Research Foundation for Governance [RFGI] with guidance from National Institute of Design [NID], are closely working together to give India its first comic series on Law titled ‘Lawtoons Project’. This project is aimed at making people aware of their rights through simple yet effective medium like
comics.
Storyline of the comics is being by developed by RFGI and NID folks will take complete control of the design and visuals.
AnimationXpress.com caught up with Kanan Dhru, Founder of Research Foundation for Governance in India and Sekhar Mukherjee of NID to know the interesting aspects of this project.
Hi Kanan, Thank you for speaking to AnimationXpress.com, please tell us about yourself?
Sure, I am a law-graduate from the London School of Economics and a master’s in Public Administration. I’ve have worked with the National Knowledge Commission – a Prime Minister’s Advisory Body in New Delhi also was a visiting Scholar at the Stanford University. I’m also a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum’s Ahmedabad Hub and teach ethics in business schools.
Click here to know more about the Crowd Funding Campaign for Lawtoons
How did this project with NID happen?
At RFGI, we have been giving presentations on laws and rights to school children in Ahmedabad. Since we have limited volunteers and resources, we came up with the idea to create a compendium on our presentations to reach out to much wider audiences. While brainstorming on how to create this compendium interesting for children, we came up with the idea of creating a cartoon book at a meeting of the Ahmedabad Global Shapers, where I am one of the shapers.
My sister Kelly and I really got excited about the idea and started to work on it with a couple of friends. That is how the first prototype was created. We took the prototype to the Director of NID, Professor Pradyumna Vyas, who became interested in the idea and suggested that this could be made a Diploma Project of a student at NID. This is when he put us in touch with Professor Sekhar Mukherjee, NID alumni and the HOD of Animation dept plus the festival director of famous Avant-garde international student animation festival Chitrakatha.
Sekhar Mukherjee of NID says, “I always believe that design should be need based not greed based. NID is a place which gave a room to practice this design philosophy and while running this department; my main mission is now to bring more and more folks from various stratas of our society to build a better eco system of Indian storytelling.”
“’Content’ is a simple formula, which is so far ignored in India. So when Kanan and Kelly approached me for this project, I was very happy to hear that these young free radicals braved to quit their glamorous job for comics and I immediately agreed to extend my design help to them.”
“I feel this will be another adventure to mix good design and aesthetics and bring out another fantastic and effective communication product. I can surely tell that the thoughts of Kanan and Keli won’t go waste. First product will be a tough one to crack but we will make it happen!”
How many books will be created and who is the targeted audience?
The first book will consist of cartoons around 5 to 6 different types of laws. The comic book is targeted at children between the ages 10-14 as this is the age group where the young kids first get in touch with the idea of civic education. However, through our pilot testing, we have realized that even the adults might benefit by reading about the laws which they may not be aware about.
The comic book will also be complemented with a website where we will regularly update cartoons on different laws.
We would like to know about the story line, characters of the book?
The discussions regarding the story line of the comic book are still to conclude. However, the prototype is about a 10 year old curious boy Pugloo who incidentally stumbles upon the learning’s around the law! There arrives a big circus next to his house and he loves to play with the circus crew. However, at night, there is a lot of noise coming from the circus. Pugloo suffers in silence as he remembers that his teacher had told him how everyone in our country has a freedom of speech as per the constitution!
Next morning, when Pugloo meets the joker, joker asks him why Pugloo was looking tired. Pugloo gives the reason of his lack of sleep. Joker then explains how the fundamental rights in our constitution are not absolute and how right to privacy is embedded in right to life.
This was the story on which we illustrated our prototype.
What inspired you to choose this concept?
Being lawyers, we have seen how most people in our country are intimidated with the laws and legal system. There is little awareness in people about their fundamental rights and it is absolutely imperative that knowledge about the legal system is easily accessible and made interesting for people!
Through our presentations in different schools we have realized how the civic textbooks in most school is dull and uninspiring and children dislike the subject which is so important for the understanding the nuances about our governance.
This is because the knowledge about the laws is imparted in a very text-heavy manner and the same information could be presented through illustrations and graphics!
Would you like to shed light on any illustrations?
Although our prototype has been completed, we are currently at a nascent stage with regards to the development of the comic. We will start working on the actual comic book from mid this month and hoping to complete it by November.
We are hoping to use different styles and designs to make the cartoon book appear interesting and a fun learning for children.
Any Closing Comments
Well, yes, when the idea of comic book to explain laws for children was being discussed, we instantly knew that the idea has immense potential because the possibilities that can emerge out of this project can be endless and we are excitedly looking forward to doing a fabulous job with it!