Literature Review
Bahadur- The First Ever Indian Superhero
The First Bahadur comics published in Indrajal was Lal Haveli ka Rahasya (Dec ’76; IJC No.267). It was priced at Rs 1. It was also published in Bengali and Kannada language.
The story begins when a dacoit, Vairab Singh, who has been terrorizing villages, is shot dead by the Chief of Police Vishal. The dacoit’s teenager son swears revenge on the policeman who caused the death of his father. However, Vishal helps him turn over a new leaf. The boy was Bahadur, and he grows up to enforce law and order in the little bustling town of Jaigarh.
https://unboxedwriters.com/bahadur-the-first-ever-indian-superhero/
The history of Hindi comic books can be traced back to 1964, when Indrajal Comics, an offshoot of Times Group, published the first ever Hindi comic book titled Vetal ki Mekhla (The Phantom’s Belt). After gaining popularity among young readers, several American comic books were adapted into Hindi. This eventually led to the development of several publishing houses promoting hindi comic books with diverse characters.
Critically informed writing about comics, an endeavour with a long but often marginal history in the scholarly world, has flourished over the past two decades as never before. The rise of comic book studies is connected to the increased status and awareness of comics as an expressive medium and as part of historical records.
Amar Chitra Katha: Shift towards ‘Indigenous’ Comic Books
A major break in the publication of Hindi comic books came in 1967 when India Book House started the Amar Chitra Katha series helmed by Anant Pai. Trained as a chemical engineer, Pai joined the publishing industry in the 1960s, and was employed by the publication division of the Times of India. It is said that once Pai watched a quiz contest on Doordarshan where children could answer questions on Greek mythology but did not know the name of Rama’s mother.[4] His nieces and nephews also showed him stories they had written that had characters with English names. Pai found this alienation from Indian cultural roots disturbing. He conducted an experiment in a Delhi school to establish that the comic format works well as a mode of communication for young minds. He then conceived the idea of an indigenous comic book for children that would have the stamp of approval from parents and teachers since they would provide information on Indian mythologies and histories. He pitched the concept to Times Group but without any success. However, India Book House, a publisher based in Bombay, lapped it up. The series was named Amar Chitra Katha (literally, immortal picture stories) or ACK as it is popularly known. Although the first 10 issues of ACK were Western stories like Pinocchio and Cinderella, from the 11th issue onwards, it came into its own and started to publish stories related to Indian mythology.
Bahadur, which literally means The Brave, is a highly popular Indian comics character, created by painter, journalist, author, playwright, cartoonist and screenwriter Aabid Surti in the year 1976. The comic series was published and distributed by Indrajal Comics. Bahadur was released in many Indian regional languages such as Hindi, Bengali and also in English. Other than being published as a stand alone series, Bahadur was also featured in several newspapers and magazines as comic strips, along with other comic book heroes.
Concept of Bahadur
During the period when Bahadur was conceived in 1976, crimes like robbery had increased to a great extent in the country. The series of Bahadur focused mainly on the robbers and dacoit clans. Bahadur was born to father Vairab Singh, who himself was a dacoit. Vairab Singh died in a combat with the local police. During his teenage years, Bahadur was adopted by Vishal, the Police inspector who killed his father.
Bahadur later established the Citizen”s Security Force, also known as Naagrik Suraksha Dal (NASUD). This group was set up with the objective of providing support to the Police Force for combating dacoit clans. Even though he bravely fought with various groups of dacoits and other criminals, Bahadur mainly concentrated on correcting and rehabilitating the dacoits. His main sidekick and assistant, Lakhan, was also a former dacoit who was later reformed by Bahadur himself. Lakhan eventually surrendered himself to the law and started to work with Bahadur in restricting crime.
In the Indian comics series, Bela is portrayed as the love interest of Bahadur. She is an expert in various combat forms and techniques of martial arts. Bela helps Bahadur in various missions and his fights against his rivals. There were some other significant characters that were featured in the series on a regular basis, such as Lakhan, Mukhiya and Sukhiya. Mukhiya was the head of village administration and the leader of the villagers and Sukhiya was a police officer. Bahadur also had a dog named Chammiya, but it was introduced much late in the series.
Development of Bahadur
The Bahadur series gradually evolved in terms of artwork, plot and quality. Originating from the concept of dacoits in the small town of Jaigarh, the series moved to themes like espionage. Moreover, the setting of the story also shifted from a small town to a modern city. As the artists changed with time, the look of Bahadur was also experimented with several times. His initial attire remained same till 1986. Then his kurta was changed to pink and his trademark long hair was shortened to sport a new and urban look. Later his kurta was also replaced by a T-shirt. The series of Bahadur came to an end in April 1990, when Indrajal Comics was cancelled by the Times of India.
During 2010, it was planned that the Bahadur series would be made available on a new website on Bahadur. Moreover, there are plans to reboot the Bahadur character in the near future.
https://www.indianetzone.com/bahadur
References:
https://www.indianetzone.com/bahadur
https://unboxedwriters.com/bahadur-the-first-ever-indian-superhero/