Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry
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Bollywood, Digitality, and Post-Truth: Manufacturing Hindu Nationalist Histories
Full text linkThe post-truth era employs a politics of polarization that extends beyond news and social media into cultural mediums, particularly commercial cinema. This paper explores how in recent years, Bollywood, which can be categorised as mainstream Hindi language cinema, has increasingly functioned as a site for what Antonio Gramsci conceptualized as ‘cultural hegemony’, the subtle, normalized reproduction of dominant ideological values through popular culture. With special emphasis on historical ‘period’ films such as Chhaava (2025) and Padmaavat (2019), it argues how such films mythologize the past to align with a monolithic Hindu nationalist identity, reframing India as an imagined Hindu nation. Such ideological messaging, when delivered through fictionalized ‘historical’ films, becomes difficult to challenge, as it can be contested as artistic expression, thus avoiding direct accountability. By glorifying Hindu monarchs while casting their Muslim counterparts as antagonists, these films deploy selective cultural memory to reclaim and reframe majoritarian history as a long-suppressed truth. While overtly political works such as The Kashmir Files (2022) and The Kerala Story (2023) explicitly narrativize recent history by reinforcing majoritarian anxieties about Muslim identities as existential threats to Hindus, subtle embedding of cultural indoctrination through historical films ensures that ideological messaging circulates not as propaganda but as entertainment, reinforcing hegemonic narratives through spectacle and emotion rather than factual accuracy.
This paper extends Gramscian notions of hegemony and Stuart Hall’s reading on media to the current age of the internet. It explores how in the digital age, algorithmic recommendation systems amplify the reach of such content, curating personalized feeds that repeatedly expose viewers to ideologically aligned material. This process fosters cultural echo chambers, where repetition normalizes one-dimensional depictions of history and marginalizes counter-narratives. The paper argues that Bollywood’s historical epics function not merely as cinematic products but as instruments within a hybrid cultural–digital sphere, where profit-driven technological platforms and a Hindu-centric state converge to algorithmically shape public memory, consolidate majoritarian identity politics, and naturalize hegemonic power. By understanding the ways in which history is manipulated in print, film media and digital media at large, the paper finally suggests the need for alternative models of history that blend academic and popular history
A Review of Symbiotic Posthumanist Ecologies in Western Literature, Philosophy and Art: Towards Theory and Practice, by Peggy Karpouzou and Nikoleta Zampaki (eds.).
Full text linkSymbiosis is not only a common phenomenon among various organisms in nature, but also frequently observed in the humanities and academic circles. What we now refer to as “interdisciplinarity” is essentially a symbiotic relationship among different disciplines. Confronted with this “fact”, we should pay more attention to “value”: the value of symbiosis between two organisms lies in their mutual enhancement. When two academic fields enter into a symbiotic relationship, what positive results might arise? The 2023 book Symbiotic Posthumanist Ecologies in Western Literature, Philosophy and Art: Towards Theory and Practice, co-edited by Peggy Karpouzou and Nikoleta Zampaki, provides us with a powerful academic case: the symbiosis of Posthumanism and Environmental Humanities has yielded positive theoretical results, namely Symbiotic Posthumanist Ecologies. This emerging ecology deepens, not only the ecological connotations of humanism, but also the posthumanist implications within environmental humanities. It leads us to shift our academic focus from the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene, and on the basis of revealing the fact that symbiosis is a vital ecological process of the planet. It advocates for the value orientation of ecological topics and also posits that there should be a harmonious symbiosis (or co-existence) between humans and nature, as well as among different civilizations. This is precisely where the value of the book lies
Orwellian Politics for the Age of Algorithms: Interrogating Human Engagement with AI
Full text linkArtificial intelligence dominates contemporary human existence by aligning with human requirements. Its exceptional speed and operational efficiency have already impressed mankind enough. Yet, alongside its promise, AI is construed as a locus of threat. AI is feared for spreading false or misleading information, threatening human employment, shaping a future where machines could dominate, consolidating power and exerting multidirectional influence.This contemporary anxiety highlights the striking prescience of Orwell’s twentieth-century insights. As a writer, George Orwell, dominated twentieth-century literature through his novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Animal Farm is an allegorical novella that examines the Russian Revolution, revealing how the revolution betrayed its original ideals. The story represents key historical figures as farm animals, depicting an authoritarian ruler, the oppressed animals, and the consequences of tyranny for their lives. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel set in the year 1984, offering a prophetic vision of a technologically driven totalitarian future. The narrative depicts a society under constant surveillance, dominated by the omnipresent figure of Big Brother, and governed by the Inner Party. This oppressive reality is experienced through the perspective of the protagonist, Winston Smith. Both texts reveal political scenarios that systematically suppress human reason and prevent individuals from exercising autonomy. Today, AI shapes much of our world through its ability to collect data, model behavior, and influence language, subtly guiding perception, judgment, and decision-making. These mechanisms of influence resonate with Orwell’s warnings about authoritarian control, manifested in Animal Farm through overt oppression, and in Nineteen Eighty-Four through digitalized surveillance and ideological manipulation. This paper examines Orwell’s diagnosis of the epistemic and political consequences of AI-like control, articulated long before the actual emergence of AI. The paper analyses the authoritarianism in Orwell’s works as algorithmic, exploring the nature of the rulers, the strategies of those who survive, and the methods used to maintain ignorance. It then draws parallels to contemporary AI, investigating the psychological and political mechanisms that shape human engagement with truth and fear. This study shows how Orwell’s insights illuminate the dynamics of knowledge, belief, and apprehension under contemporary AI systems.
