The intersection of cartoons and data
Hello, my name is Shadab Nazmi and I am a data journalist at the BBC South Asia Bureau in Delhi.
I had always wondered how can we turn around data-centered stories in different formats. Of course, we have charts and interesting infographics that simplifies complex subjects in a simple way.
A few weeks ago, I partnered with Goopal Shoonya, an in-house cartoonist for the BBC to use cartoons to comment on socio-economic issues in India through data and this is what we came up with.
This cartoon, for example, looks at the National Crime Records Bureau and highlights how over 12,000 unemployed youths committed suicide because of unemployment. This cartoon shows the evolution of a man marching towards death with a board at the end which says ‘ JOB CRISIS: Any inconvenience is regretted’.
Another interesting cartoon, Gopal came up with was when I found one in 20 children in India dies before their fifth birthday. This was about the larger piece on infant mortality rate and under 5 mortality rate. In this cartoon, a reporter is asking this question to a politician, to which, the politician replies ‘Do you know more children in India die in Pakistan than India?’ This was to highlight the whataboutery by politicians on any issue by comparing things with Pakistan.
This cartoon is inspired by Kevin Carter’s photo — ‘The Vulture and the little girl’. This was done in context to how India slipped to 102 ranks in the list of 117 countries in the Global Hunger Index. In the cartoon, a child can be seen eating a piece of paper that reads ‘Vikas (Development)’ — a term which was used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his election campaign in 2014 and 2019, while a vulture waits for the child to die. The cartoon also shows the Indian parliament in the background.
Another example which we tried to explore was the NSO report, which highlighted how 1/4th of villages in India still don’t have access to toilets. This cartoon shows a man defecating in open while listening to PM Modi’s Mann ki Baat (his radio show on All India Radio). The speech bubble reads ‘Open defecation in rural India is completely eliminated’ — PM Modi’.
It was a wonderful experience to work with Gopal who came up with witty cartoons to comment on real issues with the use of data. All of these cartoons were extremely timely in nature and was made during any of these issues were in the news.
Please let me know how do you like this and if we should continue doing these? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Thank you,
