According to Sigmund Freud, who regularly consumed the legendary German comic magazines Fliegende Blätter and Simplicissimus and found in jokes some hidden but essential relation to the unconscious working of the human psyche, the art of cartooning functions as ‘a rebellion against authority, a liberation from the oppression it imposes.’ The British colonisers, weary of their life in the colonies, started comic or satirical publications such as the Indian Charivari, which was printed and published in the colonial capital in Kolkata (erstwhile, Calcutta) 1872 onwards, borrowing its name from the iconic British illustrated weekly magazine Punch, or the London Charivari.

In colonial India, satire flourished as a pervasive and potent mode of social critique. Ridicule and raillery functioned as effective expressive tools through which subaltern groups challenged the authority of dominant-caste elites and the emerging nouveau riche in Kolkata. The Kalighat pat paintings in particular, offered incisive visual commentaries on the perceived moral decadence of the urban elite and Western-educated men, often employing tropes analogous to caricature. The motif of prostitution was frequently invoked as a symbolic device to humorously yet pointedly expose male licentiousness. This vibrant culture of satire found formal expression with the publication of Basantak in 1874, the first Bengali periodical devoted exclusively to satirical writing and imagery.

Humour and satire in the colony fell into distinct categories, depending on the targets of the jokes and their intended audiences. Gaganendranath Tagore introduced a sharp, sophisticated style that transcended personal attacks, exposing the broader social forces shaping those figures. Already steeped in progressive Western ideas, he boldly critiqued Hindu society's regressive religiosity, its servile deference to British colonizers, rampant caste discrimination, and the empty political reforms pushed by both the imperial government and native leaders.

Let us turn to this rare inaugural issue of Indian Cartoons, published by the Indian Society of Oriental Art under the aegis of Gaganendranath Tagore, who served as one of its secretaries. The editor’s preface positions the cartoon alongside established traditions of the fine arts, rejecting any notion of caricature as a merely subordinate or purely entertainment-oriented form. Through his deft use of linguistic play—homophonies, puns, and carefully crafted similes and metaphors—combined with a sharp sensitivity to irony and exceptional draughtsmanship, Gaganendranath renders complex social scenes and character studies at once engaging and intellectually stimulating. His work moves beyond exaggerated or distorted figuration intended solely to provoke laughter; instead, it cultivates a nuanced, cerebral humour that retains the incisive force of satire.

In the preface, one can sense the editor’s ambition to inaugurate a new phase in the development of cartoon and caricatural art in the colony through this publication. As Ritu Gairola Khanduri notes in Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World (2014), the early twentieth century witnessed the circulation of chitravalis—slender albums of assorted caricatures, often in Hindi—that addressed contemporary social concerns and helped cultivate a broader, more familiar engagement with cartooning as an everyday visual practice.

Within this wider context, the initiative of the Indian Society of Oriental Art and its editor B. Gangooly may be situated as part of a larger movement to produce and disseminate indigenous caricature periodicals. At the same time, the relatively high price of two rupees and twelve paisa suggests that Indian Cartoons was likely aimed at a comparatively affluent, urban readership: presumably English-educated and capable of engaging with the textual elements accompanying the images. This aligns with the editor’s stated intention to elevate cartoons to the status of a serious art form, implying an envisioned audience comprising art school circles, pedagogical institutions, and practicing artists who might be inspired to experiment with the medium.

Curiously, very little is known about B. Gangooly, and the decision to publish under initials rather than a full name only deepens this sense of anonymity and intrigue. Such a practice was not uncommon among cartoonists—figures like R. K. Laxman or M. Verma often signed their work using abbreviated names. The latter, for instance, remains relatively obscure despite contributing caricatures to Shiva Narayan Mishra’s Svang Chitravali in Kanpur during the 1930s. On the other hand, Gangooly introduces the younger cartoonists with a lot of care—many of them illustrating for the first time for the periodical. In adopting this mode of presentation, Gangooly appears to position himself not as a distant editorial authority but as one among the contributing artists; an identity reinforced by the presence of his own caricatures within the periodical, signed as ‘Drawn by editor’.

How were the artists for this issue selected? Many appear to have been relatively young and, as the works suggest, not yet fully accomplished draughtsmen—raising the question of how B. Gangooly became acquainted with their practice. One plausible explanation is their association with the I. S. O. A., which had established a school of painting and sculpture in a rented flat at 6 Samavaya Mansions on Hogg Street. As O. C. Gangoly later recalled in Indian Society of Oriental Art: Its Early Days (1961), this initiative was developed with the involvement of artists such as Nandalal Bose and Kshitindranath Mazumdar. It is therefore likely that some of the contributors were students or affiliates of this institutional milieu

Gangooly here mentions a K. Mukherjee, a young artist who recently returned from England and whose interest—like many cartoonists at the time who were simultaneously dabbling in advertising and painting—lay in poster-design which is evident in his brilliant typography on the cover which is reminiscent of the stark lettering in public posters. Mukherjee’s comic sensibility is particularly noteworthy in his reimagining of the Bengal tiger. Conventionally depicted as either solemn or foolish in popular children’s literature—such as Tuntunir Boi (1911) by Upendrakishore Roychowdhury—the tiger here is transformed into a rosik (witty, self-aware) figure, seemingly amused as it looks over a page of caricatures. At the same time, the drawing reveals certain anatomical inconsistencies that exceed the usual liberties of caricature: the awkward positioning of the forepaws creates ambiguity, making it unclear whether the tiger is holding a single chapbook torn at the centre or juggling two separate pamphlets—one in its grasp and another tucked beneath its arm.