 
A Review of Theorizing the Superhero: Performativity and Politics by Aditya Misra
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In their introduction to What is a Superhero? (2013), Robin S. Rosenberg and Peter Coogan ventured into the question: “what is a superhero?” and, while indecisively renouncing the enigmatic quality of the question surprisingly remarks: “Maybe; maybe not” (Rosenberg and Coogan 20). In the progression of the book, they have attempted twenty-five different ways to anchor the question into the harbour called superhero. Whether it\u27s a generic question, a philosophical question, a cultural question or something else, the question has gained the status of a ‘definitional impasse’. The culture of hero worship and idolization are one of the main driving forces behind the rise of the superhero comics as a genre and it comes with a great risk. When we idolize or worship an entity as a superhero, we eventually venerate him and confer him a status of perfection. Sans any imperfection, flaw, and shortcomings, he sits besides the gods and as a being of flesh and blood, loses the potential to grow and outgrow his own crucial past. Fixation (not in the Freudian sense) shrouds him and the inability to overcome the superannuation cast him into a state of ‘inertia’. This is a historical, philosophical blunder in the case of superhero comics and to address this blunder or philosophical excess Aditya Misra in his monograph Theorizing the Superhero: Performativity and Politics searched around almost all the philosophical, conceptual possibilities and redefined the superhero comics, setting it free from the rigid, narrow, commodified existence of the product-based comic book and cultural industry
Corpses : By Rangeya Raghav
No full textThe rays of the sinking sun were sliding on the river. From the depths of the water, a light was trying to break out. A hush had fallen all over the place. Only the barking sound of dogs would occasionally break the layers of silence; crack them open and then close in like black moss. In the hideous shadow of that cremation ground, nobody could tell whose pyre was ablaze.
There was no one on the trail of steps leading to the ascetic’s platform. Just a while ago, a few gentlemen had occupied that space. Their faces were full of sorrow, disenchantment towards the world, as if the world had nothing to offer. Even the pyre had now grown frigid, whose blazing flames had made it impossible to stand, even at a distance of twenty hand spans, from it.
Reclining on the charpoy, Maniram broke out coughing. He is old, his body is wrapped in orange-colored clothes, there is a thick metal ring on his left arm and rosary beads in his right hand. His body appears to be muscular.
“Babu,” Maniram’s voice echoed – “did you go out into the city?”
“Indeed I had gone.” Babu answered stepping out while drinking from a glass of water he was holding.
“Then.” The old man’s voice echoed again. Babu is a youthful man, he bears the hint of a moustache. Carelessly he tosses away the glass right where he is sitting and says, “I cannot do the kind of job you want me to.”
“Why.” The old man says in a dry tone – “Is there an abundance of food, son? Cannot do the job. And here you refuse to light the corpses. Then what will you eat?”
“I will leave home.” Babu replied concisely. The old man broke out into peals of laughter and then with a sad face began to count the rosary beads. Babu got up and left. This was an everyday occurrence. No one noted this as anything significant
Indigenous Water World and Politics of Resurgence in Select Works of Rebecca Belmore
Full text linkThe Anishinaabe multidisciplinary artist Rebecca Belmore’s body of work is a testament to the resistance movements that the Indigenous people of the Turtle Island have been carrying out against the settler-Canadians for decades. She refers to her performances as acts of embodied resistance where she uses her Indigenous female body to resist the settler encroachment and the prolonged exploitation of Indigenous land and resources. This paper looks at how, through her artworks, Belmore addresses the exploitation of water bodies of the Turtle Island. The essay looks at how Belmore begins as a distant spectator in artwork Temple (1996) and gradually builds her indigenous female body into the performance through Fountain (2005) and Private Perimeter (2012) over the years. I argue that water becomes an equally important performer with agency in Belmore’s later works, which aspires towards the larger idea of Indigenous resurgence and knowledge continuation
Truth Unravelled: : Unreliable Narration and the Crisis of Epistemology in the Post-Truth Era
Full text linkIn an era increasingly defined by contested truths and subjective realities, the concept of epistemological certainty has come under intense scrutiny. This paper examines the crisis of truth through the lens of unreliable narration in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. Both texts present narrators whose perspectives are compromised—by manipulation, repression, or self-deception—revealing the instability of personal truth and the construction of reality.
