The film starts off by showing the reality of Indian Education System and how children are pressurised by their parents to become a doctor or an engineer. The scene cuts off to Kota, where a boy named Satyendra Dubey lives in a rented house and is doing his coaching to crack the engineeringentrance exam. After his coaching, he returns to his house in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh where he lives with his parents, elder sister Nupur Dubey, and grandmother. The day of the entrance exam comes and Sattu writes his paper well. When the results are out, Sattu ranks 287. While at a theatre, Sattu and his friends are told to move to the lower seats by some corrupt politicians but when Rakesh Singh is asked to do the same, he refuses, fights with the goons and gets them arrested by the Police. Rakesh visits Sattu's house and takes him to a tea stall where he gives his contact number to him. The next day, Sattu calls him at a restaurant and Rakesh gives him an offer. If he gives the exams of some rich candidates who want admissions in colleges, he will be rewarded ₹50,000 per student. Sattu agrees and starts taking exams, earning a lot of money for his family. Whenever he goes for higher-level exams to places like Kolkata and Mumbai, he has sex with prostitutes. Meanwhile, Rakesh goes to his house where his sister is getting married, and it is revealed that Rakesh is married. Sattu is later rusticated from his college because he was caught with drugs, he is arrested and still addicted to drugs. After he recovers, Rakesh hands him the latter's degree certificate and asks him to go to Qatar for work. After a few years, Rakesh reunites with Sattu's elder sister Nupur Dubey. They spend a good time until a twist takes place in their lives. One day, Nupur tells him that she wants to do an MBA in order to get promoted to a higher post. Rakesh gets the MBA. paper solved by some of his students and calls Nupur to her office's parking area. When Rakesh reaches there and tells Nupur that he has got the paper leaked, camera flashes on his face, all the vehicles headlights turn on and the police inspector arrests him for leaking the paper. The movie goes into a flashback showing that Sattu is fired off from his job as his degree was just a Photoshop certificate with just his name. Sattu commits suicide. The scene returns to the present time showing that Nupur had taken revenge for her brother's suicide. After being bailed from jail, Rakesh builds an engineering college on his father's name which runs successfully.
Shubham Somu Srivastava as Assistant Director & MBA student
Marketing and release
The official first teaser poster was released on 28 August 2018. The official second teaser poster was released on 12 November 2018. A short official teaser of the film was released on 16 November 2018. The official trailer of film was released on 12 December 2018. In January 2019, the film's title was altered due to a last-minute objection from the Central Board of Film Certification. Initially titled Cheat India, it was released as Why Cheat India. However, in Pakistan, it was released as Cheat with a runtime of 128 minutes, Actual runtime in India was of 121 minutes.
Reception
Critical response
The film got mixed reviews from critics. Shubhra Gupta writing for The Indian Express says " Why Cheat India is disjointed and disappointing, never quite knowing which side it is on, even as it spends time showing us how good students can be ruined by greed, and how parents can put killing pressure on their children in their struggle to break the vicious gap between present debt and potential income." she further says "The material is slender and too stretched over two hours, as it goes from engineering-medicine into management, the holy grail." She concludes her review with "Finally, the villain is outed: it is the confused, contrived writing. Why cheat us the viewers?" Priyanka Sinha Jha of News18.com giving 3 stars out of 5 writes "Emraan Hashmi's Shortcut to Success is Worth a Watch 'Why Cheat India' takes up a subject that is novel and immediately strikes a chord with practically anyone in India who has appeared for competitive exams. Unfortunately, though Director Soumik Sen, who’s also the writer of the film, fails to turn all this wonderful material into a compelling film. Why Cheat India’s Achilles heel is its inability to infuse a powerful premise with the dramatic heft it required. The script does not rise above the research points and the writing is clumsy in parts. More often than not, there are easy and simplistic resolutions to tricky situations. The screenplay attempts to go in many directions and ends up going it goes nowhere. While trying to make the film something of a commercial potboiler and satire, Why Cheat India falls between the two stools it tries to stand upon." She ends her review with "However, because the film’s heart is in the right place and its observations astute, Why Cheat India is worth a watch."
Box office
Gaurang Chauhan of Times Now News reports:
"Why Cheat India has opened on a poor note at the box office. So much so, that it might turn out to be one of the lowest openers for Emraan Hashmi in recent times. Ironically, this is also one of his better-received films in recent times. The occupancy rate is only around 5 per cent for Why Cheat." The domestic collection of the film is 8.66 crore.
Soundtrack
The music of the film is composed by Rochak Kohli, Guru Randhawa, Krsna Solo, Kunaal-Rangon, Agnee and Soumik Sen while the lyrics are penned by Manoj Muntashir, Kumaar, Kunaal Verma, Guru Randhawa and Juhi Saklani. 'Dil Main Ho Tum' first two lines are inspired from the song "Dil Main Ho Tum" from the 1987 film Satyamev Jayte, originally composed by Bappi Lahiri, then recreated by Rochak Kohli.
