Bahadur, which literally means The Brave, is a highly popular Indian comics character, created by painter, journalist, author, playwright, cartoonist and screenwriter Aabid Surti in the year 1976. The comic series was published and distributed by Indrajal Comics. Bahadur was released in many Indian regional languages such as Hindi, Bengali and also in English. Other than being published as a stand alone series, Bahadur was also featured in several newspapers and magazines as comic strips, along with other comic book heroes.

History of Bahadur
Bahadur was first published in December, 1976. Originally it was created by Aabid Surti and was eventually offered to Indrajal Comics. Surti initially worked as a freelancer for Bennett, Coleman and Company. After Aabid Surti moved away from the project Jagjit Uppal was appointed to lead the production of Bahadur. Govind Brahmania initially did the artwork and illustrations for the comics and later B Pramod, his son, became the illustrator of Bahadur. Aabid Surti designed Bahadur as an Indian Hero who wore a saffron kurta and jeans. While the kurta and saffron represented the national culture, the western styled jeans indicated modernization. Moreover, Bahadur was portrayed to be in a live-in relationship with his girlfriend Bela, which was a much advanced concept in that period.

Concept of Bahadur
During the period when Bahadur was conceived in 1976, crimes like robbery had increased to a great extent in the country. The series of Bahadur focused mainly on the robbers and dacoit clans. Bahadur was born to father Vairab Singh, who himself was a dacoit. Vairab Singh died in a combat with the local police. During his teenage years, Bahadur was adopted by Vishal, the Police inspector who killed his father.

Bahadur later established the Citizen"s Security Force, also known as Naagrik Suraksha Dal (NASUD). This group was set up with the objective of providing support to the Police Force for combating dacoit clans. Even though he bravely fought with various groups of dacoits and other criminals, Bahadur mainly concentrated on correcting and rehabilitating the dacoits. His main sidekick and assistant, Lakhan, was also a former dacoit who was later reformed by Bahadur himself. Lakhan eventually surrendered himself to the law and started to work with Bahadur in restricting crime.

In the Indian comics series, Bela is portrayed as the love interest of Bahadur. She is an expert in various combat forms and techniques of martial arts. Bela helps Bahadur in various missions and his fights against his rivals. There were some other significant characters that were featured in the series on a regular basis, such as Lakhan, Mukhiya and Sukhiya. Mukhiya was the head of village administration and the leader of the villagers and Sukhiya was a police officer. Bahadur also had a dog named Chammiya, but it was introduced much late in the series.

Development of Bahadur
The Bahadur series gradually evolved in terms of artwork, plot and quality. Originating from the concept of dacoits in the small town of Jaigarh, the series moved to themes like espionage. Moreover, the setting of the story also shifted from a small town to a modern city. As the artists changed with time, the look of Bahadur was also experimented with several times. His initial attire remained same till 1986. Then his kurta was changed to pink and his trademark long hair was shortened to sport a new and urban look. Later his kurta was also replaced by a T-shirt. The series of Bahadur came to an end in April 1990, when Indrajal Comics was cancelled by the Times of India.

During 2010, it was planned that the Bahadur series would be made available on a new website on Bahadur. Moreover, there are plans to reboot the Bahadur character in the near future.