First Graphic Novel on Bhagat Singh Unravels His Enigma

In March 2019, on the last day of his artist residency at Preet Nagar Ladi near Amritsar, painter-writer Ikaroop Sandhu (40) was given the opportunity to work on a graphic novel on Bhagat Singh. Arpita Das, publisher of Yoda Press, piqued Ikarup’s curiosity about the esteemed revolutionary’s ideology. , Although much has been written about Bhagat Singh, he remains an enigma. Ikrup’s plight was primarily to destroy his character – while relentlessly linking the narrative to his unshakable ideology, questioning violence and depicting masculinity – through words and art.

With only four of his original photographs as references, a few scholarly articles, his own writings and a series of literary works on them, Ikrup’s three-year journey to discover Bhagat Singh resulted in Inquilab Zindabad: A Graphic Biography of Bhagat SinghFirst ever graphic novel on freedom fighter (published by Simon & Schuster India in association with Yoda Press).

“When Das contacted me, I was already reading a British Gazette published in 1919. Even throughout the residence, I was reading about the state and made a pamphlet on Punjab. Das offered me not only Diya, but also left a book on Bhagat by S. Irfan Habib. I read it and then I read some more books and articles. I was very inspired by Chris Moffatt’s account of him and it appears in my book as well. Oddly enough “I could not find a single book about Bhagat written by an Indian woman,” begins Ikarup, who lives in Dharamsala.

In all the books he read, Ikarup encountered the image of an over-masculine hero, which he says Bhagat was not. “I wanted to bring in a woman’s perspective. Nothing about violence was interesting to me. I was more interested in her ideology. Bhagat was against precarious acts of violence,” she says. For, Ikroop says that her book doesn’t show Bhagat regretting his actions. Her book includes excerpts from her writings. “My intention was to make people understand that Bhagat had a strong mind. He was clever. His plan was not mindless violence. There was intellectual rigor in everything he did,” she explains.

The challenge was to recreate the era that reflected Bhagat’s ideological development. One of the four original paintings of Bhagat shows him as a child wearing a short turban; In the second he poses with his college drama group, the third is taken when he is first arrested and in the fourth he is wearing a cap. “His pictorial descriptions make you swing between two perspectives: one where you see him as a Sikh icon in a turban and another where he emerges as a communist icon with a cap. Actually, that was all things. I think today we need to understand that everyone has to go through an evolution in their journey of existence.In my book Bhagat has stopped wearing turban after his first arrest. ,

To ensure that his art reflects the era in which the book is set, Ikarup deliberately chose to stay away from colors and instead used pencil sketches. “The illustrations on the opening pages depict Bhagat’s youth. They are drawn in pencil and are raw. Thereafter, as the Bhagat gets older, the drawings become more rigid, the ink deepens. His eyes brighten up. By the end of the book, much had been grayed out as most of his time was in prison at the time. I avoided making it cartoony as it is not a comic,” she says.

Ikarup believes that the graphic-novel form has come a long way in the past decade. “Books like Sarnath Banerjee have increased diversity in stories” harappa files to Malik Sajid MunnuFor the newly launched comics anthology long form For webcomics available at buckmax, There is something for everyone. The perception is also changing that comics are for children. I think we’ll see more diverse voices and content from creators and I’m very excited to see the future of comics in India.”