miércoles, 19 de junio de 2019

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, story-telling took precedence over reality | The Indian Express

Written by Nayantara Sahgal |Updated: June 19, 2019 11:52:48 am

Nayantara Sahgal is a novelist and a commentator. Her latest work of fiction is The Fate of Butterflies

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, story-telling took precedence over reality

Unemployment, rural and urban distress, well-documented corruption and whatever ails the nation fade into the background.

2019 elections, Lok Sabha election 2019 results, 2019 election outcome, democracy, anti-national, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, minority groups, The Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Indian express column, — The 2019 election has been the same kind of fascinating exercise whose outcome could not have been otherwise, given the precise path that was taken to achieve it. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar)

Now that the dust has settled on India’s most hard-fought national election, and it has been hailed as a spectacular democratic victory, it is possible to take a quiet look at the election result. It was no surprise to me for I had not only expected it but realised it could have gone no other way. I had the help of literature in seeing it as a story with only one possible ending. My favourite novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is titled The Chronicle of a Death Foretold. With the ending already known, the novel goes backward to unravel the path that makes it inevitable. The 2019 election has been the same kind of fascinating exercise whose outcome could not have been otherwise, given the precise path that was taken to achieve it.