Subscription 790/year or 190/quarter

Indian politics: The party of ordinary people

The Indian documentary An Insignificant Man is an interesting picture of how a political movement can emerge and gain momentum. 




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Most significantly, the symbol of the Indian party AAP is a diet. If one has to boil down their political vision to one sentence, it is that they want to cleaned up. Clean up the lush stream of bribery, corruption, scams and humbug that has plagued Indian politics for far too many years. Clean up the politicians who are available to buy and who like to pay citizens with money or alcohol to get their vote. Clean up all the covert agreements, which for example mean unnecessarily expensive electricity prices for some of the country's poorest citizens. In short: clean up and get the ideals back to Indian politics.

The man behind this simple – and some would say deeply naive – vision is Arvind Kejriwal, who struggles his way through the political system and establishes the AAP, which stands for the Party of the Common Man. The fight and the journey are documented with sincere attention by the two young Indian filmmakers Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla, whose films An insignificant man premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and has since been shown in, among others, Tromsø and Gothenburg. This is the culmination of a more than two-year cinematic journey that in many ways mimics the political journey:

"We had been told that there was something interesting going on in Delhi," Vinay Shukla said on a Skype connection, and continues:

“That is why we chose to move from Bombay to Delhi in order to follow the events closely. Often we were told that we were probably wasting our time, but we could see right away that something daunting, something big, was happening. ”

Politics as a show. And the great thing about it was that Arvind Kejriwal succeeded in transforming his idealistic and revolutionary ideas into a concrete, political movement that is slowly gaining momentum. And it is precisely the portrait of a political movement that is deeply interesting An insignificant man. How a political movement is hatched, how it grows, what obstacles it encounters in its path and how it can succeed. This is the theme of the film, and it unfolds in a classic fly-on-the-wall style, which was a conscious choice for the young filmmakers:

“In India, we are gradually getting used to politics being reduced to a show, a performance. Therefore, we wanted to portray a much more concrete and realistic version of politics. The paradox is that even though we are the world's largest democracy, most of us are very far from the democratic ideals of taking an active part in politics, going to meetings and discussing. By being a fly on the wall for such a long time, we hope that we can clarify how politics is not just a show, but also something very concrete that takes place in the world and among people, ”explains Khuskboo Ranka.

The more than two years of filming led to 400 hours of raw film, which was then cut down to 100 minutes of documentary. The selection was made primarily with curiosity as a criterion:

"Both Khuskboo and I are political novices. We knew nothing about political movements and activism when we started this project. We therefore also had no prejudices that could stand in the way of the film. At the same time, we let our curiosity guide us as we searched for clips that would be included in the final film, ”explains Vinay Shukla.

And there is enough to be curious about when watching the movie. In itself, it is a fascinating story about an elusive man who challenges the established system by daring to dream big. At the same time, the film demonstrates how difficult it is to translate ideals into realpolitik. First, there are all the internal strife along the way. In the film, we see, among other things, how the many volunteers, who are AAP's driving force, also become a hindrance, because more volunteers will eventually grind their own cake and stand up for the party – although Kejriwal maintains that the volunteers' task is to find suitable candidates and not just pointing at themselves. Several of the film's scenes also show an increasingly more complex picture of Kejrival's person, as we are not sure whether he himself is also suffering from power sickness, as it gradually dawns on him that many intend to vote for him. It is the strength of the film that it does not unequivocally pay homage to Kejriwal, but instead pays homage to the courage to create change. Today, the AAP is in power in Delhi and is mobilizing in several of India's states seeking to challenge the power of the established parties. Kejriwal continues to be accused of being more activist than serious politician, and several scandals have damaged AAP's reputation, so the road to vision fulfillment has by no means been reached.

"Many Indians have such a karma-like relationship with politics, where one thinks we'll probably get what we deserve."

Money from the people. The creation of the film is not only the result of two filmmakers' persistent work over two years, but also what is in itself a small movement – namely the use of crowdsourcing to finance the filming. In India, there is very little funding for documentaries, and then virtually none for political documentaries. Therefore, Shukla and Ranka realized that they had to go alternative ways. In their crowdfunding campaign, they tried to mobilize $ 20, but instead landed on as much as $ 000, making it one of the country's most successful crowdfunding campaigns. The vast majority of the money comes from Indians, and Shukla explains the willingness to donate as follows:

“I think a lot of people are getting tired of the mainstream media's one-sided coverage of politics as a show. You want to get more knowledge about politics on a more human level, and then I think it was an advantage that we are not journalists, but two outsiders, who are otherwise most used to making fiction short films and who were very green in political films, 'says Vinay Shukla.

The success of the film and with the campaign has meant that Shukla and Ranka have today established a small network of filmmakers in India who want to create political films. Currently, for example, they are in the process of helping a comrade make a film about the death penalty in India. When I finally ask the two filmmakers what they hope their film can do, they answer almost unanimously:

“Many Indians have such a karma-like relationship with politics, where one thinks that we will probably get what we deserve. But our film can hopefully illustrate how action can bring about change.

The film has previously been shown at the Film Festival in Tromsø, and in March the film can be seen at the festival CPH: DOX in Copenhagen.

More information and trailer here: http://insignificantman.com/ 

Steffen Moestrup
Steffen Moestrup
Regular contributor to MODERN TIMES, and docent at Denmark's Medie- og Journalisthøjskole.

You may also like