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    View: Can the box office foretell poll results?

    Synopsis

    Our political science lecturer, himself a man with a real political background, Satya Rao Master as everyone called him.

    ntr
    Both NTR and Yatra were quickly released on Amazon Prime / Netflix circuit and several scenes are available on YouTube.
    By Sriram Karri

    I had my first glimpse into the pragmatic dynamics of an Indian election in 1994, during the campaign ahead of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections. During a time when TV debates did not set a narrative or divide people based on political views, when neither the Internet nor Mobile phone existed to spread rumour or fake news, we extensively debated in college canteens as to who or what will win – the reforms initiated by prime minister P V Narasimha Rao which was making global waves, or the welfare promises of N T Rama Rao.

    Our political science lecturer, himself a man with a real political background, Satya Rao Master as everyone called him, who had been arrested during Emergency and was one of the first MLA candidates for BJP from Anakapalle, a town near Visakhapatnam, said, “have you factored in how much of a hit NTR’s recent movie, Major Chandrakant, was?”

    Opinion polls, exit polls, surveys, anything in which people put their word, is weaker in indicating their true impulse – check where their money was going, he taught us. Major Chandrakant was a super hit, and, predictably, the TDP trounced Congress in the elections. The fate of movies has always been, to me, a greater indicator of people’s impulses than academic political analysis.

    SOCIAL MEDIA GIVEN, BIOPICS THE NEW RAGE
    The elections of 2014 and the rise of Narendra Modi marked a new era in the power of image, brand and marketing in Indian politics. No leader has harnessed devices to reach, impact and influence people with greater finesse and integration of technology. He won the digital format communications, while the Congress hobbled behind in professional messaging.

    Now, in 2019, social media is a given. Every party and most candidates have multiple agencies and teams working on films and other forms of content for various social media handles – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even LinkedIn, harnessing TikTok to image morphs, slow motions, quotes and interactive elements from twitter chats to FB live broadcasts.

    Understandably, the election narrative war has found a new vehicle – movies; an age-old south Indian paradigm moving to Bollywood, courtesy Modi.


    BIOICS, AHOY!
    You get your tickets online, grab your popcorn and cola drink, sit back for your movie and are met with quick advertisements of Rahul Gandhi promising Universal Basic Income or Narendra Modi talking about how Ujwala scheme has changed lives of poor women across the country. You understand it. But the entire movie that follows is one long political advertisement – how about it?

    It began with a biopic on Dr Manmohan Singh, or more precisely his first UPA term, as ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, based on the eponymous book by economist, editor and PM’s media advisor Dr Sanjaya Baru. It was not a big hit, but its online promotions did the political damage – reminding people five years later what a weak PM and man Dr Singh was; while the villainy was attributed to the family-first fanaticism of the GoP.

    Even as we wonder if the ‘fictitious’, ‘based on a true story’, movie on Narendra Modi will release before the first phase of polling on April 11 , the promo online has given the country a taste of movie-political propaganda, with the Twitterati split along predictable lines.

    A more significant movie event in between, ‘Uri’, with its ‘How is the Josh?’ has done the work for the BJP in between – projecting a strong PM, undeterred by fear of any backlash, domestic or foreign, willing to strike back.

    Between the movies, the real news snippets feel like a continuation. “Hum unke ghar mein ghus ke marenge!”

    There are more movies for the electorate in the country with biopics planned on Rahul Gandhi. Irrespective of the box office status, the digital response leaves us in no doubt – Bollywood is kosher for smart political narrative spin doctors. And in between, there is the Akshay Kumar series of movies, which made the issues of constructing toilets or distributing sanitary napkins an entire tale between slogans.

    Back south, where it all started, movies and politics have been easy bedfellows for decades. Andhra Pradesh, like Tamil Nadu, has always been characterised by cinema-politics (cineolitics sounds a good term to coin to describe it), especially since N T Rama Rao entered politics in the early 80’s. Most movie stars have been associated with cinema not just for the glamour during election campaign but the deeper narrative they help set between the polls.

