In 2024, I began writing my undergraduate dissertation on political posters in India, with a particular interest in how the typology emerged and where it stands today. During this project, upon realizing that there were few archives or organized references I could pull from, I began to take sample photographs of posters across various cities. This act of collecting evidence for my writing quickly became a project of its own, and I ended up with a collection of over 700 images, which continues to grow.  These images aim to capture the posters’ composition as well as their surrounding context. Though they initially featured just as references within the written study, the images themselves later became the core of my first photo-book, Making Faces (2026). The following is an edited extract of the book, which can be purchased by inquiry.

The streets of Indian cities are host to many things - the bustling networks linking the nation are scattered with people, traffic, shops, and a consistent yet constantly shifting wealth of immense sensory stimulation. Competing for attention in this landscape can be incredibly difficult, yet often the most striking and unusual element of these streets is the omnipresent political poster.  

This general composition follows aesthetically from religious art; the poster’s roots appear closely tied to the imagery seen in puja pandals, or reproduced in family temples and calendars through mass-produced prints of the divine. The circular layout of these images recalls the Ram Darbar or at times the Buddhist Mandala, compositions which hold an inherent divinity in the subcontinent, and have become entrenched in the public imagination through traditional art and places of worship.

Where one sits within this mandala-like set up is indicative of hierarchy, and offers an insight into the poster’s creation. The ‘protagonist’, as historian Seema Bawa describes, is a ‘star’ politician, who often sits at the front of the image, centered at a scale significantly larger than the others. In a conventional pantheon poster, the upper sections of the image are often reserved for the political elite; either national leaders, or religious and historical figures appropriated to represent a specific cause. The bottom often shows local cadres of the party; the ones that commissioned its creation and display. 

Regional variations build upon this structure into unique forms, Tamil Nadu in particular has seen postermaking evolve alongside its politics, where the impact of regional cinema cannot be underplayed. The state’s definitive politicians’ deep ties to the film industry tie into their political image-making, their cinematic imagery becoming a campaign strategy, selling the illusion that the heroic valour of their on-screen characters would translate to their political actions.

The rendering of images draws on the tradition of hand-painted film posters, even in the aftermath of digital image production. Many posters still look as if they could have been painted by hand, shunning a more modern, corporate aesthetic for something more embedded in the region’s collective memory. The state’s unique tradition of wedding posters, larger than life-sized monuments to newlywed couples, often feature images of political patronage in the upper corners; another variation on the medium where the political spectacle extends deeply into the personal.  

The form of political poster-making has extended into a larger world of cultural production, from laundry and farmer unions to cinema fandoms and at times, individuals with no political affiliation or aspiration creating them for the sole purpose of ‘clout-farming’.  The boundaries between these spheres have become increasingly porous through the posters. 

The poster is not seasonal, and often serves no direct aim except that of constant visibility. Through being seen as much as possible; one may hope to achieve omnipresence and perhaps even divinity. The search for power further manifests through affirmation of masculinity, religious or regional identities, and other times, through striving for legitimacy through association; where being seen alongside someone powerful becomes an effective tool for gaining local respect and influence. This quest drives the year-round proliferation of mixed-use posters, overshadowed occasionally by a co-ordinated PR campaign for a major politician. 

To spend months photographing political posters is to repeatedly confront the excess and vanity of the political system. All my life, alongside my family and friends, we have discussed the nuisance of these posters and how they clog up public space, just to fuel the myth of the ‘politician as celebrity.’ We read about massive illegal flex banners, often collapsing in stormy weather leaving people injured, stranded or even instantly crushed to death. The poster is one out of many unauthorized intrusions into the Indian streetscape; blocking key signage and further rendering cities overstimulating and difficult to navigate. 

Yet strangely enough, during the course of this project,  I began to seek out streets with large, absurd posters; at times lamenting their absence. I found myself momentarily disappointed, (and later relieved) to see that some areas of Pune have actually enforced the ban on large posters. I took on the selfish joy of collecting these images into a book that is likely to exist outside their usual context.

A particularly interesting effect of the poster in the urban context, one I saw especially in Delhi, is the widespread, heavy-handed and often comical vandalism of these posters, sometimes by individuals, but often seemingly as part of a more co-ordinated sabotage effort by rivals and their loyalists.

The prevalence of vandalism is a sign not only of the obvious instability and fanaticism between parties, but also a strange reminder of the poster’s relevance and efficacy as a public visual forum. As the posters do not usually mention policy or specific causes, the vandalism is driven more by loyalty than specific disagreement. Aside from the motivations of public frustration, the widespread vandalism of posters is seemingly driven by a belief that this move will have real political relevance; does a reduced or distorted visibility of a candidate’s face on a poster actually affect their chances in the election? Here again, the question is one of the politician as a public figure, and how an air of devotion is maintained through their public display.

Does seeing a Congress candidate’s face painted over in a dozen different ways over a single day change one’s perspective on the party? 

Is it harder to worship that which has been defaced?

Though these posters do not often claim to be factual or didactic, they still have a potent influence on political realities, and warrant scrutiny on content. India stands at high risk for misinformation, with data travelling faster than access to education, and whether a poster promises handouts, infrastructure or incites violence, it is important to question what kind of ground reality is brought on with the help of this public quest for power.

Following the expansion of ‘Digital India’ and the increased dominance of algorithmic, user-influenced mechanisms globally, the poster might still gain an unexpected new relevance. Unlike major online platforms, where algorithms result in people seeing content they are politically aligned with or those that are better funded, the poster remains fundamentally different; it occupies the street, and therefore cannot be avoided regardless of affiliation, it is exposed to all else who exist in that shared space- and an attempt to control this space leads to a visible friction like that in Delhi’s defaced murals. While budgeting has a definite impact on who gets to create large ‘pro’ banners in major cities, the influence of hand-painted posters and graffiti remain majorly influential across states, and in particular, major cities like Kolkata.

While a blanket ban on political posters would still be an inherently positive step, observation indicates that bans that have been enacted thus far have only managed to restrict ‘local’ political promotion, but fail to prevent the plethora of ‘official’ posters that emerge around a national-level leader’s visit or any major event, diminishing the medium's one possible strength: accessibility. 

The future of the poster is hard to predict, but its ubiquity shows no signs of slowing. The format has shown signs of adopting new technologies whilst maintaining its distinct form. My last trip through Pune showed examples of the same pantheon, but increasingly populated with AI-generated images of historical leaders, a new technology seamlessly co-opted into the tradition the same way that digital printing, gradients and Photoshop once were. 

I still see these posters as a wasteful, forced intrusion into public space, draining millions per year into sustaining the status of politicians as celebrities rather than public servants. However, I believe there is a case for them as an art form, worth archival documentation and deeper analysis. 

This became more apparent to me through printing the photographs, viewing these posters as individual visual objects, removing them from the overstimulating Indian cityscape, and staging them in the form of a book. Some posters, loaded to each edge with faces, were amongst the most compositionally radical images I have ever seen, and they would find equal acclaim and ridicule as installations in minimalist gallery spaces. However, they had no such impact in person, on myself or the people around them, as they form a thin layer in an otherwise saturated urban fabric, accepted by many citizens as an unavoidable byproduct of political aspiration in Indian democracy. 

Zooming in, and looking closely at these posters, in their history, variations and future, could build a collective understanding of the medium and why it has survived, whilst challenging the overwhelming emphasis on faces in our strange and dynamic political system.

Making Faces was self-published as a limited edition photobook in 2026. For enquiries, contact uday.banerjee08@gmail.com