Dystopia as Mirror and Warning: The Rise of Indian Dystopian Narratives in Literature, Film, and OTT Media
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Personal Information
Name : Makwana Bhargav
Roll No : 01
Batch: M.A Sem 2 (2024-2026)
Enrollment Number : 5108240018
Email : bhargavmakvana221@gmail.com
Assignment Details
Topic : Dystopia as Mirror and Warning: The Rise of Indian Dystopian Narratives in Literature, Film, and OTT Media
Paper & subject Code : 22403 Paper 110A: History of English Literature – From 1900 to 2000
Words :2267
Date of Submission : 17 April 2025
Table of contents
Introduction
Abstract
Introduction
What is dystopian?
Dystopian in Fiction
1.When the moon shine by day by Nayantara Sahgal
2.Leila as Dystopian Literature: A Critical Exploration
Dystopian Narratives in the OTT
1.Leila
2.Ghoul
Films with Dystopian Themes
1.Cargo (2019)
2.Ra.One (2011)
THE "NEW" INDIA: A DYSTOPIAN COUNTRY?
Conclusion
References
Abstract :
This paper explores the emergence and evolution of dystopian narratives within contemporary Indian literature, cinema, and streaming platforms (OTT). Through a close examination of works such as Nayantara Sahgal’s When the Moon Shines by Day, Prayaag Akbar’s Leila, and films like Cargo and Ra.One, the paper analyzes how dystopia is deployed to critique authoritarianism, religious intolerance, gender oppression, and systemic inequality. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of critical dystopia, surveillance studies, biopolitics, and feminist critique, the study highlights how these narratives act as both cultural resistance and political commentary. The increasing prevalence of dystopian themes reflects a growing societal anxiety in response to India's socio-political climate, particularly under the rise of Hindu nationalism and neoliberal governance. By engaging with scholarly interpretations and textual analysis, the paper asserts that Indian dystopian fiction and film serve as potent tools of defamiliarization, moral inquiry, and socio-political engagement.
Introduction
Dystopian fiction, traditionally rooted in Western literature, has found new resonance in India amid rising authoritarianism, religious intolerance, and state surveillance. This paper explores how Indian dystopian narratives—such as Nayantara Sahgal’s When the Moon Shines by Day and Prayaag Akbar’s Leila—critique contemporary socio-political realities through themes of feminist resistance, minority persecution, and ideological control. Films like Cargo and Ra.One further expand the genre by blending mythology and technology to highlight systemic alienation. Drawing on scholars like Dolores Herrero and Diana Q. Palardy, the study reveals how these works challenge dominant narratives and reflect on the state of democracy, identity, and freedom in modern India.
What is dystopian?
A very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, after something terrible has happened; a description of such a society. For More Information
1.Dystopian in Fiction
1.1.When the moon shine by day by Nayantara Sahgal
Dystopian Genre: Placing the novel within the context of Indian dystopian fiction.As Suparno Banerjee asserts, an element that characterises many Indian critical dystopias is “the primacy of the feminist approach”.
Social Critique: Emphasizing the novel's commentary on contemporary India.In Sahgal’s novel the fate of Dalits is no better. Like the boy who, having dared to take somebody else’s bicycle just for a joyride,is violently beaten and raped as a result (Sahgal 2017, 101).
Minority Persecution: Detailing the oppression and vulnerability of minority communities.
Religious Intolerance: Focusing on the dangers of religious discrimination and majoritarianism.
When the Moon Shines by Day clearly denounces the supremacy and ever-increasing strength that Hindu nationalism—or “Hindutva,” as the Sangh Parivar or coalition of Hindu nationalist parties in India prefers to call it—is currently acquiring in India. It is the outside threat posed by “foreigners” that Hindutvavadis like him exploit to reinforce their own ideology inside the country.
1.2.Leila as Dystopian Literature: A Critical Exploration
Prayag Akbar’s Leila stands as a compelling instance of contemporary Indian dystopian fiction. Set in a near-future society fractured by class, religion, and purity laws, the novel projects a bleak, totalitarian world where individual freedoms are curtailed, communities are walled off, and the state operates through surveillance, coercion, and ideological control. Through this narrative, Akbar presents a chilling critique of rising fundamentalism, communalism, and authoritarian governance in India, making Leila a dystopia not only by setting but by its political and moral essence.
1. Enforced Homogenisation and the Logic of Purity
One of the defining elements of dystopian literature is the imposition of conformity, and Leila presents this vividly through the ideology of "Purity." The Council—the authoritarian regime in control—enforces strict social segregation, dividing people based on religion and class. As scholar Dolores Herrero notes, “the society depicted in Akbar’s novel might well be regarded as a good example of critical dystopia as homotopia,” a term for the aggressive enforcement of sameness that excludes diversity (Herrero, 2020).
