The education system of India with rampant cheating and rigging find a plot in Why Cheat India. The film however fails to leave an impact on the audience or empower the mind to think alternatively.
Deendyal Singh is a Ph.D. Research Scholar at TISS/ Mumbai.
This review is not a typical review where a brief summary of the movie is given and then it is accorded ratings based on the judgment of the reviewer. In this review, an attempt has been made to understand to what extent this movie has fairly tried to address the question of cheating, learning, assessment and competitive exams. Some commentary also has been made about its portrait of gendered and patriarchal families and stereotypical representations of women and religion.
Why Cheat India initially titled Cheat India released on 18th January 2019, a time when most of the children prepare for the Board Exams.Well the reasons for last minute change in the title after the objection from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) are not that clear but one can assume that possibly the CBFC wanted the Director Soumik Sen to clearly state in the title what he is trying to convey and that is probably to answer this question ‘Why cheat India? meaning answering why students have to cheat in India. The whole movie has attempted to answer this question and justify it with arguments especially at the end of the movie.
Definitely the main idea of the movie is ‘cheating’ and it’s difficult to expect from a commercially produced movie in Bollywood with a quick shoot of 38 days (Khan, 2019) to discuss this idea of cheating and its complexity and then try to address the question why cheating exists in various forms in India and the role of different stakeholders in it. The film’s idea of cheating is simple and that is that when a student takes the help of ‘solvers’ or makes use of different techniques like chits, mobile phones, getting answers beforehand etc. it is regarded as cheating.
The movie is set in Lucknow and stars Emraan Hashmi and Shreya Dhanwanthary in the lead roles. The film has been directed and written by Soumik Sen. The movie is based on the malpractices that are prevalent within the Indian education system. The movies talks about the education system of the nation that is fraught will all sorts of wrong practices such as rigging examinations to forging certificates. The film primarily talks about Rakesh Singh (Emraan Hashmi) who is a con man and takes full advantage of the shortcomings within the education system in India. He convinces bright students with his money to sit for exams for their weaker but rich students. The film also displays the plight of the hardworking and deserving students who face negligence by the education system.
Why Cheat India attempts to understand why students cheat and why people resort to illegal ways to get admission into educational institutions but fails to make a convincing narrative on any of these issues.
Movies are treated as either reflections of society or important agents of change in society. But Why Cheat India is neither any meaningful reflection of contemporary issues of Indian society nor is it close to being an agent of change. Of course, it can be an agent of frustration among parents and children who go to watch this movie and resort to cheating believing their actions are justified till the situation changes. Apart from the failed attempt of highlighting very important issues of our education system it also fails in terms of the values it displays.