    TELUGU LAND CINEOLITICS
    Strangely, in an election for which Pawan Kalyan, the tremendously popular Tollywood star and younger brother of Chiranjeevi, quit movies to join the fray, with his newly formed Jana Sena, the two main aspirants for power – Telugu Desam and YSR Congress decided to let the campaign narrative be led by movies.

    The Telugu Desam Party always had an edge in Tollywood, because the people belonging to the Kamma caste (equivalent of Chowdhary in north), dominate both the party and the Telugu film industry.

    Nandamuri Balakrishna, son of late NTR, and TDP MLA from Hindupur, known for his extremely unrealistic movies, fights, decided to commission a biopic on his father. Known for extremely violent action movies with strong dialogues, the enfant terrible of Tollywood-and-TDP, is known for his eccentric ways; given to slapping his fans, threatening voters and slapping journalists on camera even during election campaign.

    He decided to produce and act in a movie on his father, NTR; for which Krish, a popular and successful director, was roped in. A high budget movie, it was eventually released in two parts, the first part focussing on NTR’s movie career, and his politics in the second. Featuring Balaiah, as he is popularly called, as NTR, Bollywood female actor Vidya Balan as NTR’s first wife Basava Tarakam, and Daggubati Rana of Bahubali fame as Chandrababu Naidu; it marked the biggest flops of the star’s career.

    In real life, Balakrishna’s sister Bhuvaneshwari is married to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, while his daughter, Brahmani, is married to Nara Lokesh, Naidu’s son and minister in the AP government. The flop was ironic, because, in terms of acting, Balakrishna had given perhaps one of his life’s best performances, but the Telugu Pride card, invoked and exemplified by NTR, had no takers. Instead, given that the movie completely ignored the last part of NTR’s life, including how his sons backed the son-in-law in dethroning the patriarch, it was dismissed as a poor tale.

    In contrast, a relatively small budget movie, Yatra, featuring the Malayalam superstar Mammootty as Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy did much better. Despite taking cinematic liberty and being liberal with truth, the movie portrayed the late YSR as a pro-poor leader, which worked for the YSRCP. Theatres were booked in bulk and voters were taken to theatres, lured not only with free tickets but free snacks and a red carpet treatment by the YSRCP cadre, hoping a nostalgic revival of YSR’s image in the collective memory would work for them.

    Both NTR and Yatra were quickly released on Amazon Prime / Netflix circuit and several scenes are available on YouTube.

    In biopic season, however, it is the movie Lakshmi’s NTR by maverick director Ram Gopal Varma that has become the talking point Predictably, the TDP has taken it to court to prevent its release in AP before the elections. Varma tells the story of NTR’s last days - which Balakrishna had deliberately avoided - from the perspective of his biographer-turned-second wife, Lakshmi Parvati. It chillingly portrays N Chandrababu Naidu as a villain who backstabbed the great hero of the Telugu people. Rubbing salt to TDP wounds, the small budget movie with little-known theatre actors, made an impact.

    But Varma knows his tricks. He released a trailer that took the Telugu world by storm, then released a song, ‘Daga’ (Betrayal), and then a scene was leaked, all of which portray Naidu in poor light. Worse, the director has threatened to release the movie on YouTube before the elections, giving TDP nightmares.

    Since it was not released in Andhra, several people are traveling to Hyderabad or towns in adjoining Khammam district in Telangana to see the movie. The interest in it further strengthens the account, oft reiterated by opinion polls, that the TDP is in trouble politically.

    Political campaigns have evolved from public meetings to dominating the narrative and coverage in newspapers and magazines, from blitzkrieg in electronic media to the games on social media and now to movies. What will be next?

    (Sriram Karri the author of the bestselling novel Autobiography of a Mad Nation, and critically acclaimed non-fiction, The Spiritual Supermarket, is a columnist and a political analyst. )


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