This dystopian logic manifests physically through “Purity Walls,” separating sectors of the city and ensuring that the upper classes never interact with the so-called “slummers,” who are relegated to live in filth and deprivation. The protagonist Shalini’s father laments, “Walls diminish us. Make us something less than human” (Akbar, 2018). These barriers symbolize not just physical divisions, but the ideological walls built to maintain hierarchical dominance.
2. Surveillance, Punishment, and Loss of Autonomy
Akbar’s regime draws heavily from Michel Foucault’s theory of the panopticon, wherein individuals are trapped in a constant state of visibility and surveillance. The Council’s Purity Camps and the looming Purity Tower operate like Bentham’s prison model—designed to control not through force but through the anticipation of being watched. Herrero writes that the Purity Camps “trap individuals in visibility by the Council,” turning them into objects of discipline and control (Herrero, 2020).
Shalini’s life in the camp is not only about physical hardship but the psychological torment of constant observation, the expectation of obedience, and ideological brainwashing. Her internal conflict shows how the dystopian state invades even the most intimate parts of human life—memory, grief, and hope.
3. Gendered Oppression and Feminist Dystopia
Leila is also distinctly feminist in its dystopian critique. Women, especially those who transgress purity norms, suffer the harshest treatment. After her Muslim husband is killed and her daughter taken, Shalini is imprisoned in a Purity Camp. Herrero notes that these camps are “the place where women who dare to rebel are taken and forced to accept and internalise their guilt.”
The regime uses ideological state apparatuses—education, religion, and even pills—disguised as Indian mysticism, to suppress women’s desires and autonomy. The state even prescribes mood-altering drugs, echoing Huxley’s Brave New World, where “soma” pacifies the population. Shalini confesses, “I remember only fragments... the pills left me in a muddle.”
4. Biopolitics and Bare Life
Another dystopian feature in Leila is the concept of “bare life,” as theorized by Giorgio Agamben. The slummers in Leila live devoid of political rights, their existence reduced to mere survival. They endure heat, pollution, and violence, and are blamed for environmental disasters caused by the elite. As Herrero notes, they are “less than human and thus deprived of any rights, even the right to exist.”
Sky domes shield the sectors from the air the slummers breathe, reinforcing the idea that the lives of the poor are contaminants. Akbar’s portrayal is stark: the privileged breathe clean air and live amidst green lawns, while the slummers exist in a symbolic and literal state of exclusion.
5. Memory, Resistance, and Maternal Love
Despite its dystopian bleakness, Leila also holds space for resistance and hope, centered on maternal love. Shalini’s quest to find her daughter Leila represents a refusal to forget, to conform, or to accept loss as inevitable. She clings to “the blurred outline of a face. A tracery of scent,” which resists the Council’s attempt to erase her identity and past.
Yet, the novel also portrays the complex ways in which even resistance can be absorbed into the dystopian machinery. At times, Shalini finds herself internalizing the state’s ideology, blaming herself for losing Leila: “We didn’t respect these walls, so they took her from me.” This illustrates the insidious power of a regime that doesn’t only dominate bodies but colonizes minds.
2.Dystopian Narratives in the OTT
Leila and Ghoul might be considered as fine dystopian narratives on the account of a series of criteria enumerated by Diana Q. Palardy in her authoritative book titled the Dystopian Imagination in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film. To mention a few of them, both the stories present a hypothetical society that 'might be'; almost all the individuals in the stories are oppressed (by the State?) in one way or other, even though they may not be aware of it; systematic, socio political problems are indeed responsible for the sectarian violence meted out to various characters; one encounters deliberately planned societies meant to keep under surveillance all the potential subversive members of the state; the stories seem to urge the viewers to take immediate measures before it is too late; upon entering the world of the containment zone, one definitely encounters a sense of defamiliarization (as one finds eerie things happening against a somewhat 'realistic' backdrop); and finally the women protagonists (Shalini and Nida respectively) are led to a gradual disillusionment and cynicism, and they end up becoming the sole representatives of morality, sanity and conscience in an absurd, dehumanized world.
3.Films with Dystopian Themes
3.1.Cargo (2019)
Director: Arati Kadav
Dystopian Element: Cargo is set aboard a spaceship named Pushpak 634A, where souls of the dead are received, processed, and transitioned into their next lives. It imagines a future where reincarnation is managed like a government service, complete with rules, red tape, and monotony. The film blends Indian mythology with science fiction, creating a minimalist dystopia that questions the mechanization of spirituality and the emotional disconnect in an overly systematized afterlife.
