Democracy is that I criticize the government and they grant me the highest honor

Within the events of the second session of the "India by the Nile" festival, which aims to revitalize the cultural interaction between Egypt and India, several special events were held in the Egyptian capital "Cairo", which included a visit to the Indian cartoonist Sudhir Tailang. 

On Tuesday, April 15, 2014, a workshop was held between him and the cartoonists of the Egyptian Society of cartoons, over three hours in the Indian Cultural Center in downtown Cairo, where about 25 professional and amateur cartoonists have participated in the workshop.

The Indian cartoonist Sudhir Tailang began the workshop by providing the participants with an overview of his artistic history, saying that he studied English literature in the state of Rajasthan in northern India, and he taught himself how to draw cartoons.

In practical simple steps, Sudhir explained his style of drawing cartoons, and how he depends on the simple configurations in which human being is the hero. At the end of the workshop, Sudhir asked the attendance to draw a cartoon from their mind about India, thus everyone began to draw him, which encouraged him to start in drawing them as well, to launch a satirical match in drawing the sketch that amused everybody.

The nxt day, the Indian ambassador in Cairo, along with the Egyptian cartoonist George Bahgoury, launched a gallery of the cartoonist Sudhir, in the presence of a group of Egyptian cartoonists.

Sudhir allocated part of the gallery for his cartoons about 9 Indian prime ministers, saying that India is a big country and a fertile land for the cartoons. The Indian ambassador said that political cartoonist plays an important role in any democracy, since India respects democracy and criticism could extend to the Indian President personally, while nobody can prejudice the cartoonist.

Sudhir Tailang said that the meaning of democracy for him is to criticize the Indian government, however they grant him "Dahmoshry Honor", which is the highest honor given to civilians in India. He recalled a funny situation happened to him, saying that he drew an Indian prime minister and strongly criticized him, then the secretary of this prime minister called him and informed him of his displeasure, thus he stopped drawing the prime minister for a long time, but he was surprised when the same man called him again and informed him that he felt angry with him. Sudhir got surprised again and told him that he did not draw the prime minister 6 months earlier, then he told him that this was the reason beyond his rage, since not drawing him during this period means that he did not do anything. Sudhir believes that any official who is not drawn by cartoonists must worry about his political future.