Review | Graphic novel Discovery of New India is weighed down by excessive documentation

Ink and paper are potent creators of eventful histories. When ink bends and curves in the hands of a political cartoonist, objective truths are revealed with satirical subjectivity. Tumultuous events like wars and human displacement, replicated within cartoon frames, become intimate microcosms that the reader can inhabit. 

And so, with expectations heightened by my love for the graphic novel as a form of dissenting literature, I immerse myself in the Discovery of New* India (*Conditions Apply), jointly created by Aakar Patel and PenPencilDraw. The title, a parody of Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconic chronicle, The Discovery of India (1946), offers, right at the outset, subtle insinuations that I can’t wait to unravel.