Cartoonist's cheeky retort to NYT cartoon mocking India's space programme

India made headlines globally when Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched 104 satellites in one go on February 15. To celebrate this, and also to counter a 2014 New York Times (NYT) cartoon that mocked India's space tech, a cartoonist from a leading national English daily published a befitting response to the those who doubted India's capability in commercial space research.

Besides the number of satellites (it beat Russia's world record of launching 37 at once), ISRO's launch was also the most cost-effective operation.

India's space programme, which began in 1962, has seen leaps and bounds since its first rocket launch in 1963 by the erstwhile Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR). After ISRO was founded in 1969, its first satellite, Aryabhata, was launched in 1975 with the Soviet Union.

In 2013, India launched the Mangalyaan mission, a space probe around Mars. It successfully joined the Mars orbit in 2014. Also called the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), it even won a Space Pioneer Award from the US's National Space Society in 2015, and appreciation from around the world.

But NYT published a cartoon in 2014 that angered Indians and scientists around the globe. Created by Heng Kim Song, a Singapore-based artist, it mocked India's mission days after Mars Orbiter Mission sent impressive pictures of Mars to NASA.

It depicted an Indian man in a dhoti, turban and handlebar moustache (with India inscribed on his shirt), and a tired bull behind him. He is seen knocking on the door of the “Elite Space Club”, in which two over-sized bespectacled men in suits and bow-ties sit. The paper that one of them is reading has “India's Mars Mission” as the front-page headline.

Amidst criticism that the cartoon was racist, NYT issued an apology, claiming that the cartoonist tried to highlight how “space exploration is no longer the exclusive domain of rich, Western countries”.

On February 16, the Indian daily used a reprint of the NYT cartoon in its new cartoon. Placed below the reprint was the fresh cartoon by Sandeep Adhwaryu. It depicted the same Indian man clad in dhoti sitting inside the Elite Space Club with his bull, reading a paper with “India launched record 104 satellites” as the  headline. Outside, the two American men in their suits are about to knock on the door, holding rockets in their hands. In a box below, it says “With due respect to NYT”.

Cartoonist Adhwaryu's response got widespread adulation on social media for “giving it back” to the American news publisher.