3.2. Kalki 2898 AD (2024)
Director: Nag Ashwin
Set in a dystopian future where Earth is nearly uninhabitable, Kalki 2898 AD blends Indian mythology with classic sci-fi elements. In the fortified city of Kasi, a totalitarian regime led by the immortal tyrant Yaskin enforces strict control through technology and exploitation. The oppressed suffer amid ecological ruin and spiritual decay, while the elite chase immortality. The prophesied arrival of Kalki, the tenth avatar of Vishnu, offers hope for cosmic and moral renewal in a crumbling world.
4.THE "NEW" INDIA: A DYSTOPIAN COUNTRY?
Narendra Modi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation, is the first prime minister not from the Indian National Congress Party to have won two consecutive terms with a full majority. His accession to power in 2014, and by extension that of the BJP, has changed many things in the country, to the point that a considerable number of contemporary Indians feel rather alienated from the workings of the nation. This widespread sensation of severance has resulted in a feeling of helplessness that, in the opinion of scholars like Amit Chaudhuri, even exceeds that "felt during the suspension of civil liberties in the emergency of 1975 to 1977 and the political traumas that followed" (2019). The BJP government is paying more and more attention to the welfare of global capital and the constantly increasing implementation of its Hindu ethnonationalist agenda has led to much internal confrontation. As Pramod K. Nayar argues, homogenisation and cultural standardisation are promoted in the larger interests of the nation, which inexorably results in the rejection of ethnic, racial and cultural differences (2017).
Some of the many measures taken that have brought about this atmosphere deserve special mention: the economically disastrous demonetisation programme of 2016, in theory meant to stop corruption and encourage the use of e-cash and virtual banking: the implementation of CCTV camera security systems and Aadhar the world's largest biometric ID system whereby citizens must surrender all their personal data to the government, the abrogation of article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted Kashmir special status on account of its contested history; the erosion of institutional independence, which is resulting in the progressive reduction of freedoms and rights; the initiation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam, aimed at expelling "foreigners" without the required documents, namely Muslim refugees from Bangladesh, the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA, 2019), which excludes Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and also the Tamils who have been living in India after fleeing the Sri Lankan genocide; and the construction of massive detention camps. Protests and popular demonstrations against these measures have been brutally crushed by the police of states ruled by the BJP. The overall socio political panorama paints such a bleak picture that, for citizens like Deya Bhattacharya, India has turned into a dystopian democracy:
Ache din aane waale bain (good days are coming) was the campaign slogan for the ruling purty in 2014 in India a promise of prosperity and economic growth, coupled with security, convenience, freedom from disorder. In retrospect, this statement of achhe din sounds suspiciously like a utopia gone wrong: where a good place ultimately becomes bad because like, in many dystopias, there was hope for a better world, but without regard for the human and environmental costs. (2019)
5.Conclusion
The rise of dystopian narratives in Indian cinema and literature reveals a growing unease with the direction of the nation’s politics, society, and future. Films and novels are no longer just entertainment—they act as cultural texts that challenge majoritarianism, censorship, and systemic violence. While Bollywood’s engagement with dystopia is still developing, it effectively merges futuristic storytelling with real-world critique. These works underscore the genre’s enduring relevance in India, offering both a warning and a spark of hope amid growing instability and transformation.
6.References
Chakraborty, Manidip, and Shubham Bhattacharjee. De-Familiarizing the Familiar: The Strategies behind the Dystopian Narratives in the OTT Platform in India, tgi.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Vol.-XVII-No-XX.pdf. Accessed 15 Apr. 2025.
Dystopia | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/dystopia. Accessed 15 Apr. 2025.
Herrero, Dolores. “Populism and Precarity in Contemporary Indian Dystopian Fiction: Nayantara Sahgal’s When the Moon Shines by Day and Prayaag Akbar’s Leila.” Atlantis, vol. 42, no. 2, 2020, pp. 214–32. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27088728. Accessed 15 Apr. 2025.
Ramnath, Nandini. “In Indian Sci-Fi Film ‘Cargo’, a Journey into the Unknown for Its Characters and Its Creator.” Scroll.In, Scroll.in, 2 Mar. 2020, scroll.in/reel/954758/in-indian-sci-film-cargo-a-journey-into-the-unknown-for-its-characters-and-its-creator.
Thakur, Tanul. “Netflix’s ‘Leila’ Is a Dystopian Drama about Disappearances and Regret.” The Wire: The Wire News India, Latest News,News from India, Politics, External Affairs, Science, Economics, Gender and Culture, The Wire, 16 June 2019, m.thewire.in/article/film/netflix-leila-review.
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