R.K. Laxman and the Common Man

R.K. Laxman (Rasipuram Krishnaswami Laxman) was born in Mysore on 24 October 1921. His father was a school teacher.

He grew up to be a political cartoonist. That is an artist who comments on politics and public life through drawings.

He died in Pune on 26 January 2015.

Laxman was the younger brother of the celebrated novelist R.K. Narayan.

• As a student in Mysore, he illustrated the short stories of his elder brother in The Hindu.
• He also illustrated his brother’s writing linked to the fictional town of Malgudi.

So he began his career close to books and stories. He later found his own voice in newspaper cartoons.

Laxman’s early Times of India cartoons were busy. They were filled with figures from across India.

Daily deadlines changed that. Bit by bit, the crowd thinned out. At last, one background figure was left in every cartoon. That figure was the Common Man.

A common mistake is to think he planned the Common Man from day one. In this telling, the deadline pushed him toward one simple figure.

The Common Man is Laxman’s most famous creation. He is a silent, bespectacled everyman. He wears a dhoti, a long shirt and a checked coat.

• The Magsaysay citation describes a bulbous nose, caterpillar eyebrows and a bald head.
• Laxman called him “the conscience that pricks the evildoer”.
• He watched Indian politics and society in Laxman’s daily cartoons for decades.

Laxman’s daily cartoon ran under the title “You Said It” in The Times of India. It began in 1951.

• His first full-time job was as a political cartoonist at the Free Press Journal in Bombay.
• He then moved to The Times of India, where his talent won wide notice.
• The cartoon ran on the front page of The Times of India for more than 50 years.

Do not mix up two names. “You Said It” is the title of the cartoon. The Common Man is the character in it.

Laxman’s early work shows that his career began close to literature. Later, daily editorial cartooning gave him his own, very different voice.

• He admired the cartoons of the British cartoonist David Low.
• He studied Low’s cartoons in The Hindu.

The Common Man is almost always silent. He simply listens, as Laxman himself put it.

This let him stand in for the public’s reaction to events. He is not a commentator who states his own opinions.

Laxman won two Padma awards. These are civilian honours given by India.

• Padma Bhushan, 1971.
• Padma Vibhushan, 2005. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gave it to him in New Delhi on 28 March 2005.

The two awards came 34 years apart. The Bhushan came first.

Laxman won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1984. It was in the Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts category.

• The citation praised his “incisive, witty, never malicious cartoons” on India’s political and social issues.
• It noted he was never sued for libel, “perhaps because” he attacked policies, not people personally.

Libel means printing a false statement that harms a person’s good name.

A cartoon character has a public statue.

• A statue of the Common Man stands at Worli Sea Face in Mumbai.
• A bronze Common Man statue at Symbiosis, Pune, was unveiled by President K.R. Narayanan on 19 December 2001.

Laxman also wrote books, not only cartoons.

• His novels include The Hotel Riviera and The Messenger.
• His autobiography is The Tunnel of Time.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated the R.K. Laxman Art Gallery-Museum at Balewadi, Pune, on 6 March 2022.

• Laxman died in Pune on 26 January 2015.
• His body was kept at the Symbiosis Institute in Pune so admirers could pay their last respects.
• Google marked what would have been his 94th birthday with a Doodle on 24 October 2015.

Laxman’s daily cartoon ran for more than 50 years.

Newspaper art can shape a nation’s memory.

Two brothers from one family became major figures in Indian creative life. Narayan worked in fiction. Laxman worked in cartooning.

It is a notable case of shared early influence leading to two different, equally lasting legacies.