Who is the true Anti-National? - A Rhetorical Analysis of A Comic Panel by Rachita Taneja

Sanitary Panels, started by artist Rachita Taneja, is a webcomic series that was first released into the world in 2014 and has only grown since. At present, she has a Twitter following of 39.5K, a Facebook following of 78K, and an Instagram following of 129K. I state these numbers to provide context regarding the artist as well as the nature of the content that she produces and her audience interacts with. Tried for contempt in 2020 on having released a comic that criticised the Supreme Court, Sanitary Panels is a play on “sanitary pads” in an effort to provide content that makes the uncles of India uncomfortable in the way they perpetuate certain ideas of nation and nationalism. 

The key issue that the comic raises is the conflation of the identity of a community of people who identify with the Indian flag, and those who identify themselves with the BJP flag. For some, the two may mean the same thing due to extensive and deep-rooted political rhetoric repetitively instilled by India’s many political parties. However, with the statement “You can only choose one”, Rachita raises the important question: why is it commonly believed that the two are one and the same?

The argument that the comic poses is that the government that governs the country should ideally be separate from the idea of the nation that they govern, such that a national identity must not be conflated with a political one. However, given that the conflation of the two exists and is a deeply held belief among many of the nation’s constituents, the artist attempts to separate the two again by making the distinction between them clear and precise; an easy binary for the common masses to understand. 

The reason this comic is so easy to understand is largely due to its composition. The artist uses hands which are extremely stylistically similar to hands present in the slogans and flags of popular Indian political parties, which lends the comic an authority and gravitas of its own. Second, the artist then uses the symbols of the nation and the political party to clearly differentiate between the two, a difference many people notice but fail to recognise the meaning of - owing to some cognitive dissonance being created as the illusion of the previously established conflation is chipped away. Third, the presentation of the simple binary with the simple statement “You can only choose one” shatters the illusion of the conflation for some, while others start that journey by asking the question “Aren't the two the same? Is there any difference?”. 

As the topic, argument, and composition come together, we start to see the audience for whom the comic was meant for. Created for social media spaces such as Instagram (IG) and Twitter, this comic is meant for the common masses of the Indian subcontinent to make them aware of the distinction between political party and nation. We can see the cultural resonance it has with the intended audience of common masses by tracking the interactions the comic elicits on social media: 14,959 likes and 395 comments on IG; 755 likes, 123 retweets, and 3 comments on Twitter. Having interacted with over 16,000 people, one can only imagine how many others saw the comic and just scrolled past without having interacted with it. In short, millions around the globe have potentially seen the comic and understood it on its most basic level: to try and separate the political party and the nation.  

It can be argued that the conflation of political party and nation is false and that the comic’s goal is nothing but to incite the general public into a frenzy over nothing or better yet, divert their attention from a pressing problem to a non-existent one. But one can clearly see instances of the conflation in the story that the comic seeks to narrativise. 

The story that the comic raises can be traced back to many instances that have occurred in recent times, beginning with the NRC and CAA protests where the rhetoric that the comic questions evolved into its most violent form. At the time of the protests, any individual who protested against Modi’s policies and unjust laws was termed an “anti-national”, as if wanting a safer space for all people within an imagined community of people was somehow against the interest of the nation. We saw this conflation of political and national again with the Farmer’s protests 2020 - 2021, where the farmers were termed “anti-national”. We have seen this on an international scale where certain citizens of the USA were termed “anti-national” for criticising Trump. This conflation is what the comic strives to question, and to ask people to ask themselves “Are they separate? Why should they be separate? Why are they together in the first place?”

The comic in a vacuum is a singular argument with no space for development, and it deviates from the norm of the artist. The artist usually produces comics of two panels or more where through the vehicle of sarcasm and witty dialogue, she attempts to question, criticise, and shed light on important politcal, mental health, and feminist issues. This comic makes a move away from that style of creation and instead focuses on the clear-cut statement of “You can only choose one”. The tone is therefore straightforward and neutral due to the nature of the statement, but takes on a different tone when read with its caption “The BJP doesn’t work for Indians or India. The BJP works for the BJP”. This caption then changes the tone to one of criticism and accusation, implying that it is the BJP which is anti-national by virtue of not having any of the nation’s interests at heart. Being a selfish party, the BJP cares only about itself and not the national constituents it was charged with the duty of protecting and serving.