Cartooning Mumbai's 9/11: an exploration of image decolonization

Photographs and TV footage of the Mumbai terror attacks (November 2008) reflect the image(ination) of the US's 9/11. How do we account for the colonization of tragedy in a postcolonial democracy? Can an alternative mode of imagery question and move beyond the usurpation of tragedy fixated by the imperial homogenization of images throughout the world? In my article, I study Ajit Ninan's cartoon images in the context of the Mumbai terror attacks, and explore the potentials in political cartooning as a mode of image (de)building. I explore how the apparently simple form of cartooning illuminates complex reality with breathtaking dexterity and thus engages in image de-colonization or an unwrapping of the political exigencies that shroud the event.