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In the 1980s, PM Rajiv Gandhi often indulged in facile talk of taking India into the twenty-first century. It is then that RK Laxman created the cartoon that PM Modi spoke about in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
PTI file photo when PM Modi released ‘Timeless Laxman’ in Mumbai. It is a book based on the life and times of legendary cartoonist, the late R.K. Laxman.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday attacked former PM Rajiv Gandhi while mentioning a sketch made by renowned Indian cartoonist RK Laxman.
“A PM used to talk about the 21st century…At that time RK Laxman had made a cartoon. In that there was a plane, a pilot and passengers. But that plane was on a cart and it was being pushed by ‘the common man’ (labourers). At that time it was humour, but soon turned into reality,” the PM said in Lok Sabha.
‘The Common Man’, a figure that most Indians associate with Laxman, was devised early in his career when he joined The Times of India. Laxman had joined that national daily in 1951 and stayed with the organisation till his death. His editorial cartoons became not just a commentary on, but part of, the history of independent India.
In the 1980s, PM Rajiv Gandhi often indulged in facile talk of taking India into the twenty-first century. It is then that RK Laxman created the cartoon that PM Modi spoke about in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The cartoon by RK Laxman that PM Modi spoke about in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. (Credit: The Times Of India)
Commenting on the significance of the ‘plane on cart’ cartoon, a report after Laxman’s death in 2015, stated: “…His cartoons from this period (1980s) made it clear what was already becoming apparent to everyone — that technological modernisation remained an elite project driven by elite concerns, whose fruits trickled down slowly, if at all, to the rest. The aeroplane to the twenty-first century needs to be dragged along the runway by the sweating Common Man.”
PM Modi further said, “This showed that the then PM was so cut off from ground reality.”