The Rediff Interview/ Abu Abraham

'People like Maneka Gandhi are fanatics -- they are worse than Khomeini'

In those days, was it very difficult for an Indian to establish himself in England?

Yes. It was sheer hard work that saw me through. It was a great strain to produce something every Friday. Sometimes, on Friday morning, when you have finally come up with an idea, you find somebody has already done it!

And you had to maintain a certain standard. The editor didn't mind if my opinions differed from his, but he wanted a certain quality. That helped me a lot. When I joined The Guardian later, I could draw much faster. I had to, as it was a daily paper.

Do you consider yourself lucky?

Lucky? Hmm... but I achieved the standard I did through sheer hard work.

Does that mean you can establish yourself anywhere in the world if you are talented and hard working?

Yes. You asked me whether I was lucky. I was lucky in the sense that throughout my career, I didn't have to apply for a job except the first time. All others were offered to me.

The main thing about cartooning is that it is not the quantity that matters, but the quality of your ideas. You can't think up something and make news and events. You can have your opinions but it should be based on reality.

Can a cartoonist be impartial?

There is nothing like impartiality in cartoons. I was never impartial. I always expressed a point of view. There was a lot of objection from people, even my own colleagues. It was the time of decolonisation in Africa and Asia. And then there was Cyprus and Algeria. I did some sharp cartoons on those. So the conservatives began saying I was not fair.

Because you were an Asian?

Not really. Of course there were some nut-cases who used to write saying 'go back to where you came from' and that kind of thing. But soon, they too got used to my work.

We have heard a lot about the British sense of humour. How different is it from the Indian version?

There are different variations, actually. There was the type practiced by Harry Sickom and two others. They used to take off on Indian pronunciation. Then there is this very dry variety... usually, a remark which you make with a straight face without laughing.

My humour was very close to the English one. After all, English had been my main language. I had read a tremendous lot. From the day I arrived in England, I didn't waste time. I listened to all radio programmes including Women's Hour and Children's Hour just to educate myself. When you are in a foreign country, there is a lot of work that you have to do. By the time I got the job at The Observer, I knew the country, its socio-political history and the idioms well. That is very important.

In most of your works, it is the politicians who are at the receiving end. Were there any protests from them?

No. They knew they would be making fools of themselves if they protested. But when the cartoons indirectly flattered them, they used to ask for the original drawing. When it was sharply critical, they would just keep quiet.

There is a framed cartoon of yours in former President R Venkataraman's office room.

Is there? In Delhi?

No, in Madras.

About the Budget?

Yes, Venkataraman with the finance minister's briefcase in his hand, lots of lipstick marks on his face, and a housewife kissing him on the cheek.

Yes, yes. Because of that he once introduced me to somebody saying, 'He nearly caused my divorce!'

Which politicians did you find the easiest to caricature?

There was Raj Narain... But, in reality, no good caricature is easy. For instance, to do a good caricature of Indira Gandhi was extremely difficult because she had a very, very sensitive face. Of course, you could draw a long nose and some grey hair and call it Indira Gandhi. I have never done that.

Recently, a British cartoonist on BBC said he would highlight Tony Blair's smile, teeth and big ears. Do you also concentrate on prominent features of a personality?

A good cartoon is not different from a portrait, except the emphasis is more on certain features. In both cases, the idea is to get the character of a face. To draw somebody always in the same way, like showing Tony Blair's teeth, becomes a boring cliche. That's the easy way. But it will become boring.

That is, there is something more to a person's personality than his features?

Yes. The exaggeration should be for the purpose of bringing out the character. There are not many good caricaturists today. No one of the stature of David Low or Shankar. Shankar was a good caricaturist. He used to study the face before drawing it.

You left Kerala when you were 20. Why did you decide to come back after so many years?

Nostalgia, what else? I wanted to spend the rest of my life here. It proved to be wise decision. Had I continued in Delhi, I might have been dead by now. The city is so polluted, the intellectual life even more so.

And Trivandrum?

Here I get a lot of affection and love. The sea and all these things, I missed in Delhi.

And sea food too, I bet! Especially sardines, right?

Yes, that's right. Then of course, I wanted to change the pace, I wanted to slow down a bit. So I decided to work from home.

But you are away from the place of all political action.

In some ways, it is an advantage because you can analyse it more objectively from a distance. But I go to Delhi once or twice a year.

Do you feel satisfied with the intellectual interactions here in Trivandrum?

I don't get much interaction. But I can find people if I want to consult... Like Madhavan Kutty of The Indian Express. I discuss local and national politics with him. In Delhi, it is only an illusion that you can have intellectual interaction. That is one place where gossip is very unreliable.

The Kerala you left behind years ago must have been a very different one from today's Kerala. Over the years, people say, it has changed for the worse. What do think?

How can anybody say it has changed for the worse? Half the students in my primary school came without anything above their waist. Some of them used to walk 3 to 5 miles to get to school. They didn't have umbrellas. They would come holding banana leaves over their heads, come totally drenched. That sort of things do not happen now.

Then why is it that cultural personalities and environmentalists always cry hoarse that Kerala is going from bad to worse, especially its environment?

Rubbish. Kerala is four times as green now than in my school days. Everybody is growing trees here. What do these environmentalists want? They stop dams, they do not want any power or atomic energy plants... Nothing! They talk only about trees. No trees should be cut, so no new roads, no canals, no nothing!

Sugatha Kumari tells me there should be no more dams. But what I say is there should be a thousand more of dams and canals in the next 10 years. That is the way to a green state. These people live in a kind of seclusion. When you go to Delhi by train, you realise how much arid land there is which can be converted. If water is brought there, you can grow trees and it can be cultivated.

It has become a very negative movement, this environmentalism. Their favourite sentence is, we don't want consumerism. Some law students came here and they wanted me to sign some statement against atomic energy. I said I am for atomic energy. But I am against atomic bombs. Shouldn't mix up the two, I told them. Then they said, we are against consumerism. I asked what consumerism? When 80 per cent of the people in this country don't have a decent standard of living, they are talking about consumerism!

Here there is no energy, no power, no factories, nothing... People are anti-science, anti-technology. Even this Sastra Sahitya Prishad which is doing very good work educating people, has joined this bandwagon.

In such a situation, then, what do you see for the state in the next few years?

I don't know. These people have no sympathy for science or technology. I don't think any of them studied science. They all took economics, history or law.

People like Maneka Gandhi are fanatics -- they are worse than Khomeini. She is propagating vegetarianism. She has no business to do that. Let her put all your cows in the gosalas! Let the cows take over! This nonsense has been going on for sometime. The government has to be firm. Now anybody can go to court and stop anything. They can stop prawn cultivation, they can stop anything now. But I am sure soon there will be a reaction to that.

I think you love nature and animals a lot. You have ducks, dogs, fish and parrots here...

I have got two goats too. Maneka Gandhi curses goats. According to her, one goat can create thousands of acres of desert. That's all myth. Goats survive in deserts on thorns and other things. So when you see a herd of goats grazing in an arid area, you think the goats created it. That's like saying camels created the Sahara desert!

All these NGOs, they get a lot of money from abroad. I am really suspicious about their activities. I get these people coming from London or France who are onto this racket of environmentalism. I took a person from London to Vellanad, and on the way I showed him the Karamana dam and told him we get water from this dam. He immediately asked do you think it is a good thing? You just can't argue with them. They do not want us to progress. They want to create a global village where white man will be landlords and the browns and blacks their peasants.

Atomic energy is good for all white countries -- it is good for France, England, America, Israel, but it is not good for us! This is new colonialism!

Photographs: Sanjay Ghosh

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