A Foucauldian Analysis of Omer Shahid Hamid’s The Election

Abstract

This article studies Omer Shahid Hamid's novel “The Election” by using the idea of Michel Foucault. The control, politics, power, and the way the state manages people's lives is especially highlighted in this paper. Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics concept of how a government decides who is exposed to death and who lives safely. The novel analyzes the close portrays of political speeches, government institutions and role of media, during the time of election. The novel presents the typical scenarios of elections as a powerful system which shapes people's thinking, acceptance of violence as a normal during this time and the difficulty of people to distinguish between what is wrong and right. The novel is directly connected with the political fiction of South Asian. The story reflects the unfair treatment of the state, the surveillance and the real life politics.