The following series of tweets is a response to a question for my Political Economy class, where I was asked to use an art-form to discuss an idea learned in the class. I have chosen to use the movie "Newton" to analyse the idea of Election Malpractices.
Impeccably written, "Newton" is an Indian film that depicts the journey of Newton, as he attempts to set up a fair voting booth in a rural Indian village threatened by Maoists. It thus acts as the perfect art-form to analyse modern-day election fraud and extractive institutions.
Through this series of tweets, I will attempt to use "Newton" to discuss a few key issues with modern democracies, especially regarding voting fraud. I will first give a background on the movie, discuss relevant ideas learnt in class and finally, explain my ideas and inferences.
The movie showcases an election team, led my an adamant officer, who despite all odds want to hold a fair election in a Maoist insurgent area. For this analysis, I will use a 20 minute scene where they (despite everyone's advice) set up a booth but have to watch silently as...
...institutional bodies attempt to run a sham election, to satisfy international journalists and maintain the idea of a proper Indian democracy. The scene depicts various issues throughout the voting process -- from forced voting to providing voters with wrong information.
The course covered the key concepts of the Electoral system, focusing on Singapore and explicit election malpractices (gerrymandering, pork barrelling). This analysis aims to apply the concepts to developing India, looking at hidden malpractices in the world's largest democracy.
Thus, through this series of tweets, there are three ideas that I will explain: first, the existence of voter fraud that goes beyond vote buying and booth stuffing; second, how unfair electoral systems lead to "sham" democracies; third, the role of art in portraying such issues.
One of the main ideas in "Newton" is the existence of implicit forms of voting fraud in developing democracies: a police officer says, "Electoral violence? booth capturing? phony votes? No? Then it's fine." The movie, thus, portrays further issues that run much deeper than these.
Two of these issues are unawareness and government negligence. The movie elegantly portrays the idea that government negligence can lead to people completely disregarding elections. A scene shows how when explained about elections,...
... villagers ask how much money they will get and what the use of elections even is. The movie's extreme location, is also a factor here: the heavy influence of Maoist tendencies is a significant indicator of the extent that people go to if the state neglects their basic needs.
The other key issue is unawareness: when individuals are unaware, they can easily be misled by authorities to vote as demanded. The movie showcases a scenario where to get voter turnout, voters are taught that voting is a game -- vote for the symbol you think looks the best.
This, then, leads to my second idea -- how election fraud can create sham democracies. The movie depicts an interesting scene, showcasing foreign journalists being pleasantly surprised at the number of people voting in the Maoist-insurgent area, as the journalist says, ...
... "India's democracy truly runs deep". As the journalist says this, the scene cuts to clueless voters with their voting cards, standing in line -- showcasing the difference between what the democracy looks like versus what it really is.
From forcing uninformed people to vote to then holding a press conference to showcase these voters as a democratic success, the multiple processes that go into getting these people into these sham lines highlight well the role of election fraud in forming a sham democracy.
In portraying to the rest of the world the on-ground realities of developing democracies, art has a major role. Movies like "Newton" that are both thoroughly engrossing but also unnervingly similar to real situations help touch on people's emotions...
... helping provide not only information to viewers across the world about electoral practices, but also possibly spurring public action. This helps minimise the principal-agent problem, where the government can keep the public in the dark.
While the movie is an exaggerated attempt at showcasing the social issue -- where the saviour is an overly committed, brave elections officer -- the exaggeration does not take away from the message of the importance of democracy the movie attempts to portray.
Overall, I believe that the movie does an amazing job of portraying a possible real-life scenario in a cinematic fashion. My personal extraction, however, is that the saviour will not be one brave officer but the citizens' social pressure -- demanding urgent institutional change.
Reference:
"Newton". Directed by Amit V. Masurkar, Performance by Rajkumar Rao. 2017.
"Newton". Directed by Amit V. Masurkar, Performance by Rajkumar Rao. 2017.
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