Comic realism

Classical Indian comics basically train young minds to suck up to the stereotypes of the status quo
Nandini Chandra Delhi 

Bahadur: I think we'll rest here and have our supper.
Sukhia: Not our last supper I presume!Operation Cancer, 1985. 

The Bahadur series featuring the tall and lanky Indian kick-ass hero, clad in blue jeans and a saffron kurta, took off in the late 1970s under the auspices of Indrajal Comics, devoted to a medley of superheroes. Bahadur (The Brave) was the baby of Aabid Surty, a maverick Hindi writer and painter. Surty conceived Bahadur in 1976, published by Bennet and Coleman, the Times of India group. 

Its popularity soon surpassed that of the western superhero gallery of Phantom, Mandrake and Tarzan. Surty's signature disappeared from the credit pages after a couple of years, to be replaced by Jagjit Uppal's name. Indeed, Surty has publicly claimed that he was cheated and pushed out, and in the absence of a written agreement, he could not sue the company. 

Having registered Bahadur in his name in recent years, the copyright issue is finally resolved and a new updated version is expected to come out soon, more than 20 years after the series closed down. Surty's friend, the late Govind Brahmania, however, remained the fingers behind the artwork for its entire career stretching till 1990. 

Surty came upon the idea of an Indian crime buster when a central minister in an interview on dacoity said that it was not possible for the police to have a chowkie (post) in every village and that people should organise themselves into self-defense squads. According to Surty, "The concept that people should learn to defend themselves and not depend on the system always was so inspiring that even if it had come from the devil I would have grabbed it." 

The other inspiration was the Gandhian discourse of a "change of heart" led by Bhoodan leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan and Vinoba Bhave, the latter having facilitated the surrender of dacoits in 1972. For instance, both Bahadur and Sukhia have a dacoit-tainted past. Sukhia was an informer for the dacoit Shaitan Singh, while Bahadur's father was the dreaded dacoit, Bhairon Singh, who was killed in a police encounter. The opening issues are devoted to the narrative of reform, rescuing both the men from the stranglehold of revenge and crime, and inspiring them to found and join the 'Citizen's Security Force' (CSF). 

Despite the so-called soft approach of reform towards dacoits, the comic fails to probe or elaborate the rich history and sociology of crime in the Chambal valley, the close linkages of crime with privilege. In fact, the change of heart narrative presumes a simple progression from the horrid past to a positive future.

It shows the police chief, Vishal, walking Bahadur through the scenes of massacres committed by his father, thus disabusing him of the romantic picture of his father as a Robin Hood figure, created by his mother. The change of heart then implies a coming to terms with the brutal and criminal past as much as a denunciation of his parents, and a shifting of allegiance to the police chief, who becomes the 'father substitute'. 

However, this modern leap of faith to the nation and its security-oriented State apparatus does not imply a clean break from the past. The un-modern past comes back to haunt the aspiration for modernity in different ways. This could also be due to the fact that the bulk of the later titles were written by Uppal whose commitment to the project of modernity might not have been as unequivocal as that of Surty. In later issues, for instance, Bela, Bahadur's girlfriend, is suddenly shown demure in a sari, doing the bidding of Bahadur. 

So what was the original idea of the modern in Bahadur comics?