Against Imitation: Anti-Colonial Caricatures in Basantak, or the Bengali Punch

Abstract:In 1874, Prannath Dutta published the satirical periodical Basantak to undermine obscenity laws and caricature the rational, militant masculinity of British administrators by depicting them as venal and incompetent to administer British India. Basantak's farces draw on various Indian literary and visual forms and genres. The jester-like omniscient narrator called Basantak—modeled after the cultivated iconoclast, Mr. Punch—displays an all-consuming cynicism. This article examines various imagetextual narratives, caricatures, and cartoons of British officials Stuart Hogg, Richard Temple, and Robert Phayre through which Basantak lampoons not only the childlike Englishmen but also their inane laws.