What a Recent Bollywood ‘Sleeper Hit’ Tells Us About Indian Society and the State

“I failed,” Jon Snow says in the “Game of Thrones” show. “Good,” Davos Seaworth tells him. “Now go and fail again.” Such words could just as well be the motto of “12th Fail,” a Hindi-language novel by Anurag Pathak, the protagonist of which does not give up in life despite suffering a chain of humiliating defeats.

During a recent visit to Mumbai, I was planning to both watch Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s new Hindi movie, “12th Fail,” and to purchase the book on which it is based. Due to unforeseen circumstances, a part of this simple plan turned out to be difficult to fulfill. First, despite being a new release, the film was screened very little – even in Mumbai, the capital of Hindi cinema – and I missed my narrow window of opportunity. The cinematic version of “12th Fail” is nevertheless destined to be a “sleeper hit” – a movie likely to drown due to little advertisement, no bright stars, and a short run, which despite an uphill climb eventually turns out to be a huge box office success.

The second part of my plan proved challenging for a very different reason – the novel is, let’s just admit this honestly, rather boring. The language itself is not a problem – there is an English version out now if readers are interested, and the Hindi original is written in a very simple, accessible way. But it is exactly this simplicity that is a problem – the prose of “12th Fail” is extremely on-the-nose. The author has a habit of explaining to the reader what we just understood on our own when reading the preceding sentences.

However, my personal experience of reading “12th Fail” doesn’t detract from the informative value of its story. First of all, while the movie is based on the novel, the book is, in turn, based on real-life events. Second, it is the record of the long, thorny path of a poor, not very talented boy, from a rural area in the Indian interior to a post as a police officer. As such, the novel includes a realistic look at Indian society and the state – unlike the majority of the stories that end up being material for Bollywood movies.

Contrary to European countries, India suffers at present with a high school drop-out rate. Thus, a person may be referred as, say, “5th pass” in a malicious way (or may refer to themselves that way as a form of self-criticism) to mark that they only completed five classes of education, out of 12 (before the college level). The novel title is thus meant to be ironic – its protagonist, Manoj Kumar Sharma, is a 12th fail – someone who did not drop out of school at any point, but keeps failing at the final exams that would open access to various professions. Thus, throughout the novel he is right at the door of more opportunities and yet still unable to cross the threshold.

However, Manoj does not stop putting trust in the value of education as such. Given his constant failures at the exams, he could have come to the conclusion that there is no point in studying subjects like Hindi literature and that it is instead better to find a job that does not require higher education. Equally importantly, he does not stop believing in the public sector. 

His father, a government clerk, is an absentee parent always being transferred from place to place. Manoj’s first longer interaction with the police is highly negative, too. At a certain point, the protagonist tries to run a private transportation business but this brief entrepreneurial attempt is nipped in the bud by a corrupt officer who confiscates his vehicle on flimsy charges, clearly expecting a bribe. And yet, despite these experiences, he eventually does choose to join the police.

These instances remind us of some of the current truths, and paradoxes, of Indian society and the state. First, it is not that the poor in India are not interested in education. It is rather that the state often fails to provide them with properly managed institutions of education, especially in rural and remote areas. 

This is verified by data that shows how over the last few decades of India’s history, especially since the early 1990s, there has been a mushrooming of private schools, including schools intended to cater to lower-income sections of the society. It is very common for, say, an Indian farmer, to realize that his children should have more options than he had, and to put away whatever savings he may secure for the purpose of his children’s education (although, unfortunately, very often the sons will be favored here in comparison to daughters).

But equally important, even the failures of many Indian public schools do not deter many of India’s poorer citizens from pinning their hopes on government jobs. Work in a private company may often require high qualifications – so high that a public school, but also a cheaper private school, may not provide them. Today, India’s exports of services are rising quicker than those of manufactured goods. Even within the country, the service sector is contributing to a much higher chunk of Indian GDP than the relative number of people employed there (it is the reverse for agriculture). In simple words: providing high-valued services, such as being a IT specialist or an engineer, often requires less manpower and more specific skills. Such job markets are often dominated by elites who can afford to put their children in top-end, English-medium private schools at an early stage. 

In comparison, the government jobs market is one where the highest qualifications are not always required, where reservations for certain castes and tribes exist, where the system is designed partially to offer more jobs for people from different sections of society (rather than being solely based on merit). The Indian armed forces do not have to impose a mandatory draft because there are always more people interested in joining up than there are spaces for them. India’s three largest employers are the armed forces, the railways, and the paramilitary forces (each of them employing more than a million people), with a large private concern, Tata Group, trailing in fourth position.

Globally, the image of an Indian professional may be of an IT specialist – an employee of an international company, perhaps even working in California’s Silicon Valley. But as far the careers available to the country’s poorest citizens are concerned, a more representative case is that of Manoj, the hero of “12th Fail,” a boy from a village who failed his exams every year, until he at last succeeded and went on to become a police officer.