Youth in peril: representation of vulnerability of young people in doga comic books

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses the susceptibility of the youths against political-religious polarisations as presented in the Indian (Hindi) superhero comic books. The focus will be on the character, Doga (Raj comics) as he appears in the comics from 1996 to 2019. This analysis will be carried out within the framework of deconstruction applied via political discourse analysis. The paper will read these titles - Doga Hindu Hai (Doga is Hindu) series, Doga ko Gado (Bury Doga) etc. These texts deal with political issues that are coloured with religious tones portraying situations in which youths usually go astray. However, the response of the protagonist to these challenges, channelises these discontents sometimes through his own example and sometimes through appeal and yet sometimes through use of force, into positive outcomes. These artistic responses offer both the wish fulfilment to mitigate the atmosphere of peril and incites alternate reactions to the quotidian (and generally political) answers. The paper is divided into the following sections – No country for the young, Comics and crisis, People and publication, Origins, Politics and youth delinquency, Poverty and delinquency, Catch ‘em Young, Colours of riot, Dalit and Doga and conclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Juvenile
• susceptibility
• counter discourse
• brainwashing
• violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement (1809).

2. According to, The Power of 1.8 Billion: Adolescents, Youth and the Transformation of the Future (2014), India has the world’s highest number of 10 to 24-year-olds, with 356 million young people.

3. All translations mine unless otherwise mentioned.

4. According to a survey named, ‘Survey on Hindi and Other Vernacular Comics Readership and the Issue of violence therein’, I conducted, from 8^th June to 4^th July 2021, out of 81 responses, 41 people said they started reading comics from the age group of 9 to 18 (among others most pin less than 9 years as their initiation with comics).

5. Translated from Hindi.

6. See Reviving Indian Comics, 2019.

7. Raavan is the name of a demon king in the epic Ramayana. This could be understood to be a way in which popular cultural texts like comics books interact with ancient Indian myths. Here the hero has been aligned with a traditional villain in Indian culture.

8. In the survey mentioned above, 22% of people out of 81 respondents said that they are attracted to the comic books due to the portrayal of violence there and 46.9% people find comics (they read) without violence to be less appealing. Again, 50.06% agree that the hero/heroine should beat or kill the villains.

9. Not related to DC.

10. The Production of Hindu Muslim Violence in Contemporary India (2011) by Paul R. Brass talks in detail about the history of riots in India.