Why we desperately need Bahadur Singh back

Celebrating someone’s 38th birth anniversary is not common practice, especially if that someone no longer exists.

But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t raise our glasses of thandai and wish Bahadur Singh, known to a certain vintage of Indians simply as Bahadur, a happy birth-month. Created by artist-writer Abid Surti in December 1976, Bahadur was a curious figure: a force of good working for the Establishment — the Naagrik Suraksha Dal (Citizens’ Protection Force) — at a time when popular culture was celebrating the anti-hero taking on the Establishment. With his rifle and martial arts chops, he fought the ‘national menace’ of his times: dacoits of the Chambal Valley (also the incubator of our most famous villain, Gabbar Singh).

What marks Bahadur out from any other comic book hero is that he was Indian and not cute or funny. In his flaming saffron kurta (no colour politics, please), he was a young Ravi Shastri-meets-Arvind Kejriwal 1.0 who made honesty bundled with flying fists cool. He lived in with Bela, his girlfriend, who joined in the fights and wore a kurta-bell bottoms combo that remains fashion gold standard today. Dacoits have given way to terrorists. At 38, and with a readership hungry for a desi comic book hero without knowing it, Bahadur must be at the top of his game. Bring him back.