New Delhi: After a two-hour-long class at a coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar, IAS aspirant Manish Tyagi sipped on a cup of chai while scrolling through some Reels on his phone to clear his mind. And that’s when he stumbled upon Anubhav Singh Bassi’s monologue on the UPSC preparation marathon. It was almost as if the standup comic was talking directly to Tyagi. It’s no surprise. UPSC is now United Popular Social Culture.
The desire to be part of India’s steel frame cuts across caste, class and gender, and entertainers want to tap into this market. They are the subject line of trending conversations.
“At Mukherjee Nagar, everyone is preparing for UPSC and those who can’t clear the exam just start selling momos,” said Bassi to an amused audience as he described the many difficulties faced by the aspirants, from finding accommodation to exam pattern difficulties. In the three weeks since he uploaded the almost 40-minute routine on YouTube, the video has received more than 28 million views.
“It feels good to see instances from our lives on the screen. At least someone is telling people how difficult it is to be an aspirant. The momos and the house-hunting jokes are the ones I related to the most,” says 26-year-old Tyagi.
UPSC has been dragged out of crowded coaching hubs in Delhi, Kota, Prayagraj, and Patna into the mainstream entertainment machine. The references are everywhere—from standup comedy to web series like TVF’s Aspirants (about three friends preparing for the UPSC exam at Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar) and in Bollywood blockbusters like Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani.
The long slog to clearing the competitive UPSC exam—the years and lakhs of rupees poured into coaching institutes, the ambitions of parents and children, the hours spent in libraries and cramped PGs—is a veritable content gold mine. And doctors and engineers, who once dominated Bollywood with films like Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and 3 Idiots are in danger of being edged out. The former’s director, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, is jumping on the trend. His next film, 12th Fail, is ‘inspired by a million true stories’ and shot on location at Mukherjee Nagar with real UPSC aspirants. It is based on Anurag Pathak’s novel Twelfth Fail: Hara Vahi Jo Lada Nahi about IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma.
Even Bollywood’s latest offering Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani gives a passing nod to the aspirations driving Indians. When Rani (Alia Bhatt) asks Rocky (Ranveer Singh) who the President of India is, he answers with a zinger: “Ye pyar nahi UPSC ka exam hai bhen****.” It’s meant to appeal to a wide demographic of young people.
“UPSC is a very aspirational thing and our country loves aspiration,” says Deepesh Sumitra Jagdish, who wrote the 2021 hit series Aspirants. Narendra Modi’s rise from a supposed chaiwalah to prime minister has emboldened a generation to dream big.
“You are nothing. But the next moment you are at one of the most powerful positions. People love this change and the more difficult it gets, the more aspirational it becomes,” he added.
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A reflection of the struggle
Bassi, who had attempted the UPSC exam, also touched upon how parents often force their children down this path. He opened the floodgates when he invited people to share their preparation experiences in the comments of the video.
“Came to watch this because our sir keeps quoting him in our coaching class. Too good,” said one aspirant. Another who didn’t make the cut in the prelims thanked him for the laughs. “Every Mukherjee Nagar aspirant must have re-lived their preparation days during these 37 minutes…I definitely felt that, especially that ‘paani ki tanki’ moment,” said a fan.
Multimedia artist Anurag Minus Verma calls UPSC India’s favourite adventure sport. In a video essay, he says that if the exam is gambling then Mukherjee Nagar is Las Vegas. Lakhs of aspirants leave their homes in villages and cities in Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states to enrol in Delhi’s coaching institutes every year.
Video essay on India’s favourite adventure sport: UPSC exam. pic.twitter.com/HK1QAKG5yN
— Anurag Minus Verma (@confusedvichar) August 9, 2023
Not all can afford to live in comfort after spending lakhs on coaching tuition fees. They live in cramped rooms in dark streets to scrimp on rent. They eat momos and scarf down Maggi noodles to save on food. They gather around chaiwalahs, juice makers and cigarette vendors who have set up makeshift carts under the glossy billboards promising success. And spend their waking hours studying, revising, and discussing current affairs with each other.
It is a rite of passage that goes on for years until they either make the cut or acknowledge defeat. To see their lives playing out on YouTube and TV and films is a bittersweet validation of their dreams of power, prestige, and popularity.
…these people [coaching institutes] are not able to attract students by creating heroes on the ground, so now they are making stories on the screen, said author Nilotpal Mrinal.
The show Aspirants doesn’t shy away from looking at the other side as well. Only one of the trio of friends the series follows becomes an IAS officer.
The web series produced by The Viral Fever was an instant hit. It has a 9.2 rating on IMDB, with each episode getting over 30 million views. Even people who don’t dream of being a part of the bureaucracy or spend years preparing for the UPSC are curious about this life.
A newly minted IRS officer who did not want to be named gives Aspirants and Bassi a thumbs up. “These comedy shows, books and TV series are good. They are showing the life of aspirants,” he said.
