Political Satire & ‘Brazen Censorship’: Cartooning, Pakistan-US-India Political Ties & Government Backlash

Abstract

Popular discourses assume that in the world of political cartooning, nothing is too sensitive and too outrageous; they can intimidate and instigate the powerful stakeholder of a country. Political cartoonists have capacity to criticize and comment on serious political matters and raise voices of general public but it is only possible if their political system provide freedom to them to play with their pens and brushes. This study primarily aims at drawing the attention to the point that how the dynamics of free speech and freedom to political cartooning in Pakistan have been changed with the same patterns of depiction of the United States-Pakistan-India relationships in different political eras and state foreign policies of the county. Therefore, political cartoons from three highest circulated newspapers (The News, Dawn and Nation) were selected from post-Cold war (January 1991) to March 2020. Political cartoons only related to Pakistan-United States-India political ties were analyzed under the Barthes’ model for Semiotic.