Amar Chitra Katha & Indian History

chillibreeze writer — Alokparna Basu

Writing for kids - Resources and articles

In the summer of 1967, Anant Pai, who is the man behind India’s most popular and largest selling comic book series - ‘Amar Chitra Katha’, is shocked to discover that Indian children could answer difficult questions on Greek mythology but not able to name Ram’s mother. Such an incident drove him to create the comic series in an attempt to teach Indian children about their cultural heritage. And forty years and well over 500 titles later, Amar Chitra Katha has indeed emerged as a cultural force.

During the initial years after the comic book series was launched, in the late 60s and 70s, India was facing great crises in forms of Emergency and wars with China and Pakistan. Under the circumstances, our civilization, culture, literature and stories were gradually getting erased from the memories of the young Indians. Besides, it was the time when the Indian society was slowly shifting from the traditional joint family system due to socio-economic constraints and urbanization. At this juncture, Amar Chitra Katha truly served the material need to fill the void left by grandparents in smaller nuclear families by retelling the tales of great Indian epics, mythology, folklore and fables in a comic book format. And thereon, the series has played an important role in shaping up the identity of the young ones in post-independence India.

It cannot be denied that Amar Chitra Katha has been mostly successful in addressing the fear of losing our heritage as it claims to be the soul of Indian culture and folklore which “takes you on a trip right down to the roots of your heritage”. Many of our generation have written their history examinations not only by studying history books but also by reading Amar Chitra Katha. The tales of ‘Ramayana’, ‘Hanuman’, ‘Krishna’, ‘Shiva’, ‘Jataka’, ‘Panchatantra’ ‘Angulimala’,’Harishchandra’,’Nala Damayanti’, ‘Tales of Birbal’, tales from ‘Mahabharata’, ‘Shakuntala’, ‘Savitri’- we have heard these and innumerable other stories more from Anant Pai, than our grand parents. Thus Amar Chitra Katha has atleast helped our generation to know well our epics, mythology, fables and folklores.

However, the Amar Chitra Katha series has often been criticized for overtly patronizing the Hindu scriptures. “Amar Chitra Katha is essentially Hindu in its packaging, style and illustrations. Though it has pretensions of chronicling the history of a nation, one cannot deny that the retelling is a very selective one”, said Erik Jordon, a teacher with St Paul’s Mission School.Clearly for this reason, ‘Prithviraj Chauhan’ has been shown as a representative of the nation ‘India’ while Alauddin Khilji and Muhammad Ghori have been easily projected as villains and outsiders. This trait of Amar Chirtra Katha to label the Muslim rulers who invaded and looted ‘India’(though geographical definition of present India did not even exist at that time) as intruders and ‘non-Indians’ and the ‘Hindu’ kings who fought against them as ‘Indians’ is a little confusing. But it would be oversimplification if we term the series as a text with communal undertone.

Later Amar Chitra Katha has actively contributed in making of the national identity of India in the post-colonial era that ”cuts across barriers of caste, community, region, language, haves and have-nots” with publication of a series titled, ‘The March to Freedom’ in 1986. The six volumes of this ‘Epic of New India’ are (i) ‘The Birth of The Indian National Congress’, (ii) ‘A Nation Awakes’, (iii) ‘The Saga of Indian Revolutionaries’, (iv) ‘The Call For Swaraj’, (v) ‘The Salt Satyagraha’ and (vi) ‘The Tryst With Destiny’. The first issue of this miniseries - ‘The Birth of the Indian National Congress’ introduces itself as bringing to life the “epic story of our freedom struggle”. The narrative voice in this series also took a nationalistic shape and generated a polarized view consisting of a negative ‘them’ that depicted an arrogant and ugly British and a positive ‘us’ that represented stereotypical and oppressed ordinary Indians.

After telling the stories of real historical characters like Prithviraj Chauhan, Rana Pratap, Akbar, Rani of Jhansi, Rani Durgavati etc and spiritual gurus and saints like Buddha, Jesus Christ, Soordas, Meerabai, Tulsidas, Kabir, Guru Nanak etc, Amar Chitra Katha also launched a series called ‘Makers of Modern India’ which depicted biographies of famous Indian achievers and legends. The series included issues on Babasaheb Ambedkar, C R Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Jayprakash Narayan, Lokmanya Tilak, Rabindranath Tagore, Vidyasagar, Vivekananda etc. We can term the series as a roll call of great names whom we idolize and look up to.

Recently Amar Chitra Katha added the name of Kalpana Chawla in its queue of great names. Thus it also tries to build a history of modern India based on idols which is addressed mainly to the westernized children. Amar Chitra Katha also published issues on ‘Ellora Caves’, ‘Elephanta’ and ‘The Historic City of Delhi’ which help transmitting “our cultural heritage through monuments, sculptures and paintings that withstood the ravages of time and history”.

With its fluid comic book format and photographic style of perspective paintings, Amar Chitra Katha has undoubtedly been successful in building a positive sense of India through a fitting introduction to its rich cultural heritage.

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—About our writer:

Alokparna says, "Currently enjoying my role as a mother and trying to go back to my old hobby of writing. My passion for reading, travelling, films and cooking (not always in that order!) knows no bounds. Love to discuss the space and universe with my 8 year old son."

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