 An enemy force running away from the melting ice, in Barf Ki Chita (Funeral by Ice, circa 1988), Raj Comics, p.