Awardees

Citation

The Fourth Estate is an acknowledged pillar of democracy. For a long time it was another name for the Press. Now it includes the electronic media also. However, the emergence of the electronic media has not affected the popularity of newspapers.

A crucial element of newspapers all over the world is the cartoon. In fact a newspaper without a cartoon is now inconceivable. A cartoon is a caricature suggesting a person or an event and carries a witty or sarcastic comment on a topical subject or person in the news. It pricks the bubble of pomposity and takes digs at the high and the mighty. A cartoon chastens the public morals with ridicule. In its subtlety, it conveys far more than a 1000 word erudite editorial. Because of what it says, stays in the reader’s mind for a long time. Also, unlike the editorial, a cartoon can’t be censored. Either it has to be removed completely or kept intact as a whole. Often people subscribe to a newspaper because of its pocket cartoon. Some cartoonists like Shankar, R.K Laxman, Abu Abraham and Sudhir Dhar became national icons who sustained the newspapers they worked for.

Born in 1961, Subhani Shaikh, thought a post graduate in science, turned to sketching and then to political cartooning. In the last two decades he has carved a place for himself for his pocket cartoons in the Deccan Chronicle, Andhra Bhoomi and the Asian Age dailies. Apart from over 10,000 illustrations, he has published 15,000 cartoons so far. His work has been acknowledged nationally and internationally. Notably, he won the first prize in the National Level Cartoon Contest of the Aids Control Society of India in 2001. Internationally, he has won awards from Iran, China, Belgium, Korea and Greece.

Subhani Shaikh has many years ahead of him to bring cheer to every home by his cartoons and thereby to continue to serve the cause of freedom of expression and of democracy in India.

In acknowledgement of his services to the noble cause of defending democracy by exposing shams and hypocrisy in public life. The Trustees of Yudhvir Foundation have great pleasure in honouring Subhani Shaikh for his telling cartoons. They also wish him many more years of productive life in the service of the nation.