Graphic novel on PM, '101 Reasons, Why I Will Vote For Modi'
By : DC Online team
Update: 2024-03-20 08:06 GMT
New Delhi: If you’re planning to vote in these elections, it may be a good idea to flip through 101 reasons to vote for the current PM — in a graphic style. Targeting Indian voters ahead of the Lok Sabha polls this year, political analyst and author Shantanu Gupta has brought forth a first-of-its-kind graphic novel titled “101 reasons, Why I Will Vote for Modi”.
“Usually, we connect comic books and graphic novels to entertainment, fun and children. But this book does some serious political and policy commentary using the graphic medium. It is a rare experiment of doing the narration of 10 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's work through a graphic novel (or comic book in popular parlance), using 10 different popular art styles,” said author Shantanu Gupta. He is the founder of The Ramayana School and writer behind ‘The Monk Who Became Chief Minister’ — the biography of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.
The idea of a graphic novel came to Gupta during his research at the University of Oxford on "Usage of graphics novels for political commentary", where he studied and followed various political graphic novels. He understood that graphic novels can be a very powerful means to communicate political ideas to the masses.
The book is fashioned as a conversation between a Modi critic and the author himself. In the book, the Modi critique is looking for a single strong reason to vote for Modi in 2024. In the process the author takes him directly to the people in the villages, towns, lanes and bylanes of Bharat and during the discussion they end up listing not one but 101 strong reasons to vote for Modi in 2024.
Gupta said that this book is written from a voter's point of view, and explores whether one will vote Narendra Modi back to power in 2024. Gupta has collected most of his stories after directly talking to the beneficiaries of the different schemes of the Modi government. Each of the 101 reasons are presented with comparison data of pre-2014 scenarios, the human stories involved and an English poetic couplet.
Through the innovative art work, author talks about the changes in the life of the common people especially women, through PM Modi’s pro-poor policies, his work in the domain of healthcare, agriculture, education, armed forces, foreign policy, economy, jobs, infrastructure and PM’s work for the cultural renaissance of India. Book ends with discussing the Narendra Modi factor in #NewIndia's development story.
Author Shantanu believes that voting behaviour of any voter is the function of two variables – (a) Improvement in the ‘ease of living’ during the incumbent’s government and (b) the identity of the voter, which is on the lines of caste, religion, gender, age, region and language. When any government works efficiently and effectively and scores high on the first variable, the second variable meaning the identity politics blurs and the country heads towards rapid growth and development.
Each of the 101 cases, ends with a 4-line poetic couplet to communicate the human angle of the citizen’s voting behaviour. While describing the massive change that the PM Ujjwala Yojana has brought in the life of Ramavati and 10 crore more households, author and the artist sketch the life of a women before and after the gas stove in her kitchen.
Book has strong testimonials from the likes of Bibek Debroy and Mohandas Pai. Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Committee (EAC) to PM Modi said, "..Rarely has the graphic novel style been used to communicate a political message with such effect. In the words of voters, Shantanu Gupta tells a vivid story...”.
Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Aarin Capital & the Ex CFO of Infosys wrote that Shantanu's Graphic novel is a great innovation in helping voters decide their vote. Mahesh Sharma did the art direction for the book along with various artists and Pallavi Saxena and Anand Upadhyay did the designing of this first of kinds comic books in the Indian political landscape.
This brave attempt of making the policy narration through a comic book is getting rave reviews in the political circles and in the comic world. Book is already reaching the top chart on Amazon in this election season.
Author further adds this book contains 10 internationally-known art styles namely, Semi realistic style, Cartoon style, Stylised style, Manga style, Watercolour style, Realistic art style, Black and White style, Traditional Indian comic book style, Disney style and Sepia/Muted style. Along with the political analysts and political readers, this book also works as a compendium of different comic art styles for the community of the comic book lovers.
“Usually, we connect comic books and graphic novels to entertainment, fun and children. But this book does some serious political and policy commentary using the graphic medium. It is a rare experiment of doing the narration of 10 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's work through a graphic novel (or comic book in popular parlance), using 10 different popular art styles,” said author Shantanu Gupta. He is the founder of The Ramayana School and writer behind ‘The Monk Who Became Chief Minister’ — the biography of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.
The idea of a graphic novel came to Gupta during his research at the University of Oxford on "Usage of graphics novels for political commentary", where he studied and followed various political graphic novels. He understood that graphic novels can be a very powerful means to communicate political ideas to the masses.
The book is fashioned as a conversation between a Modi critic and the author himself. In the book, the Modi critique is looking for a single strong reason to vote for Modi in 2024. In the process the author takes him directly to the people in the villages, towns, lanes and bylanes of Bharat and during the discussion they end up listing not one but 101 strong reasons to vote for Modi in 2024.
Gupta said that this book is written from a voter's point of view, and explores whether one will vote Narendra Modi back to power in 2024. Gupta has collected most of his stories after directly talking to the beneficiaries of the different schemes of the Modi government. Each of the 101 reasons are presented with comparison data of pre-2014 scenarios, the human stories involved and an English poetic couplet.
Through the innovative art work, author talks about the changes in the life of the common people especially women, through PM Modi’s pro-poor policies, his work in the domain of healthcare, agriculture, education, armed forces, foreign policy, economy, jobs, infrastructure and PM’s work for the cultural renaissance of India. Book ends with discussing the Narendra Modi factor in #NewIndia's development story.
Author Shantanu believes that voting behaviour of any voter is the function of two variables – (a) Improvement in the ‘ease of living’ during the incumbent’s government and (b) the identity of the voter, which is on the lines of caste, religion, gender, age, region and language. When any government works efficiently and effectively and scores high on the first variable, the second variable meaning the identity politics blurs and the country heads towards rapid growth and development.
Each of the 101 cases, ends with a 4-line poetic couplet to communicate the human angle of the citizen’s voting behaviour. While describing the massive change that the PM Ujjwala Yojana has brought in the life of Ramavati and 10 crore more households, author and the artist sketch the life of a women before and after the gas stove in her kitchen.
Book has strong testimonials from the likes of Bibek Debroy and Mohandas Pai. Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Committee (EAC) to PM Modi said, "..Rarely has the graphic novel style been used to communicate a political message with such effect. In the words of voters, Shantanu Gupta tells a vivid story...”.
Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Aarin Capital & the Ex CFO of Infosys wrote that Shantanu's Graphic novel is a great innovation in helping voters decide their vote. Mahesh Sharma did the art direction for the book along with various artists and Pallavi Saxena and Anand Upadhyay did the designing of this first of kinds comic books in the Indian political landscape.
This brave attempt of making the policy narration through a comic book is getting rave reviews in the political circles and in the comic world. Book is already reaching the top chart on Amazon in this election season.
Author further adds this book contains 10 internationally-known art styles namely, Semi realistic style, Cartoon style, Stylised style, Manga style, Watercolour style, Realistic art style, Black and White style, Traditional Indian comic book style, Disney style and Sepia/Muted style. Along with the political analysts and political readers, this book also works as a compendium of different comic art styles for the community of the comic book lovers.