Graphic narratives as history: the emergency period (1975– 1977) in Vishwajyoti Ghosh's Delhi Calm.

Vishwajyoti Ghosh's graphic narrative Delhi Calm captures one of the most serious episodes in the history of India, in the graphic narrative form, a purportedly non-serious medium. This paper focuses on the national Emergency declared on the recommendation of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and its representation in Delhi Calm. The paper discusses how unlike the traditional modes of representation of historical events, the graphic medium acknowledges and highlights the constructed and mediated nature of the narrative, thereby foregrounding the author's role in the representative process. It also scrutinises how the medium engages readers in unique ways towards a reading of history and, therefore, has the potential for democratising history. Furthermore, it examines the various strategies and tropes that are employed to reconceptualise the past and scrutinises how contrasting narratives are included to present a multi-dimensional idea of the historical events, generating a proliferation of meaning and thereby resisting the superiority of any single meaning or grand narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]