ABSTRACT
The author sees postcolonial demo-graphics, as manifest in Vishwajyoti Gosh, is a hard rethinking via a multimodal text of the dark hour of Indian political modernity. The emergency was characterized by newer manifestations of a consumer modernity such as the Maruti car, touted as the People's Car, and a project in which Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's son, was depicted in Delhi Calm as 'Prince'. By satirizing the visual culture of those moments within the medium of the graphic novel, Ghosh exploits the medium to the hilt. The cultural work of political critique, Ghosh' demo-graphics show, necessitates the utilization of a specific medium. The graphic novel serves this purpose admirably in Ghosh by being at once demo-tic about demo-cracy. It also emphasizes efficiency, categorization, and organization, taking a Weberian rationalizing modernity to an extreme with harsh measures for the punctual running of trains signifies a rationalization of time and family planning signifies a rationalization of populations and the intimate sphere.