But Vikas Meena, an IPS officer from the AGMUT cadre, while acknowledging the growing content on UPSC, cautions people from taking them at face value. After all, this is still entertainment. He finds some parts of Aspirants to be unrealistic.
“This growing craze for UPSC has its share of positives and negatives. On the one hand, there is awareness about the exam, the preparation and life after. It has also debunked some of the myths about the exam. On the other hand, they often don’t show the true-to-life picture of aspirants, and post-selection life and at times may seem a bit biased,” he adds.
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‘Seriousness destroyed’
Author Nilotpal Mrinal claims that he was the first to introduce this trend with his 2015 Hindi fiction novel, Dark Horse: Ek Ankahi Dastan, on the struggles of a UPSC aspirant from Bihar who arrives at Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar. The journey of preparing for the competitive examination is something Mrinal shares with his protagonist, Santosh.
The authenticity of the story resonated with readers. Mrinal won the 2016 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in the Hindi category for his book.
“UPSC is an open ground and everybody wants to play,” says Mrinal, who participated in the protest asking for extra attempts in 2013 and CSAT protests in 2014 when it was introduced. It was the protests that spurred him to write Dark Horse.
But he’s not a supporter of the ‘comedy’ aspect of the preparatory rite of passage in pop culture. “UPSC has been exploited. People have brought comedy to UPSC preparation. Its seriousness has been destroyed,” he added.
He’s also a purist of sorts and disapproves of the commercialisation of the coaching institute industry, its seedy underbelly and the predatory practices of the unscrupulous.
“Corporations have come into the field of UPSC and corrupted it, they do not have students but subscribers,” says Mrinal. He alleges that coaching institutes are heavily investing in content geared towards preparation. Aspirants’s YouTube thumbnail reads ‘presented by Unacademy’.
“It simply means that these people [coaching institutes] are not able to attract students by creating heroes on the ground, so now they are making stories on the screen.”
But producers and show-runners counter this view, saying that funds are always needed to tell good stories. “Film making needs money and we don’t always do it for profits, we do it out of passion,” says Deepesh.
The character of Sandeep Bhaiya in Aspirants became so popular that TVF produced a spin-off series based on him, also ‘presented by Unacademy’, which premiered in June. The senior aspirant who mentored new UPSC aspirants like a ‘big brother’ is all over social media and memes.
“Everyone needs a brother, a guide like Sandeep. Doesn’t matter if they are preparing for UPSC or IIT or anything, you need a guide like him to excel in life,” writes a user on Quora.
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The glamour and the glory
The entertainment value of UPSC preparation has infiltrated every nook and cranny of trending conversations. Content is glitzed up and glorified. They focus on the power—the convoy of cars and attendants surrounding powerful IAS and IPS officers. It’s this life that attracts lakhs of students to the profession.
“This exam provides stability and respect, for underprivileged students, a successful result signifies an opportunity to improve a family’s socio-economic status,” says B Singh, founder and chief managing director of Next IAS.
There’s a scene in Aspirants where one of the friends, Guri, starts talking over a drink about his father who has 20 acres of land. Everyone in the village was afraid of him, but one day an IAS officer arrives and scares his father. Seeing his father cowed down was a revelation for the young Guri. “That’s when he got to know that IAS was the real power. That’s when I decided to be an IAS officer,” says Guri.
If we are watching some motivational Reels or web series, it is fine. But the moment we start getting attracted to the glamour, it becomes a problem, said an IRS officer.
A popular YouTube short shows a convoy of cars on a road—meant to signify power. The text on the video reads: “We are hardworking; we will take our time to fly but there will be a time when there will be lines of cars for us.”
It is this sanitised view of the civil services that IPS officer Meena is cautious about.
“It may mislead some to fall into this trap that promises a glorious and powerful life post-selection,” says Meena.
This craze is not only limited to shorts and reels, it has reached the folk music industry as well. A Bhojpuri song—Babua hamar DM hoihe (our son will be a DM)—is about how a newborn will become an IAS officer. The music video has over 26 million views on YouTube. The song is a mainstay during celebrations when someone clears the UPSC exam from Bihar or Eastern Uttar Pradesh.
But soon after clearing the exam, toppers learn that this promise of a glamorous life is deceptive. Don’t be fooled, said the young IRS officer.
“If we are watching some motivational Reels or web series, it is fine. But the moment we start getting attracted to the glamour, it becomes a problem,” he says.
At 4 pm, IAS aspirant Monu Tripathi from Uttar Pradesh steps out of a private library for a cup of tea. He is angry with the way content is preying on his dreams and the lakhs of others like him.
“They’re using our emotions for profit. Very few of them really care about us or our mental state,” Tripathi rues. The road fills up quickly with other students taking short breaks, and he returns to the library.
Sharma agrees that UPSC is content creators’ newest golden goose.
“But it will fade because everyone has a similar journey. You can’t sell the same story again and again. For how long will you milk the same emotion?” said Sharma.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)