Drawing on Lee McIntyre’s theory of the post-truth condition as a cultural shift “where appeals to emotion and personal belief trump objective facts,” the study interprets Amy Dunne’s manipulation of media discourse and Nick’s fractured self-representation as emblematic of truth’s erosion in the digital age. Meanwhile, Stevens’s self-deceptive narration in The Remains of the Day illustrates Miranda Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice, wherein social power imbalances compromise individuals’ capacities as knowers—both of others and of themselves. Through a comparative analysis of these two works, the paper contends that unreliable narration not only mirrors but critiques the post-truth epistemological crisis, challenging the authority of narrators and the stability of truth in contemporary discourse
‘The Poetics of Water’: : Reading Culture and Identity through Water in N S Madhavan’s Litanies of Dutch Battery
Full text linkThis paper explores the role of water in Litanies of Dutch Battery through a postcolonial lens, arguing that water serves as a historical text where identities emerge through trans-oceanic encounters. Set in the fictional island of Dutch Battery, inspired by Fort Kochi, the novel reflects the Portuguese, Dutch, and British influences that reshaped local identity, culture, and cuisine. The study examines how water fosters community-based identity, exposes colonial exclusions, and acts as a liminal space for resilience and solidarity. For instance, the labor chants during Matilda’s childbirth symbolize communal unity. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s hybrid identity, Ashis Nandy’s alternative cosmopolitanism, and Steve Mentz’s poetics of planetary water, this paper argues that Litanies portrays waterscapes as sites of cultural negotiation, displacement, and hybridity, where history, identity, and politics intersect, shaping Kochi’s unique maritime ethos
Subversion of the Obvious and the Dominant: Blue Humanities, Conservation, and Feminine Agency in Mrs Caliban and The Shape of Water
Full text linkThe article attempts to capture and redefine the intersection of Blue Humanities, conservation of the marine ecology and the woman as agency in reestablishing through requestioning, the masculinist projects of manipulating the environment around us. This stance is adopted and examined through the analysis of Rachel Ingalls’ novella Mrs Caliban and Guillermo del Toro’s award-winning 2017 film, The Shape of Water. Both these narratives through their accommodation of fantasy literature, their particularly fairy tale mode of story- telling revisits the dominant ideology of the modern utilitarian society that thrives on the positivistic scientific modes of comprehending the world around them. In many ways this kind of subversion of the dominant is crucial in conserving the marine ecosystem. This notion is reified by drawing parallels with Herman Melville’s nineteenth century novel Moby Dick. The backdrop of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, in the del Toro film, The Shape of Water recontextualises history and shows to the audience of the popular culture about man’s rapacious struggle for power and domination even over the water territory, emphasising on how environment gets politicised in the hands of humanity. A key aspect of this research is how the women intervention in the figures of Dorothy and Elisa contribute to revise traditional notions of heroism and agency. The fact that feminine energy and decision is integral towards eco-conservation become inevitable to the plots of both the film and the novel. The Anthropocentric will therefore be questioned and challenged as the dominant episteme of knowledge production even as it is nonfunctional to define the richness of this planet
Cézanne: By M. Mukundan
No full textBorders and movements bring melancholia, nostalgia and a sense of uprootedness as much as the freedom to connect and form new kinds of bonds that are transnational in nature. Is it possible for pain and alienation to travel? Is it possible for the loners and vagabonds – the sexually, politically and socially aberrant people – the artists and philosophers, the poets and thinkers to form invisible bonds across the barbed wires and fences, beyond the national limits of water and air? The story talks about such invisible intimacies that overlap across the limits of culture. We witness how an Indian artist called Amartyan seemingly searches for his doppelganger in France, learns about dead people who have been more like him, and then finds Paul Cézanne, the French Impressionist and painter. Beyond time he continues to meet and converse with the dead artist. The crossover of time and space creates the third space of imagination and possibilities that is spectral in nature. The spectral imagination in the story becomes a tool not only to cross boundaries of time and space, but also the limits of reason and sociability. The Malayalam story could well have been located in some other place on Earth and may have been about a spectral encounter between two artists anywhere. This translocality of images, people and ideas is also a potential a translated text should carry forward