ABSTRACT
The disruptive nature of Gandhi's Ahimsa and Satyagraha virile rebels, in stark contrast to the frail, spiritual ethos symbolized by Gandhi, is effectively subsumed under the mantle of the nation by shifting the focus from violence to freedom. The forceful acts perpetrated by Bagha Jatin (1879-1915) and Chandrashekar Azad (1906-1931), two young men whose insurrectionary activities against the British state led to their dramatic deaths, are effectively neutralized through a strategic historical, cultural, and popular representation and thus assimilated within national resistance to avert the formation of an oppositional narrative in the postcolonial state. The Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) comic-book avatars, specifically Chandra Shekhar Azad, Freedom was his Mission (1977) and Bagha Jatin, The Tiger Revolutionary (1978), are read here as active participants in a postcolonial mythology of revolution, masculinity, and youth. Amar Chitra Katha is particularly effective, especially for young readers, as it parleys the past into a visual narrative, making history visible, communicative.
